George Whipple

George Hoyt Whipple ( born August 28, 1878 in Ashland, New Hampshire, USA, † February 1, 1976 in Rochester, New York, United States) was an American pathologist.

Whipple made ​​major works on bile pigments and developed a diet against a certain type of anemia (pernicious anemia).

By 1926, over 6000 people per year ( based on a vitamin B12 deficiency anemia ) died in the U.S. from pernicious anemia. Whipple found in experiments with anemic dogs that a diet with liver, beans and meat stimulated the formation of red blood cells. William Parry Murphy and George Richards Minot developed on the basis sufficient liver diet. Later, the American physician W. Castle had a substance in gastric juice ( Intrinsic Factor) after which prevents the destruction of vitamin B12 in the stomach acid by binding to the molecule and this can be absorbed in the small intestine, which is necessary for producing red blood cells be. Therefore, a lack of intrinsic factor leads to vitamin B12 deficiency anemia. 1948/49, managed the chemists Karl August Folkers ( 1906-1997, USA) and A. Todd ( UK ), the detection of vitamin B12 ( extrinsic factor), which is stored in the liver.

The Whipple's disease (named after George Hoyt Whipple ) is a rather rare disease of the small intestine. It is caused by the bacterium Tropheryma whipplei. Preferred males are affected between 30-60.

For her liver therapy against (pernicious ) anemia, he shared with George R. Minot and William P. Murphy 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 1962 Whipple was awarded the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal.

Whipple was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 1935.