JEWS IN THE MEDICAL & LIFE SCIENCES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prior to presenting his appeal to Oliver Cromwell for the readmission of the Jews, who had been expelled from England in 1290, Manasseh ben Israel wrote in Spes Israelis (The Hope of Israel)1: "Hence it may be seen that God hath not left us; for if one persecutes us, another receives us civilly and courteously; and if this prince treats us ill, another treats us well; if one banisheth us out of his country, another invites us with a thousand privileges ... and do we not see that those Republiques do flourish and much increase in trade who admit the Israelites?" But it was not for their economic prowess alone that the Jews were valued, it was for a whole host of skills, not the least of which was their expertise in the medical arts.
Winston Churchill, writing of the expulsion referred to above, states: "The Jews, held up to universal hatred, were pillaged, maltreated, and finally expelled from the realm. Exception was made for certain physicians without whose skill persons of consequence might have lacked due attention."2 Indeed, more often than not, the chief court physicians of the rulers of Europe were Jews or crypto-Jews. To cite but a few examples, Frederick III of the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth I of England, Louis XIV of France, Catherine de Medici, and Catherine the Great of Russia all employed Jewish personal physicians.3 Nor was it only the secular rulers of Christendom that depended on Jewish medical skills. As the Spanish philosopher and theologian Ramon Lull (Raymond Lully) complained in the thirteenth century: "Jews are universally entrusted by the great with the care of their health. Nor is the Church free from this abomination, for nearly every monastery has its Jewish physician."4 Among the many Popes who maintained Jewish personal physicians were Martin IV, Nicholas IV, Boniface VIII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, Paul III, Gregory XV, Urban VIII, and Innocent X.5
Much the same situation prevailed in Dar al-Islam, where, e.g., Maimonides served as chief physician to Saladin (having declined a similar position with Richard the Lion-Hearted). Jews also figured prominently as translators and transmitters to the Moslem world of the medical scholarship of the ancient Greeks, and would later play a similar role in transmitting to Europe the scholarship of Moslem physicians such as Avicenna. In the late Middle Ages, the Jews, numbering only about 1% of Europe's population, constituted roughly half of its physicians.6 During the last of the great European Jewish expulsions in the 1930s, the medical centers of Vienna and Berlin lost nearly half of their physicians and the majority of their medical school faculties.7 Many fled to America, helping to fuel its meteoric rise to preeminence in biomedical research; Jews have accounted for more than 40% of US Nobel Prizes in medicine and constitute over one-third of the combined membership of the life sciences divisions of the US National Academy of Sciences and its affiliated Institute of Medicine.
The following links contain lists of prominent Jewish scientists and winners of major international awards in the biomedical field.
Jewish Biomedical & Life Scientists
Jewish Winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (29% of recipients)
Jewish Winners of the Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research (33% of recipients)
Jewish Winners of the Gairdner Foundation Award (26% of recipients)
Jewish Winners of the Wolf Prize in Medicine (38% of recipients)
Jewish Winners of the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (40% of recipients)
Jewish Winners of the GM Cancer Research Foundation Sloan Prize (32% of recipients)
Some of the more notable Jewish contributions to the medical and biological sciences in the modern era are listed below. (The names of non-Jewish scientists mentioned in the accompanying discussion have been denoted with the superscript "+" in order to avoid confusion.)
The invention of local anesthesia by Carl Koller and the discovery of Novocaine by Alfred Einhorn.
The discovery that pancreatic dysfunction is the cause of diabetes by Oskar Minkowski (together with Joseph von Mering+) and the subsequent discovery that this dysfunction involves a deficiency in the hormonal secretions of the islets of Langerhans by Moses Barron. The work of the Canadian team that isolated insulin (Banting+, Best+, Collip+, and Macleod+) was based on these two prior discoveries.
The introduction of the side-chain theory of antibody formation by Paul Ehrlich, which has evolved into clonal selection theory, the central paradigm of modern immunology. Ehrlich shared the 1908 Nobel Prize with Élie Metchnikoff* for their independent contributions to immunology. Ehrlich is also considered to be the founder of modern chemotherapeutic medicine.
The discovery of the ABO and other human blood groups and of the Rh factor by Karl Landsteiner, Alexander Wiener, and Philip Levine. Landsteiner received the 1930 Nobel Prize for this work; he is also considered to be one of the giants of immunology, having made major contributions to the understanding of the chemical basis of antigen-antibody interaction.
The isolation and development of penicillin by Sir Ernst Chain. Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for this work with Sir Alexander Fleming+ and Sir Howard Florey+. It was Chain who recognized the potential of Fleming's+ nearly forgotten discovery of the antibacterial properties of Penicillium molds (one of many agents then known to have such properties). Chain, a biochemist, was able to isolate the active antibacterial substance, viz., penicillin, and to work out its molecular structure. Using samples that Chain produced, Chain and Florey+ were able to demonstrate penicillin's stability, nontoxicity, and effectiveness against staphylococcal, streptococcal, and clostridial infections in laboratory animals and humans.
The development of streptomycin by Selman Waksman. Waksman received the 1952 Nobel Prize for this work, which created the first antibiotic (a term that he introduced) effective against tuberculosis, for which it remains a therapeutic mainstay.
The isolation of cortisone by Tadeus Reichstein. Reichstein shared the 1950 Nobel Prize with Philip Hench+ and Edward Kendall+. Kendall+ and Reichstein independently isolated and characterized the hormones of the adrenal cortex, and Hench+ demonstrated the therapeutic value of cortisone in treating rheumatoid arthritis.
The chemical synthesis of cortisone for large-scale production was achieved independently by the chemists Carl Djerassi and Percy Julian+.
The discovery of neurotransmitters by Otto Loewi. Loewi shared the 1936 Nobel Prize with Sir Henry Dale+ for their independent work on acetylcholine. Sir Bernard Katz and Julius Axelrod shared the 1970 Nobel Prize for advanced work on neurotransmitters. Axelrod was also the co-developer, with Bernard Brodie, of the pain reliever Tylenol.
The discovery of endorphins and enkephalins by Solomon Snyder and Hans Kosterlitz, respectively.
The discovery of prostaglandins by M. Goldblatt. (Also discovered independently by Ulf von Euler+.) Sir John Vane* was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1982 for demonstrating that the anti-inflammatory and analgesic action of aspirin-like drugs was via their inhibition of prostaglandin production. Recently developed evidence indicates that credit for the development of aspirin itself should have gone equally, or even predominantly, to Arthur Eichengrun, rather than to his subordinate Felix Hoffmann+.8
The development of oral contraceptives by Gregory Pincus, Carl Djerassi, and Frank Colton.
The development of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, respectively.
The development of the Hepatitis-B vaccine by Baruch Blumberg and Irving Millman. Blumberg received the 1976 Nobel Prize for this work.
The co-discovery of interferon by Alick Isaacs (and Jean Lindenmann+). The large-scale production of recombinant interferon for medical use (a market currently in excess of $7 billion annually) is based largely on the work of Charles Weissmann and Sidney Pestka.
The co-development of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) by Gertrude Elion, which has led to cures for most forms of childhood leukemia.9 Elion was also the co-developer of azathioprine (Imuran), the immunosuppressant that made organ transplants possible between individuals other than identical twins, and of acyclovir (Zovirax) for the treatment of herpes viral infections. Elion and George Hitchings+ received the 1988 Nobel Prize for their joint work.
The development of AZT and of protease inhibitors for the treatment of AIDS by Jerome Horwitz and Irving Sigal, respectively.
The discovery of retroviruses by David Baltimore and Howard Temin. Baltimore and Temin shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for their independent discovery of these viruses, which are implicated in AIDS and in some cancers.
The co-discovery of oncogenes by Harold Varmus and the elucidation of their role in human cancer by Robert Weinberg, Michael Wigler, Bert Vogelstein, Arnold Levine, and others. Varmus shared the 1989 Nobel Prize with Michael Bishop+ for this work.
The co-development of monoclonal antibodies by César Milstein. Milstein shared the 1984 Nobel Prize with Georges Köhler+ for this work.
The elucidation of the biochemistry of cellular metabolism by Otto Warburg*, Otto Meyerhof, Gustav Embden, Jacob Parnas, Sir Hans Krebs, Fritz Lipmann, Herman Kalckar, Carl Neuberg, Gerty Cori, Konrad Bloch, and others. This includes much of the basic work on glycolysis (Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway), the urea cycle, the citric acid cycle (Krebs cycle), the pentose phosphate pathway, and oxidative phosphorylation and the role of ATP, as well as significant contributions to the characterization of glycogen and fatty acid metabolism. Warburg*, Meyerhof, Krebs, Lipmann, Cori, and Bloch all received Nobel Prizes.
The introduction of radioisotopic tracer techniques by George de Hevesy, Friedrich Paneth, Rudolf Schoenheimer, David Rittenberg, Martin Kamen, William Hassid, and Samuel Ruben. Hevesy and Paneth introduced the general technique, for which Hevesy alone won the 1943 Nobel Prize in chemistry; Kamen and Ruben discovered the long-lived carbon-14 radioisotope, which has had widespread application in biology (and is also the basis of radiocarbon dating). Melvin Calvin employed carbon-14 to elucidate the so-called dark reactions of photosynthesis, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in chemistry. (Other Nobel Prize winners who made important contributions to the understanding of photosynthesis include Richard Willstätter, Otto Warburg*, and James Franck.)
The introduction of x-ray crystallographic methods for biomolecular structure determination by John Bernal*. Important applications and advances have included the work of Sir Max Perutz on the structure of hemoglobin, for which he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in chemistry, and that of Rosalind Franklin on the structure of DNA. Franklin's x-ray diffraction studies of DNA and the DNA base pairing ratios discovered by Erwin Chargaff were key components of the experimental basis for the Watson+-Crick+ double-helix model.
The breaking of the genetic code by Marshall Nirenberg. Nirenberg and Har Gobind Khorana+ shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for their independent determinations of the code.
The co-invention of gene splicing by Stanley N. Cohen. Cohen and Herbert Boyer's+ invention opened up the new field of genetic engineering. Cohen is a recipient of both the US National Medal of Science and the US National Medal of Technology. Other major contributors to genetic engineering include Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert, and Daniel Nathans, all of whom received Nobel Prizes for their work.
The discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) by I. I. Rabi. Rabi received the 1944 Nobel Prize in physics for the demonstration of NMR in molecular beams. Felix Bloch shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in physics with Edward Purcell+ for their independent inventions of condensed matter NMR spectroscopy, which is important in biomolecular structure studies, as well as being the basis of the MRI diagnostic imaging technique.10
The invention of the sonogram by Robert Rines.
The invention of the flexible endoscope by Basil Hirschowitz, which has revolutionized surgery by greatly reducing the complexity and invasiveness of many surgical procedures. (This work, undertaken in the mid-1950s, led to the production of the first glass-clad optical fibers, which later revolutionized modern telecommunications.)
The co-invention of LASIK eye surgery by Samuel Blum (together with Rangaswamy Srinivasan+ and James Wynne+).
The invention of phacoemulsification cataract surgery by Charles Kelman, which is the technique most widely used for cataract removal worldwide (more than one hundred million such operations have been performed). It has revolutionized the procedure by completely eliminating the need for hospitalization, which had previously averaged one week. Intraocular lens implantation, a regular adjunct to this surgery, was also pioneered by Kelman.
The invention of the cardiac defibrillator, external pacemaker, and cardiac monitor by Paul Zoll. Zoll (and, independently, Wilson Greatbatch+ ) later invented the implantable cardiac pacemaker. Michel Mirowski and Morton Mower were two of the four inventors of the automatic, implantable cardiac defibrillator.
NOTES
1. Manasseh ben Israel, The Hope of Israel (London, 1652), reprinted in Manasseh ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell, edited by Lucien Wolf (London, 1901, pp. 50-51).
2. Winston Churchill, History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 1 (Cassell, London, 1956).
3. Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (KTAV, Hoboken, NJ, 2002).
4. Ibid., p. 123.
5. Ibid., pp. 124,130-131.
6. Ibid., p. 13.
7. For statistics on Vienna, see Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938: A Cultural History, by Steven Beller (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 36-37); on Berlin, see Germany Without Jews, by Bernt Engelmann (Bantam, New York, 1984, pp. 59-60).
8. See rsc.org and findarticles.com.
9. The treatment of choice for maintaining long-term remissions from leukemia involves a combination of 6-MP and methotrexate, a chemotherapeutic agent introduced by Sidney Farber in 1950 and subsequently developed into a highly effective treatment by Isaac Djerassi.
10. The image reconstruction algorithm employed in all tomographic imaging is based on the Radon transform, which was invented by the Austrian mathematician Johann Radon+ in 1917. In his paper, Radon+ states that his result is based on the prior work of Hermann Minkowski and Paul Funk. Minkowski was the younger brother of the above-mentioned physiologist Oskar Minkowski. Paul Funk was a Czech mathematician who survived internment in the Nazi concentration camp at Terezín (Theresienstadt). Gábor Frank obtained a German patent for x-ray tomographic scanning in 1938. Unlike Funk, he did not return from the camps.
* Metchnikoff had a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father; Bernal, Vane, and Warburg had Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers.
+ Non-Jewish.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEND QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS TO: jinfo@jinfo.org
JINFO HOME
Copyright © 2004 JINFO.ORG. All rights reserved |
