Minot, << MY nuht, >> George Richards (1885-1950), an American physician, was one of the world’s greatest authorities on the functions of blood and on blood diseases. In 1926, he announced the liver treatment for pernicious anemia patients. Minot and his co-worker, the American physician William P. Murphy, showed that when the patients were treated with a diet containing a large amount of liver, the anemia disappeared and the red blood count returned to normal. The discovery opened a new era for patients with anemia, which was a disease that had always been fatal. Minot and Murphy received the 1934 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for this research. They shared the prize with American physician George H. Whipple, who had made the same discovery.
Minot wrote many articles on blood and its disorders. He also wrote about dietary deficiency. He was coauthor of Pathological Physiology and Clinical Description of the Anemias (1936).
Minot was born in Boston, Mass. He received his medical degree from Harvard University in 1912. He was associated with Massachusetts General Hospital from 1918 to 1923. From 1928 to 1948, Minot was professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Boston City Hospital’s Thorndike Memorial Laboratory.
