Alfred N. Richards

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Alfred Newton Richards 1954

Alfred Newton Richards (born March 22, 1876 in Stamford , New York , † March 24, 1966 in Bryn Mawr , Pennsylvania ) was an American pharmacologist . He is best known for his work on the physiology of the kidney and for his contribution to the development of medical research in the United States during World War II .

Live and act

Richards was the youngest of three sons of a Presbyterian minister in Stamford , New York, and grew up in poor conditions. Alfred Richards studied from 1893 at Yale College , where he graduated in chemistry in 1897 and had lectures in biochemistry with Russell Henry Chittenden . Chittenden gave Richards a scholarship for a year to attend the Sheffield Scientific School , which later became the medical faculty of Yale University , was biochemistry to study. 1898 took Richards a job as a tutor (comparable to a scientific assistant ) of Biochemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in New York City , which allowed him to earn a living until he in 1901 when William John Gies with the work The Composition of Yellow Elastic Connective Tissue received his Ph.D. in biochemistry.

After completing his doctorate, Richards worked for a year with Christian Archibald Herter . Here Richards also met George B. Wallace († 1949), with whom he then had a lifelong friendship. From 1903 both took over a position as a tutor for pharmacology , Richards continued at Columbia University, Wallace at the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College , the then medical faculty of New York University . Both undertook a trip to Europe in 1903 to prepare for their new job with Oswald Schmiedeberg and Franz Hofmeister at the University of Strasbourg . During this time, Richards worked with John Howland and David Edsall on metabolic disorders in children and their effects on toxins.

In 1908 Richards took a position as professor of pharmacology at Northwestern University in Chicago , in 1910 at the University of Pennsylvania , where he established his new methods of experimental and clinical pharmacology. Together with Cecil K. Drinker, he developed an apparatus for the perfusion ("blood circulation") of isolated organs. With his help, he carried out his first experiments on the physiology of urine production in the kidneys and on how caffeine or adrenaline can be pharmacologically influenced .

From 1910 to 1914, Richards was editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry .

After the United States entered World War I , Richards was invited to take part in Richard Dale's work on the pathophysiology of traumatic shock . The work led to important findings on the effect of histamine on the size of the capillaries . In July 1918 he was sent to the Chaumont front in France with the rank of major to investigate chemical warfare problems . In December 1918, Richards was honorably discharged from the US Army and immediately resumed his teaching and research activities, which he closely interwoven.

Richard's experiments on kidney blood flow and urine production, as well as microscopic observation of kidney tissue and chemical analysis of primary urine under the influence of various concentrations of adrenaline paved the way for today's understanding of urine regulation by afferent and efferent vessels of the glomerula and glomerular filtration, tubular reabsorption and secretion. At the same time he drove the development of pharmacology as a subject in clinical medicine . Numerous findings on the physiology of the kidney are linked to Richards and his group.

In 1941, Richards took on the role of chairman of the committee for medical research within the Office of Scientific Research and Development , an agency of the US government for the coordination of research for military purposes during the Second World War . Here he made a contribution to the mass production of penicillin , to scientific collaboration with researchers from Great Britain, Canada and Australia and to research into agents against malaria and insects, the fight against other infectious diseases and transfusion medicine .

Richards held his professorship at the University of Pennsylvania until 1948. From 1947 to 1950 he was President of the National Academy of Sciences . His work was shaped by the reorganization of the scientific community after the Second World War and in the transition to the Cold War . He was responsible for establishing the National Science Foundation as an institution for mobilizing scientific capacities in an emergency, supporting oceanographic research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, also for the purposes of the United States Navy and its submarine weapon, and the work of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan.

Richards had been married to Lillian Woody since 1908. The couple had a son († 1962).

Awards (selection)

Richards received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania (1925), Western Reserve University (1931), again from the University of Pennsylvania ( MD , 1932), Yale University (1933), the University of Edinburgh (1935), Harvard University (1940 ), Columbia University (1942), Roger Williams University (1943), Princeton University (1946), Johns Hopkins University (1949), Université catholique de Louvain (1949), New York University (1955) and the Rockefeller University (1960).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Newton Richards. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved October 27, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Alfred Richards. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved September 14, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 535 kB) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); accessed on September 14, 2016.
  4. ↑ Member History. In: amphilsoc.org. Retrieved September 11, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b c Richards; Alfred Newton (1876-1966) at the Royal Society (royalsociety.org); accessed on September 14, 2016.
  6. ↑ Award winners. In: docs.google.com. Retrieved September 14, 2016 .
  7. ^ Lasker Foundation: Development of wartime healthcare - The Lasker Foundation. In: laskerfoundation.org. Retrieved September 14, 2016 .
  8. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 2, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved September 14, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Richards, Alfred N.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richards, Alfred Newton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pharmacologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Stamford , New York
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1966
Place of death Bryn Mawr , Pennsylvania