Archibald E. Garrod

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AE Garrod

Sir Archibald Edward Garrod (born November 25, 1857 in London , † March 28, 1936 in Cambridge ) was an English doctor , scientist and university professor. He coined the term "congenital metabolic disorder " and made decisive contributions to the understanding of those diseases, especially alkaptonuria . The concept of biochemical individuality also goes back to him. From 1920 to 1927 he taught as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford .

Life

Family and education

Archibald Garrod was born in London in 1857 as the fourth and youngest son of Elisabeth Ann Colchester and Sir Alfred Baring Garrod . His father was also a doctor and scientist and became famous for his findings in the field of joint diseases (especially gout and rheumatoid arthritis ). His brother Alfred Henry Garrod was a zoologist and, like his father, a member of the Royal Society . Archibald Garrod attended Marlborough College , where he already showed great interest in the natural sciences , as well as the Christ Church College, which he left in 1880 with top grades in natural science subjects. He then began medical training at the oldest hospital in Great Britain, St Bartholomew's Hospital in London . After completing this in 1884, he went to Vienna for research purposes for several months . He then returned to his home country and began to work as an assistant doctor at St Bartholomew's; later also at West London Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital .

Scientific achievement

During these years he had a lot of time to do research, so he first followed his father's example and studied joint diseases. He was the first to differentiate between rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis , which is still valid today . Garrod later turned increasingly to biochemical aspects of pathology , this change being due primarily to his friendship with the biochemist and later Nobel Prize winner Frederick Gowland Hopkins . Through Hopkins he came into closer contact with the investigation of urine for the first time , which was groundbreaking for his later scientific achievements, especially in the field of metabolic disorders . In the 1890s, Garrod was primarily concerned with alkaptonuria , primarily examining the spread of the disease in affected families. He suspected that the disease is in no way caused by bacteria , as was previously assumed, but rather that heredity plays a role.

It was not until the turn of the century that the basic rules of heredity, published in 1866 by Gregor Mendel , aroused the interest of medicine and provided Garrod with the knowledge he needed to confirm his theory of alkaptonuria as a hereditary disease. It was William Bateson's work that brought Mendel's theories the necessary attention - Garrod was in close scientific exchange with him over the next few years. Garrod was able to apply this concept to other already known diseases such as albinism or cysteinuria and thus coined the term "inborn errors of metabolism " during the Croonian Lecture in 1908 at the Royal College of Physicians . In the same context, he postulated that every individual is unique from a biochemical point of view and that the corresponding differences are based on the biochemical level - a concept that has remained unchanged to this day. He also predicted that alkaptonuria was due to an enzyme defect ; this was confirmed half a century later. In 1910 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society , like his father and brother before him . It should be noted that Garrod continued to be a doctor throughout all of his scientific activities, teaching at St Bartholomew's since 1912.

During the First World War Garrod had to interrupt his work and served as a doctor in the British Armed Forces in Malta ; for his services there he was raised to the knighthood ( Knight Commander ) by being awarded the Order of St. Michael and St. George . On his return, he accepted a call to the Medical Faculty of the University of Oxford in 1920 and was thus Regius Professor of Medicine . In 1923 he published his most important discoveries in a large compendium. In 1927 he retired.

Death and honor

Archibald Garrod died on March 28, 1936 after a brief, serious illness. He left behind his wife Laura Elisabeth (née Smith) and his daughter Dorothy , who is considered one of the most important prehistorians in Great Britain and the first woman to hold a professorship at the University of Cambridge . Archibald Garrod and his wife had three sons, two of whom died of the Spanish flu during World War I and the youngest a little later .

For the most part, the significance of Garrod's findings only became clear towards the end of his work or after his death. During his lifetime he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Medicine ; He also received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Aberdeen , Dublin , Glasgow , Malta , and Padua . The Garrod Association is a Canadian association for the treatment of congenital metabolic disorders that was founded in 1982.

Publications (selection)

  • An Introduction to the Use of the Laryngoscope. Longman, Green And Co., London, 1886.
  • A Treatise on Rheumatism and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Charles Griffin and Company, London, 1890.
  • Inborn Errors of metabolism. Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1909 (first edition) and 1923 (second edition).
  • The Inborn Factors of Disease. Clarendon Press , Oxford, 1931.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement of the appointment of Archibald Edward Garrod as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford in the London Gazette of March 18, 1920.
  2. ↑ a b c d Hopkins, p. 225
  3. ↑ a b c d Hopkins, p. 228
  4. ↑ a b Simmons, p. 214
  5. ↑ a b Simmons, p. 215
  6. ↑ a b c Simmons, p. 216
  7. ↑ garrod.ca: About The Garrod Association (accessed April 10, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Garrod, Archibald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Garrod, Archibald Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH London , UK
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1936
Place of death Cambridge , UK