January 22, 1998 University Gazette   Full contents Police Log
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Doctors Cure Anemia  Researchers persisted with strange methods
despite skepticism  By Nicole Jacovino  Special to the Gazette
There was no cure for what was known as the "blood thinning"
disease. People who developed pernicious anemia -- characterized
by dangerously low counts of red blood cells -- were left
exhausted, hospitalized, and without the hope of being cured.
In the early 1920s, most doctors believed that pernicious anemia
was caused by a toxic substance in the body, and they prescribed
doses of arsenic, transfusions, or removal of the spleen as
treatments. But after these remedies were administered, patients
had relapses. Death was inevitable. Across the world, 6,000
lives a year were lost to the scourge of pernicious anemia.  The
idea that would eventually lead to a cure occurred to George R.
Minot in 1912. Minot had received an A.B. from Harvard College
in 1908, and an M.D.