Minot, George

Minot, George (Richards)

(born Dec. 2, 1885, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Feb. 25, 1950, Brookline, Mass.) U.S. physician. He received his medical degree from Harvard University. He reversed anemia in dogs (induced by excessive bleeding) with a diet of raw liver; subsequently he and William Murphy (1894–1987) found that eating raw liver reversed pernicious anemia in humans. They shared a Nobel Prize in 1934 with George Whipple for their treatment of the previously invariably fatal disease. He and Edwin Joseph Cohn prepared liver extracts that, taken orally, were the main treatment for pernicious anemia until 1948, when vitamin B₁₂ was isolated.