George Frederick Dick (July 21, 1881 – October 10, 1967) was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

bacteriologist A bacteriologist is a microbiologist, or similarly trained professional, in bacteriology -- a subdivision of microbiology that studies bacteria, typically Pathogenic bacteria, pathogenic ones. Bacteriologists are interested in studying and learnin ...

best known for his work with

scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...

. Dick studied

whilst serving the

Army Medical Corps A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians. List of medical corps The following organizations are examples of medica ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Dick continued with his research into scarlet fever following the war, and in 1923, in collaboration with his wife

Gladys Rowena Dick Gladys Rowena Henry Dick (December 18, 1881 – August 21, 1963) was an American physician who co-developed an antitoxin and vaccine for scarlet fever with her husband, George F. Dick. Biography Gladys Rowena Henry was born in Pawnee City, Ne ...

, managed to locate the cause of the disease in a

toxin A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. Toxins occur especially as a protein or conjugated protein. The term toxin was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849– ...

produced by a strain of

Streptococcus ''Streptococcus'' is a genus of gram-positive ' (plural ) or spherical bacteria that belongs to the family Streptococcaceae, within the order Lactobacillales (lactic acid bacteria), in the phylum Bacillota. Cell division in streptococci occurs ...

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

. Using this, they were able to create an

antitoxin An antitoxin is an antibody with the ability to neutralize a specific toxin. Antitoxins are produced by certain animals, plants, and bacterium, bacteria in response to toxin exposure. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, the ...

for treatment and a non-toxic vaccine for immunization. In 1933, Dick his wife were awarded the

Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh The Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh is awarded by the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine to a person who has made any highly important and valuable addition to Practical Therapeutics in the previous five ye ...

. He was a professor of clinical medicine at

Rush Medical College Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, located in the Illinois Medical District, about 3 km (2 miles) west of the Loop in Chicago. Offering a full-time Doctor of Medicine program, the school was chartered in 1837, and ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

(1918–33), and then became the head of the department of medicine at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

(1933–45).

References

* * * * 1881 births 1967 deaths Rush University faculty University of Chicago faculty American bacteriologists Scarlet fever {{US-med-bio-stub