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 ones. Bacteriologists are interested in studying and learning about bacteria, ...

best known for his work with scarlet fever. Dick studied scarlet fever whilst serving the Army Medical Corps 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, 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 Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

. 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 bacteria in response to toxin exposure. Although they are most effective in neutralizing toxins, they can also ...

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. 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, a ...

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 university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

(1933–45).

References

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