Béla Schick (16 July 1877 – 6 December 1967) was a Hungarian-born

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

pediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

. He is the founder of the

Schick test The Schick test, developed in 1913, is a skin test used to determine whether or not a person is susceptible to diphtheria. It was named after its inventor, Béla Schick (1877–1967), a Hungarian-born American pediatrician. Procedure The test is ...

. Bela Schick was born in Balatonboglár,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, and brought up in Graz, Austria, where he attended medical school. In 1902 he joined the Medicine Faculty of the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

where he remained until 1923. Studying problems of immunity, he and Clemens von Pirquet first coined the term '

allergy Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, refer a number of conditions caused by the hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include hay fever, food allergies, atopic derma ...

' as a clinical entity. His discovery of a test for susceptibility to diphtheria ("the

") made him world famous. From 1923 he directed the Pediatric Department of Mount Sinai Hospital,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. From 1936 he was also professor at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. From 1950 to 1962 Schick headed the Pediatric Department of

Beth-El Hospital The Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center (often called Brookdale Hospital, or Brookdale for short) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) medical services provider in the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. Brookdale's primary and secondary servi ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, NY. His later interests included the nutrition of the newborn and feeding problems in children. Young Bela Schick quoted the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

: "The world is kept alive by the breath of children," to help persuade his father to allow him to pursue continued education in pediatrics, rather than to join the family

grain merchant The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...

business in Graz, Austria. Schick became assistant at the Children's Clinic in Vienna, and later associate professor of pediatrics at Vienna University. He emigrated to the United States, and in 1923 became pediatrician-in-chief at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. He later (1936) was appointed clinical professor of pediatrics at

. Schick made important studies on

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 ...

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

, and the nutrition for infants...but gained international renown for the Schick Test. This test determined susceptibility to

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

, and eventually led to the eradication of the childhood disease that attacked 100,000 Americans in 1927, leading to about 10,000 deaths. A massive five-year campaign, coordinated by Dr. Schick, virtually eliminated diphtheria. As a part of the campaign, 85 million pieces of literature were distributed by

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife, Inc. is the holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, wi ...

. with an appeal to parents to "Save your child from diphtheria." These illustrated brochures (reproduce
here
were created by Gerta Ries, who (as Gerta Wiener) was commissioned over 75 years later to create the sculptured tribute to Dr. Schick for the Jewish-American Hall of Fame. A residential building is named after him on the

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

campus.

References

External links

The Schick Test
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schick, Bela 1877 births 1967 deaths People from Balatonboglár Hungarian Jews Diphtheria

See also

References

External links