Thomas Addis Jr. (July 27, 1881 – June 4, 1949) was a Scottish

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 ...

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

who made important contributions to the understanding of how

blood clots A thrombus (plural thrombi), colloquially called a blood clot, is the final product of the blood coagulation step in hemostasis. There are two components to a thrombus: aggregated platelets and red blood cells that form a plug, and a mesh of cr ...

work. He was a pioneer in the field of

nephrology Nephrology (from Greek'' nephros'' "kidney", combined with the suffix ''-logy'', "the study of") is a specialty of adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function (ren ...

, the branch of internal medicine that deals with diseases of the

kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blood ...

. Addis described the

pathogenesis Pathogenesis is the process by which a disease or disorder develops. It can include factors which contribute not only to the onset of the disease or disorder, but also to its progression and maintenance. The word comes from Greek πάθος ''pat ...

haemophilia Haemophilia, or hemophilia (), is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding for a longer time after an injury, easy bruising, ...

in 1911 and was the first to demonstrate that normal

plasma Plasma or plasm may refer to: Science * Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter * Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral * Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics Biology * Blood pla ...

could correct the defect in

Biography

Addis was the son of Thomas Chalmers Addis, a clerk at the local branch of the

Inland Revenue The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation ta ...

Service, and Cornelia Beers-Campbell, who married in Hoboken, New York, in 1880, but he was born in

. Significant influences in his childhood were his grandfather, the Rev Dr Thomas Addis DD, Minister at Morningside Free Kirk, and his grandfather's assistant, the Very Rev Dr Alexander Martin (who came to lead the movement within the Free Kirk for reunification with the Established Church of Scotland). Addis studied medicine in his native Edinburgh, at the Institute of Pathology of Berlin

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

, and in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

. He graduated from the

University of Edinburgh Medical School The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was esta ...

with an MB in 1905 and an MD in 1908. In 1911, he took up a professorship at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, where he remained until his death in 1949. Addis married Elesa Bolton Partridge in 1913. They had two daughters, Elesa and Jean. By way of his daughter Jean, Addis is the great-grandfather of

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...

, the current

governor of California The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, the g ...

. Besides his studies in haemophilia, Addis made many contributions to the understanding of

bile Bile (from Latin ''bilis''), or gall, is a dark-green-to-yellowish-brown fluid produced by the liver of most vertebrates that aids the digestion of lipids in the small intestine. In humans, bile is produced continuously by the liver (liver bile ...

pigment metabolism. His investigations into kidney function led to the birth of modern renal physiology. Addis developed a means of measuring the number of red blood cells, white blood cells, epithelial cells, casts, and the protein content in urine specimens, a test used in the diagnosis and management of kidney disease. Towards the end of his life Addis began to study laboratory rats as a model of

proteinuria Proteinuria is the presence of excess proteins in the urine. In healthy persons, urine contains very little protein; an excess is suggestive of illness. Excess protein in the urine often causes the urine to become foamy (although this symptom ma ...

, and was among the first people to note the presence of rodent

major urinary proteins Major urinary proteins (Mups), also known as α2u-globulins, are a subfamily of proteins found in abundance in the urine and other secretions of many animals. Mups provide a small range of identifying information about the donor animal, when dete ...

. Writing in ''Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation'', Roland Schmitt et al. assessed Addis's contribution to medical science this way: "Since the times of Thomas Addis and other pioneers, no physical examination is said to be complete without the doctor looking at the patient's urine, grossly and under the microscope." At the end of his career, Stanford University took away Addis's laboratory, perhaps on account of his leftist political views. He supported the loyalists in the Spanish Revolution, and was chairman of the San Francisco chapter of the Spanish Refugee Appeal, an organization that aided refugees from Franco's Spain. Addis toured the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in 1935 and came away impressed by the communist country's medical accomplishments. He was friends with Harry Bridges and other leftwingers. Addis was chairman of the San Francisco chapter of Physician's Forum, an organization that supported

national health insurance National health insurance (NHI), sometimes called statutory health insurance (SHI), is a system of health insurance that insures a national population against the costs of health care. It may be administered by the public sector, the private sector ...

. Shortly before his death, he was expelled from the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...

for refusing to pay his annual membership fee, which he did to protest the AMA's lack of support for President Truman's national health insurance plan. His Stanford colleague Frank W. Weymouth wrote about him:

Injustice or oppression in the next street ... or any spot inhabited by men was a personal affront to Thomas Addis and his name, from its early alphabetical place, was conspicuous on lists of sponsors of scores of organizations fighting for democracy and against
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
. He worked on more committees than could reasonably have been expected of so busy a man. ... Tom Addis was happy to have a hand in bringing to the organization of society some of the logic of science and to further that understanding and to promote that democracy which are the only enduring foundations of human dignity.Lemley, Kevin V. and Linus Pauling (1994) ''Thomas Addis: 1881-1949.'' ''Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences.'' Vol. 63, pp. 27-29.

References

External links

"Before Transfusion Became Established Procedure"
a November 6, 1999 ''British Medical Journal'' article describing Addis's early studies in blood clotting.
"Memorial Resolution, Thomas Addis"
words spoken at Addis' memorial service.
"Thomas Addis (1881-1949), Scottish Pioneer in Haemophilia Research"
a 2003 article about Addis's early studies on haemophilia in ''The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh.''
National Academy of Sciences biographical memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Addis, Thomas 1881 births 1949 deaths University of Edinburgh Medical School alumni American nephrologists Medical doctors from Edinburgh British emigrants to the United States 20th-century British medical doctors Stanford University School of Medicine faculty American medical researchers Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Newsom family

Biography

Further reading

References

External links