George Richards Minot papers

Born on December 2, 1885, in Boston, Massachusetts, George Richards Minot descended from a long line of doctors. After receiving his A.B. from Harvard College in 1908, he continued the family tradition by attending Harvard Medical School, from which he received an M.D. in 1912. All of Minot's future potential nearly vanished when he became a severe diabetic in 1921. Fortunately, the discovery of insulin the next year saved his life. After working as a doctor and medical professor in Boston and Baltimore, he was hired as a Professor of Medicine by Harvard Medical School in 1928. Among his many honors, Minot shared the 1934 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his role in discovering a liver treatment as a cure for pernicious anemia. After a stroke in 1947, he retired from Harvard the next year and died of pneumonia on February 25, 1950, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.