Frieda Robscheit-Robbins facts for kids

Frieda S. Robscheit-Robbins (born June 8, 1893 – died December 18, 1973) was an American scientist who was born in Germany. She was a pathologist, which means she studied diseases. Frieda worked very closely with another scientist named George Hoyt Whipple. They did important research on how liver tissue could help treat a serious blood problem called pernicious anemia.

They wrote 21 scientific papers together between 1925 and 1930. In 1934, George Whipple won a Nobel Prize for this work. Even though Frieda Robscheit-Robbins was a key part of the research, she did not receive the Nobel Prize. However, Whipple did share his prize money with her. If she had won, she would have been only the second woman ever to win a Nobel Prize, after Marie Curie, and the first American woman. Even though she didn't get the award, Robscheit-Robbins said that the success and impact of their discoveries were more important than any prize.

In 2002, a magazine called Discover even wrote that her contributions "deserve greater notice," meaning more people should know about her important work.

Early Life and Education

Frieda Robscheit-Robbins was born in a town called Euskirchen in Germany in 1893. When she was a child, her family moved to the United States. She went to college and earned her first degree (BS) from the University of Chicago. She then got her master's degree (MS) from the University of California and her PhD from the University of Rochester.

Discovering Anemia Treatments

Frieda Robscheit-Robbins and George Whipple created a way to study anemia in animals. Anemia is a condition where your blood doesn't have enough healthy red blood cells, which carry oxygen. They found that when dogs lost a lot of blood, they showed signs similar to anemia. This allowed them to test different ways to help the dogs recover.

They tried feeding the dogs diets made from different organs, like spleen, lung, liver, and intestines. They discovered that dogs who ate liver recovered the fastest. This suggested that the liver played a big role in treating anemia.

Their early research started around 1920 at the University of California. They even found that apricots helped treat anemia in dogs, but this was so surprising they didn't publish it right away! The work continued at the University of Rochester from 1922. They chose to use dogs for their experiments because dogs would eat many different foods and were large enough for frequent blood sampling.

Robscheit-Robbins was in charge of taking care of the dogs. She often presented the dogs and their findings at scientific meetings. To do their experiments, they fed the dogs "salmon bread" for a long time to keep their blood levels steady. Then, they would add specific foods to the diet to see how they affected the amount of hemoglobin produced. Hemoglobin is the part of red blood cells that carries oxygen.

The liver was actually the very first food they tested, and it turned out to be the best at producing hemoglobin. At first, they thought beef hearts would be the best, but they soon found that liver worked much better.

Frieda's Important Role

Frieda Robscheit-Robbins started working with George Whipple in 1917 and was his research partner for 38 years! Even though she planned and carried out many of "Whipple's experiments," she never got a higher job title than a research associate.

During her long partnership with Whipple, from 1917 to 1955, she wrote over 100 articles about her research. She also wrote chapters for medical textbooks about anemia. She was the main author on Whipple's most important paper. Usually, the first author is the person who did most of the work. Of the 23 papers that Whipple mentioned in his Nobel Prize speech, Robscheit-Robbins was a co-author on ten of them.

Frieda Robscheit-Robbins was also a member of many important scientific groups, like the Society for Experimental Pathology and the Physiological Society. In 1952, she became the president of the New York Society for Medical Research. In 1951, she was elected president of the American Society for Experimental Pathology, becoming the first woman ever to hold that position.

The Matthew-Matilda Effect

Frieda Robscheit-Robbins's story is a good example of something called the Matthew-Matilda Effect. This is when someone gets more credit for a discovery or publication than their co-workers, often because they are more famous or because of their gender.

This effect applies to Robscheit-Robbins because she was not included when the Nobel Prize for Medicine was given out in 1934. The prize went to George Whipple and two other male scientists, even though Frieda was a co-author on most of the important research papers. Her hard work with Whipple was not fully recognized, making her a clear example of the Matthew-Matilda Effect in science history.

Personal Life

In 1915, Frieda Robscheit-Robbins married Oscar V. Sprague. They had one child together. She passed away in December 1973 in Tucson, Arizona, in the United States.

See also

In Spanish: Frieda Robscheit-Robbins para niños