William
Parry Murphy was born on February 6, 1892, at Stoughton
Wisconsin, U.S.A. He is the son of Thomas Francis Murphy and Rose
Anna Parry, his father being a congregational minister with
various pastorates in Wisconsin and Oregon. William Parry was
educated at the public schools of Wisconsin and Oregon and at the
University of
Oregon, where he took his A.B. degree in 1914.
For the next two years he taught physics and mathematics at the
high schools of Oregon, and then spent one year at the University
of Oregon Medical School at Portland, where he also acted as a
laboratory assistant in the Department of Anatomy. He then
attended a summer course at the Rush Medical School in Chicago
and was later awarded the William Stanislaus Murphy Fellowship at
Harvard
Medical School, Boston. He held this Fellowship for three
years and graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1922.
Two years as House Officer at the Rhode Island Hospital followed
and he then became Assistant Resident Physician at the Peter Bent
Brigham Hospital under Professor Henry A. Christian. This
appointment he held for eighteen months and then he was appointed
Junior Associate in Medicine at this hospital.
In 1924 he was appointed Assistant in Medicine at Harvard, and from
1928 until 1935 he was Instructor in Medicine there. From 1935
until 1938 he was Associate in Medicine at Harvard and from 1948
until 1958 Lecturer in Medicine, becoming in 1958 Senior
Associate in Medicine, and subsequently Emeritus Lecturer in that
subject.
In 1923 Murphy practised medicine for a time and subsequently
engaged in research on diabetes mellitus and on diseases of the
blood. Murphy's work on pernicious and other forms of anaemia was
outstanding. For the treatment of pernicious and hypochromic
anaemia and for granulocytopenia he used intramuscular injections
of extract of liver and he was associated with George Richards Minot and George Hoyt Whipple in work on pernicious
anaemia and the treatment of it by means of a diet of uncooked
liver. For this work he was awarded, together with George
Richards Minot and George Hoyt Whipple, the Nobel Prize for
Physiology or Medicine for 1934. He wrote Anemia in Practice:
Pernicious Anemia (1939).
He has been consulting haematologist to several hospitals, and he
now lives at Brooklyn, Mass., U.S.A. Among his many distinctions
and honours are the Cameron Prize of the University of
Edinburgh, together with George Richards Minot for their work
on pernicious anaemia (1930), the Bronze Medal of the American Medical
Association for an exhibit demonstrating his methods of
treating anaemias with liver extract (1934), the First Rank of
Decoration-Commander of the Order of the White Rose, Finland
(1934), and the National Order of Merit, Carlos J. Finlay,
Official, Cuba (1952).
He is member of numerous medical and allied societies at home and
abroad, including the Deutsche
Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina.
Murphy married Pearl Harriett Adams on September 10, 1919, and
they have one son, Dr. William P. Murphy, Jr. Their only
daughter, Priscilla Adams, died in 1936.
From Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
William P. Murphy died on October 9, 1987.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1934
William P. Murphy
