Pathology and blood physiology
Whipple received his Johns Hopkins medical degree in 1905 and investigated liver injury, regeneration and bile pigments. Later appointments at California and Rochester provided settings for work connecting liver metabolism with hemoglobin production.
References: [1]
Nutrition in blood-loss experiments
With Hooper, Robscheit-Robbins and other colleagues, Whipple compared foods and recovery of blood formation in animals after blood loss. Liver and certain other foods had pronounced effects. This experimental anemia differed from human pernicious anemia, but the findings supplied leads for Minot and Murphy’s clinical work.
From experiments to clinical research
Minot and Murphy reported improvement in pernicious-anemia patients receiving liver-based treatment in 1926. The three researchers shared the 1934 Nobel Prize, recognizing related experimental and clinical contributions. Whipple continued investigating protein, iron and blood-component metabolism.