Fuller Albright

Fuller Albright (January 12, 1900 – December 8, 1969) was an American endocrinologist who made numerous contributions to his field, especially to the area of calcium metabolism.[1] Albright made great strides and contributions to the understanding of disorders associated with calcium and phosphate abnormalities in the body. He also was a published author and in his books he detailed his findings. [2]

Fuller Albright
BornJanuary 12, 1900
Buffalo, New York, U.S.
DiedDecember 8, 1969 (aged 69)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHarvard College
Harvard Medical School
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
OccupationEndocrinologist
Known forCalcium metabolism
Spouse
Claire Birge
​
​
(m. 1932)​
ChildrenRead Albright
Birge Albright
Parent(s)John J. Albright
Susan Fuller

Early life

Albright was born on January 12, 1900, in Buffalo, New York. He was the third child of John J. Albright, a prominent businessman and philanthropist who constructed the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, and Susan Fuller, a Smith College graduate who was Albright's second wife. Albright had three children from his first marriage and six from his marriage to Fuller. His maternal grandparents were Eben and Nancy Fuller, of Lancaster, Massachusetts.[3] His paternal grandparents were Joseph Jacob and Elizabeth S. Albright, both from Pennsylvania.

The family was descended from Andrew Albright, a gunsmith who supplied arms to the troops of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, who had come to America in 1750.[4] Joseph was a coal agent for Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and eventually, President of the First National Bank.[4]

Education

Albright entered Harvard College at age of seventeen. After graduating cum laude three years later, he entered Harvard Medical School in the fall of 1920. While he initially took an interest in obstetrics and orthopedic surgery, the discovery of insulin attracted him to internal medicine, specifically the study of metabolism. After his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital he embarked on a one-year programme of research with Joseph Charles Aub, mainly into calcium metabolism and lead poisoning.[1]

He was subsequently assistant resident to Warfield Longcope at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he performed numerous experiments often without realizing their significance together with his friend John Eager Howard. He then spent a year in Vienna with pathologist Jakob Erdheim.[1]

Career

In the early 1930s he returned to Boston, where he became a member of the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). At MGH, he rapidly developed an endocrinology research group.[1] In 1939, he began a longtime research collaboration with Anne Pappenheimer Forbes.[5]

Albright is credited with numerous discoveries in medicine. He described polyostotic fibrous dysplasia (a version of this disease with an endocrine component was later eponymically called McCune-Albright syndrome), the clinical and pathological features and different types of hyperparathyroidism (excessive production of parathyroid hormone by the parathyroid glands), the mechanism of Cushing's syndrome, and renal tubular acidosis (inability of the kidneys to regulate the acid-base balance in the body), and recognized the importance of menopause on osteoporosis.[1] He also delineated forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia.[6] Known for Lightwood–Albright syndrome, a neonatal form of renal tubular acidosis.[7]

Appointments and honors

In 1941 Albright was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[8] He was the president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (1943–1944), the Association for the Study of Internal Secretions (1945–1946) and the Endocrine Society (1946–1947). In 1955 he was elected to the National Academy of the Sciences.[1]

Since 1981, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research has every year given the Fuller Albright Award in recognition of meritorious scientific accomplishment in the field of bone and mineral research.[9]

Personal life

In 1930, he met Claire Birge (1906-1990) of Greenwich, Connecticut,[10] daughter of Walter William Birge and Mabelle Clair Brown, and by 1933, they were married.[11] As a wedding present, Albright's father bought them a house in Brookline, Massachusetts next door to conductor Serge Koussevitzky.[10] Together, they had two sons:

  • Read Albright (1939-2011), who married Jo Anne Pierson[12][13]
  • Birge Albright, (1935-2023) who married Carol Bonomo (b. 1938), an author[14]

Albright developed Parkinson's disease in 1937. By 1956 his symptoms were so intractable that he underwent experimental brain surgery, chemical pallidotomy (obliteration of the globus pallidus by injection of alcohol). The intervention on the right was a success, but the left-sided procedure was complicated by haemorrhage, which left him aphasic and comatose for the remaining 13 years of his life, during which he was nursed at Massachusetts General Hospital.[1] (Later, Claire married Richard Horace Bassett (1900-1995), an artist and writer.[15])

Death and legacy

Albright died on 8 December 1969.[5] The Albright's dimple sign is named for him.[16]

References
  1. Alex Leaf (1976). "Fuller Albright". Biographical Memoirs. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press. pp. 2–23. ISBN 978-0-309-02349-8.
  2. Felsenfeld, A. J.; Levine, B. S.; Kleeman, C. R. (2011-05-01). "Fuller Albright and our current understanding of calcium and phosphorus regulation and primary hyperparathyroidism". Nefrología (English Edition). 31 (3): 346–357. doi:10.3265/Nefrologia.pre2011.Mar.10774. ISSN 2013-2514. PMID 21629339.
  3. Taylor, Betsy (1998). The Ivy Grows Again: A History of the Albright Estate from 1890 to the Present. Nardin Academy.
  4. McCash, June Hall (1998). The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820319285.
  5. Kleeman, Charles R.; Levine, Barton S.; Felsenfeld, Arnold J. (October 1, 2009). "Fuller Albright: The consummate clinical investigator". Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 4 (10): 1541–1546. doi:10.2215/CJN.03030509. ISSN 1555-9041. PMID 19808238. S2CID 207330247.
  6. Schwartz TB (1995). "How to learn from patients: Fuller Albright's exploration of adrenal function". Ann. Intern. Med. 123 (3): 225–9. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-123-3-199508010-00010. PMID 7598305. S2CID 22629750.
  7. F. Albright, W. V. Consolazio, F. S. Coombs, J. H. Talbot; H. W. Sulkowitch. Metabolic studies and therapy in a case of nephrocalcinosis with rickets and dwarfism. Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, 1940, 66: 7–33.
  8. "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
  9. "Fuller Albright Award". American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  10. Loriaux MD, PhD, D. Lynn (2016). A Biographical History of Endocrinology. Ames, Iowa: John Wiley & Sons. p. 326. ISBN 9781119202479. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  11. "MISS BIRGE TO WED DR. FULLER ALBRIGHT; New York Girl's Betrothal to Boston Physician Announced by Her Parents. THEIR WEDDING IN MAY Bride-Elect Is a Member of Junior League. Her Fiance a Graduate of Harvard Medical School". The New York Times. 7 April 1932. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  12. Pave, Marvin (July 30, 2011). "Read Albright; coach, teacher was father figure to many; at 72". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  13. "Albright". harvard60.org. Harvard Class of 1960. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  14. Staff. "Cambridge Women's Heritage Project". cambridgema.gov. Cambridge Women's Heritage Project - March 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  15. "Claire Albright Bassett". www.findagrave.com. Find A Grave Memorial. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  16. Freiman, Anatoli; Kalia, Sunil; O'Brien, Elizabeth A. (July 2006). "Dermatologic Signs". Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery. 10 (4): 175–182. doi:10.2310/7750.2006.00042. PMID 17234116. S2CID 44484524.
  • The Fuller Albright Papers can be found at The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.
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