Born: 8 June 1893, Germany
Died: 18 December 1973
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
The 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three men—George Whipple, George Richards Minot, and William P. Murphy—for their research into the use of liver tissue in treatment of pernicious anaemia. Frieda Robscheit-Robbins, who had co-authored twenty-one papers with Whipple (almost his entire body of published work) on the topic, was left out. The three men believed this was due to sexism, and Whipple shared his portion of the prize money with her. Although she had a PhD and they worked together for 38 years, she was never given a title higher than “research associate.” From 1917 to 1955, she wrote more than 100 articles as well as chapters on anaemia for medical textbooks. She was also the lead author on Whipple’s most important paper, and of the twenty-three papers that Whipple cited in his Nobel speech, Robscheit-Robbins had co-authored ten.