biology

Tom Douglas Spies

Tom Douglas Spies is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tom Douglas Spies rather than just read about it. In short: Dr. Tom Douglas Spies (September 21, 1902 in Ravenna, Texas – February 28, 1960 in New York City) was a distinguished American physician and medical educator.

Key takeaways

Tom Douglas Spies belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tom Douglas Spies to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tom Douglas Spies from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Dr. Tom Douglas Spies (September 21, 1902 in Ravenna, Texas – February 28, 1960 in New York City) was a distinguished American physician and medical educator. He was an authority in the study of nutritional diseases. In the 1930s, he contributed significantly to finding a cure for pellagra, a nutritional disease that once afflicted millions in the American South. Later, he also made a large contribution to finding cure for tropical sprue. For his efforts in elimination of pellagra, Time Magazine named him as 1938 "Man of the Year" in comprehensive science.

Education A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Spies received a B.A. degree from the University of Texas in 1923 and an M.D. from Harvard in 1927. He spent the next two years in pathology in Boston hospitals and then went to Western Reserve University to become an instructor in medicine until 1935.

Work Spies became assistant professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine (1935–1947). After 1947, he became an instructor at Northwestern University Medical School.

Nutrition clinic Spies was best known as a director of Nutrition Clinic at the Hillman Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama, after 1936. He was invited to come to Birmingham in 1935 by James S. McLester, physician-in-chief of the Hillman Hospital, who was then also the President of the American Medical Association. In 1945, he and six social workers, including Martha Hutchinson, studied the effects of daily supplementation of milk on the growth and development of malnourished children.

Other contributions Spies was appointed to the Food and Nutrition Board of National Research Council in 1943, and was a consultant on tropical medicine at Washington's Army Medical School, 1945. He labored with unremitting zeal to put thiamine, nicotinic acid, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B12 and thymine (5-methyl uracil) to use in clinical and preventive medicine. In the late 1940s, Spies experimented with the use of folic acid and other vitamins in the treatment of tropical sprue, which was a deadly disease at that time; he conducted his research in Cuba and Puerto Rico. He received recognition from the Cuban and Puerto Rican governments for his efforts. According to the American Medical Association,

Through his researches, pellagra in the southern United States and tropical sprue in Cuba and Puerto Rico have been virtually eliminated. Perhaps his greatest contribution has been his study of the dietary requirements for the preservation of tissue integrity, whereby premature aging can be prevented.

Honors and awards John Phillips Memorial Award of American College of Physicians; Southern Medical Association Research Medal; D.Sc., University of the South; Charles V. Chapin Award (Rhode Island); Modern Medicine Award for distinguished achievement; Oscar B. Hunter Award of the American Therapeutic Society; Recognition by U. S. Congress and Puerto Rico Congress; Seven decorations and awards from the Government of Cuba; American Medical Association Distinguished Service Award (1957).

References PDF file A biographical sketch by Thomas H. Jukes. Journal of Nutrition, 1972 [J. NUTRITION, 302: 1395–1400]

Footnotes

Bibliography Tom Douglas Spies, Nutrition and disease : special issue from the Department of Nutrition and Metabolism, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois ; Nutrition Clinic, Hillman Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama. Minneapolis : McGraw-Hill, 1955 Spies, Tom Douglas, Rehabilitation through better nutrition. Philadelphia, Saunders, 1947 Tom Douglas Spies, Vitamins and vitamin deficiencies. Vitamin B12.. N.Y. 1949. FROSTIG, J. P., and SPIES, T. D.: The initial syndrome of pellagra and associated deficiency diseases. American Journal of the Medical Sciences 199:268, 1940. ARING, C. D., EVANS, J. P., and SPIES, T. D.: Some Clinical Neurologic Aspects of Vitamin B Deficiencies. Journal of the American Medical Association 113:2105, 1939. ARING, C. D., and SPIES, T. D.: A Critical Review: Vitamin B Deficiency and Nervous Disease. Journal of Neurological Psychiatry 2:335, 1939.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tom Douglas Spies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tom Douglas Spies claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tom Douglas Spies before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tom Douglas Spies ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tom Douglas Spies

In research: Tom Douglas Spies appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tom Douglas Spies in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tom Douglas Spies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1902 births, 1960 deaths, American food scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tom Douglas Spies outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tom Douglas Spies in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tom Douglas Spies means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tom Douglas Spies out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tom Douglas Spies in simple terms?

Dr. Tom Douglas Spies (September 21, 1902 in Ravenna, Texas – February 28, 1960 in New York City) was a distinguished American physician and medical educator.

Why does Tom Douglas Spies matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tom Douglas Spies?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tom Douglas Spies.