astronomy

William P. Murphy

William P. Murphy is a astronomy 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 William P. Murphy rather than just read about it. In short: William Parry Murphy Sr. (February 6, 1892 – October 9, 1987) was an American physician who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George Richards Minot and George Hoyt Whipple for their combined work in devising and treating macrocytic anemia (specifically, pernicious anemia).

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

William Parry Murphy Sr. (February 6, 1892 – October 9, 1987) was an American physician who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George Richards Minot and George Hoyt Whipple for their combined work in devising and treating macrocytic anemia (specifically, pernicious anemia).

Early life Murphy was born on February 6, 1892, at Stoughton, Wisconsin and moved to Condon, Oregon as a youth. His father, Thomas Francis Murphy, was a congregational minister of English and Irish heritage. His mother, Rosa Anna Parry, was of a Welsh landowning background. Murphy was educated at the public schools of Wisconsin and Oregon. He completed his A.B. degree in 1914 from the University of Oregon. He completed his M.D. in 1922 from Harvard Medical School.

Career

Murphy's later work in pernicious anemia would build on that of Whipple. In 1924, Whipple bled dogs to make them anemic (work inspired by war injury work), and then fed them various substances to gauge their improvement. He discovered that ingesting large amounts of liver seemed to restore anemia more quickly of all foods. Minot and Whipple then set about to chemically isolate the curative substance. These investigations showed that iron in the liver was responsible for curing anemia from bleeding, but meanwhile liver had been tried on people with pernicious anemia and some effect was seen there, also. The active ingredient in this case, found serendipitously, was not iron, but rather a water-soluble extract containing a new substance. From this extract, chemists were ultimately able to isolate vitamin B12 from the liver. Even before the vitamin had been completely characterized, the knowledge that raw liver and its extracts treated pernicious anemia (previously a terminal disease) was a major advance in medicine. Minot and Murphy's famous paper Treatment of pernicious anemia by a special diet was published in 1926. In 1930, Murphy was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh with George Minot. In 1951, Murphy was one of seven Nobel Laureates who attended the 1st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

Personal life Murphy married Pearl Harriett Adams (died 1980) on September 10, 1919. They had a son, William P. Murphy Jr., and a daughter, Priscilla Adams. Murphy died on October 9, 1987 in Brookline, Massachusetts at the age of 95.

References

External links William Parry Murphy papers, 1906-1987 (inclusive), 1919-1987 (bulk), HMS c284. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Center for the History of Medicine Archived 2013-01-16 at the Wayback Machine, Harvard Medical School William P. Murphy on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1934 Pernicious Anemia

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with William P. Murphy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what William P. Murphy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, 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 William P. Murphy 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 William P. Murphy 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 William P. Murphy

In research: William P. Murphy appears in astronomy 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 William P. Murphy 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: William P. Murphy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1892 births, 1987 deaths, 20th-century American people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for William P. Murphy 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 William P. Murphy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what William P. Murphy 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 William P. Murphy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is William P. Murphy in simple terms?

Why does William P. Murphy matter?

Because it connects several astronomy 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 William P. Murphy?

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 William P. Murphy.