Peter K. Olitsky

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Peter Kosciusko Olitsky (August 20, 1886, New York City – July 20, 1964, Greenwich, Connecticut) was an American physician, pathologist, and microbiologist. He gained an international reputation as a pioneer in virology

Biography[edit]

Olitsky graduated in 1909 with an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College (now called Weill Cornell Medical College). From 1909 to 1911 he was a medical intern at Manhattan's St. Mark's Hospital located at 66 St. Mark's Place. From 1912 to 1913 he worked as a bacteriologist for New York City's Department of Health. From 1913 to 1917 he was a pathologist at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital.[1] During WW I he was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. In 1917 he became an associate in pathology and microbiology in the department headed by Simon Flexner at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.[2] There Olitsky was promoted to associate member in 1923 and full member in 1930,[1] retiring with emeritus status in 1952.

He collaborated from 1925 to 1927 with the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture. Beginning in 1930 he was a consultant in pathology for Connecticut's Greenwich Hospital. He was a member of an official panel of zoonosis experts, consulting for the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.[2]

Olitsky was a pioneer in research on neurotropic viruses, especially poliomyelitis. He did considerable research on arthropod-borne viruses and their pathogenic effects in mammalian diseases.[2] As one of Harry Plotz's collaborators, he did research on typhus.[3] Olitsky investigated epidemic diseases of viral or rickettsial origin in Mexico from 1916 to 1917,[1] in China in 1918,[4] in Europe from 1925 to 1926, in Bermuda in 1927, in Switzerland in 1930, and in Egypt in 1933.[1] In 1916 Olitsky and Dr. Carlos E. Husk,[5] as members of an expedition sent by the Rockefeller Foundation to help against a typhus epidemic in Mexico, both became sick with typhus fever. Husk died on March 20, 1916.[6] Olitsky's research in Bermuda might have been, in part, a vacation.[7] He did important research on the bacteriological cultivation of tobacco mosaic virus.[8] In the 1920s, he, in collaboration with Frederick L. Gates (1853–1929), erroneously suggested that Bacterium pneumosintes (now called Dialister pneumosintes) causes influenza.[9][10][11] In the 1930s, Albert Sabin and Peter Olitsky succeeded in using human brain cell tissue cultures to culture poliomyelitis virus.[12] In the late 1930s, Sabin and Olitsky coauthored a considerable number of papers.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] According to Irwin W. Sherman, Olitsky regarded Sabin as a genius.[21] At the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Olitsky's laboratory provided training for many notable polio researchers, including Jordi Casals i Ariet, Herald R. Cox, Isabel Morgan, Albert Sabin, R. Walter Schlesinger (1914–2003), and Jerome T. Syverton.[22]

Olitsky was elected in 1925 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[23]

He was the second husband of Frances Kidder Olitsky (1889–1994). Her first husband was George Prentice Tubby (1886–1915), the father of Roger Wellington Tubby. Peter and Frances Olitsky were married in 1920 and had a daughter, Ruth Kidder Olitsky, who married the historian Nicolai Rubinstein.[24][2]

Selected publications[edit]

  • Olitsky, Peter K.; Kligler, I. J. (1920). "Toxins and Antitoxins of Bacillus Dysenteriæ Shiga". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 31 (1): 19–33. doi:10.1084/jem.31.1.19. PMC 2128219. PMID 19868386.
  • Olitsky, P. K.; Long, P. H. (1929). "Relation of Vaccinal Immunity to the Persistence of the Virus in Rabbits". The Journal of Experimental Medicine. 50 (3): 263–272. doi:10.1084/jem.50.3.263. PMC 2131631. PMID 19869620.
  • Olitsky, P. K. (1939). "Viral Effect Produced by Intestinal Contents of Normal Mice and of Those Having Spontaneous Encephalomyelitis". Experimental Biology and Medicine. 41 (2): 434–437. doi:10.3181/00379727-41-10701. S2CID 88301042.
  • Olitsky, Peter K. (1939). "Experimental Studies of the Virus of Infectious Avian Encephalomyelitis". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 70 (6): 565–582. doi:10.1084/jem.70.6.565. PMC 2133774. PMID 19870931.
  • Olitsky, Peter K.; Yager, Robert H. (1949). "Experimental Disseminated Encephalomyelitis in White Mice". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 90 (3): 213–224. doi:10.1084/jem.90.3.213. PMC 2135907. PMID 18137295.
  • Olitsky, P. K.; Tal, C. (1952). "Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis Produced in Mice by Brain Proteolipide (Folch-Lees)". Experimental Biology and Medicine. 79 (1): 50–53. doi:10.3181/00379727-79-19269. PMID 14892035. S2CID 21977865.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Cattell, Jaques, ed. (1949). American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Science Press. p. 1855.
  2. ^ a b c d "Dr. Peter K. Olitsky Dead at 76; Was Pioneer in Virus Research; Rockefeller Institute Member for 35 Years Studied Pathological Agents". The New York Times. July 22, 1964. p. 33. pdf from Digital Resource Commons, University of Cincinnati
  3. ^ "A few observations on the symptomatology and etiology of the endemic form of typhus fever by Nathan E. Brill". Contributions to medical and biological research v. 1. New York: Paul B. Hoeber. 1919. pp. 347–358.
  4. ^ "Scientific Notes and News". Science. 47: 437. May 3, 1918.
  5. ^ Olitsky, Peter K.; Denzer, Bernard S.; Husk, Carlos E. (1916). "The Etiology of Typhus Fever in Mexico (Tabardillo)". Journal of the American Medical Association. LXVI (22): 1692–1693. doi:10.1001/jama.1916.02580480026012.
  6. ^ "General Notes and News". Western Medical Review. Western Medical Review Company: 252. May 1916.
  7. ^ Maramorosch, Karl (3 December 2015). The Thorny Road to Success: A Memoir. iUniverse. ISBN 9781491754092.
  8. ^ Creager, Angela N. H. (2002). The Life of a Virus: Tobacco Mosaic Virus as an Experimental Model, 1930-1965. University of Chicago Press. p. 41. ISBN 9780226120256.
  9. ^ Crosby, Alfred M. (21 July 2003). America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107394018.
  10. ^ Devlin, R. K. (30 October 2008). Influenza. ABC-Clio. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9780313342608.
  11. ^ Devlin, R. K. (2 December 2020). What You Need to Know about the Flu. ABC-Clio. p. 14. ISBN 9781440870088.
  12. ^ Lewis, Milton James (2007). Medicine and Care of the Dying: A Modern History. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-19-517548-6.
  13. ^ Sabin, A. B.; Olitsky, P. K. (1936). "Cultivation of Poliomyelitis Virus in vitro in Human Embryonic Nervous Tissue". Experimental Biology and Medicine. 34 (3): 357–359. doi:10.3181/00379727-34-8619C. S2CID 88316399.
  14. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1937). "Toxoplasma and Obligate Intracellular Parasitism". Science. 85 (2205): 336–338. Bibcode:1937Sci....85..336S. doi:10.1126/science.85.2205.336. PMID 17815128.
  15. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1937). "The Olfactory Bulbs in Experimental Poliomyelitis". Journal of the American Medical Association. 108: 21. doi:10.1001/jama.1937.02780010023005.
  16. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1937). "Influence of Host Factors on Neuroinvasiveness of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. I. Effect of Age on the Invasion of the Brain by Virus Instilled in the Mouse". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 66 (1): 15–34. doi:10.1084/jem.66.1.15. PMC 2133585. PMID 19870647.
  17. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1937). "Influence of Host Factors on Neuroinvasiveness of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. II. Effect of Age on the Invasion of the Peripheral and Central Nervous Systems by Virus Injected into the Leg Muscles or the Eye". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 66 (1): 35–57. doi:10.1084/jem.66.1.35. PMC 2133588. PMID 19870648.
  18. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1938). "Influence of Host Factors on Neuroinvasiveness of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. III. Effect of Age and Pathway of Infection on the Character and Localization of Lesions in the Central Nervous System". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 67 (2): 201–228. doi:10.1084/jem.67.2.201. PMC 2133559. PMID 19870715.
  19. ^ Sabin, Albert B.; Olitsky, Peter K. (1938). "Influence of Host Factors on Neuroinvasiveness of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. IV. Variations in Neuroinvasiveness in Different Species". Journal of Experimental Medicine. 67 (2): 229–249. doi:10.1084/jem.67.2.229. PMC 2133557. PMID 19870716.
  20. ^ Sabin, A. B.; Olitsky, P. K. (1938). "Variations in Pathways by Which Equine Encephalomyelitic Viruses Invade the GNS of Mice and Guinea-pigs". Experimental Biology and Medicine. 38 (4): 595–597. doi:10.3181/00379727-38-9948p. S2CID 86957184.
  21. ^ Sherman, Irwin W. (2020). The Power of Plagues. John Wiley & Sons. p. 257.
  22. ^ Benison, Saul (1994). "Book Review: Dirt and Diseasee: Polio Before FDR by Naomi Rogers". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 49 (2): 302–306. doi:10.1093/jhmas/49.2.302. p. 306
  23. ^ "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  24. ^ Axtell, Carson A. (1945). "Ninth Generation. 9-164". Axtell Genealogy, 1945. Darwin Press, printers.

External links[edit]

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