1937 to 1944 Cardiac Hormone Therapy archive

Item Details

USA & Sweden, various, 1937-1944

fine

1937-1944 correspondence of Admiral F. R. Harris with George Zuelzer about recommending him for a Nobel Prize - recognition for his discoveries in the treatment of diabetes and heart disease. 12 letters plus a printed promotion for the heart hormone Cortunon, distributed by the Anglo-French Drug Co. in Montreal. George Ludwig Zuelzer (1870-1949) emigrated from Berlin to NY in 1934. His work using pancreatic extracts to treat diabetes, at first in dogs, was interrupted by the German military in WWI. This set of papers recommends him for a Nobel Prize in 1944 and details some of his other medical accomplishments. In America, Zuelzer worked on a “heart hormone,” Cortunon, which he believed would help strengthen the hearts of American soldiers in World War II. Admiral F. R. Harris, an innovative engineer for dry docks and the man responsible for the New York Navy Yard, here recommends Zuelzer to the Nobel Association in 1944 after receiving Zuelzer’s hormone therapy himself. In 1945, he additionally writes about Zuelzer’s work with “Zulzyme,” experimentally used to treat malaria. He tells Captain L. T. Coggeshall of the U. S. Naval Hospital, “I am very much interested in this as I would, of course, like to see our military forces armed with further means of attack on malaria.” Neither Zulzyme nor Cortunon earned the award Zuelzer and Harris hoped for, but this set of letters illustrates the connection and respect between the genius military engineer and the medically visionary Jewish refugee.