History of Medicine

 WILLIAM BEAN: WINNER OF 2025

IG NOBEL PRIZE

 

         You may have heard of an interesting publication entitled the Journal of Improbable Research. Each year the publishers award a group of “Ig Nobel” Prizes to investigators whose research produces exceptional work that makes people “laugh, then think.” This year the Ig Nobel Prize for literature, not medicine, went to Dr. William Bennett Bean. The writings in medical journals that earned him the prize, given posthumously, are entitled:

 

“A Note on Fingernail Growth”

“A Discourse on Nail Growth and Unusual Fingernails”

“Nail Growth: Twenty-Five Years’ Observation”

“Nail Growth: 30 Years of Observation”

“Nail Growth. Thirty-Five Years of Observation”

“Some Notes of an Aging Nail Watcher”

 

         In the final paper on the list he wrote, “The impetus to study nail growth is analogous to the curiosity that leads observers to look at tree rings, the baleen plate of the whale, or the growth of the tooth of the bear.”

         In fact, Dr. Bean’s contributions to literature and to medicine extended well beyond the above list and deserve mention. He was

William Bennett Bean (Wikipedia)

born in Manila in 1909, when his father served as head of the anatomy department of the University of the Philippines. The family moved to Virginia, where William went to university and medical school, after which he completed house officer training in Boston. He joined the faculty at the University of Cincinnati Medical School where he embarked, in the pre-WWII years, on studies of pellagra.                   

             Pellagra, a nutritional deficiency disease due to lack of niacin in the diet, was prevalent in early twentieth-century America, especially in southern states. Joseph Goldberger, a careful investigator and one of our first epidemiologists, disproved a prevalent theory that it was an

Patient with pellagra, showing skin changes exacerbated by
sun exposure (Wikipedia)

infectious disease and demonstrated the culprit to be a diet common among the poor, largely composed of corn, that was deficient in niacin. Bean conducted some of the earliest studies treating pellagra with these agents, establishing himself as an expert on nutrition. 

         As 1942 dawned, America was at war. Bean, with a team of investigators at the Kettering Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, joined the Armored Medical Research Laboratory, concerned with preparations for desert tank warfare in North Africa. Bean and his team investigated problems of heat tolerance and, as a recognized nutritionist, how to improve soldiers’ hard-to-stomach C-Rations. Heat studies were conducted in the California desert, where a temperature-controlled room was constructed in which human subjects spent 9 hours at 120 degrees, performing work, and the remainder at 90 degrees (rest-time). They found that, after acclimatization, salt virtually disappeared from urine and sweat, that thirst was a poor guide to dehydration, and that with adequate water intake and balanced diet salt tablets were unnecessary. Humid heat at 95 degrees made physiological demands similar to dry heat at 120 degrees. Many design problems in tanks were improved to better accommodate human crew.

         Dietary and nutritional requirements were studied intensively and daily requirements of vitamins, calories, etc. worked out. C-Rations were infamous for their lack of acceptance. New “K-Rations” fared equally poorly: “even desert rodents avoided them,” according to Bean. Studies made clear that even the tastiest diet proved unpleasant if repeated too often, a problem resolved by increased variety and flavor in the K-Rations. Troops in combat surviving on Bean's improved K-Rations for weeks at a time were grateful for the change. In 1944, the Army produced 105 million K-Rations. 

Samples of K-Rations (Wikipedia)

         Bean and his colleagues, working at Fort Knox, also studied the metabolism and dosage of the antimalarial atabrine, used as a substitute for quinine whose supplies the Japanese had taken over in Asia. These studies established a regimen used successfully in the Pacific theater, where Bean also visited.

Malaria patient, New Guinea, WWII (National Archives)

         After the war, Bean returned to academic medicine in Cincinnati and continued with physiologic studies. He also served as chief of medicine at the University of Iowa and as Director of the Institute for Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. His final move was back to the University of Iowa in 1980. He died in 1989, much revered. He wrote several papers on skin manifestations of disease and was highly valued as a teacher.

            A literature prize is appropriate for Dr. Bean for several reasons, aside from his musings on fingernails. In addition to his skills as a clinician, teacher, and investigator, he was known for his wide reading in the humanities, his wit, and his writing. He was book editor at the Archives of Internal Medicine from 1955 to 1963 and chief editor for four additional years. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences for several years. He wrote numerous book reviews and articles on a variety of topics on the periphery of medicine, such as the role of religion in medicine, climatology, ethics, medical history and tips on good writing. He deplored the benumbed style of much medical writing, which often “condemns the reader to a Chinese water torture of the mind.” 

         Other Bean writings include an excellent biography of Walter Reed and a witty poem entitled “Omphalosophy: An Inquiry into the Inner (and Outer) Significance of the Belly Button.” 

         He was an admirer of William Osler, who was chief of the medical service at John Hopkins Hospital for many years and was, at the time, perhaps the physician best known to the public. Bean co-founded the American Osler Society, dedicated to the principles that Osler espoused, including the importance to physicians of the humanities and the history of medicine, and he published a book of Osler’s aphorisms.

         Though the Ig Nobel prize is partly in jest, the award to Bean highlights the career of an influential physician, devoted to medicine, literature, and the humanities.

           A happy holiday season to all!

           I'll see you in January.

 

SOURCES:

Series of articles on William Bean’s life and writings in AMA Arch Int Med, 1974; 134 (5): 809-877.

 

Bean, W B, “Omphalosophy: An Inquiry into the Inner (and Outer) Significance of the Belly Button.” 1974; AMA Arch Int Med 134 (5): 866-70.

 

Bean, W B, “Nail Growth: Thirty-five Years of Observation.” 1980; AMA Arch Int Med 140 (1) 73-6.

 

Massey, R U, “William Bennett Bean, 1909-1989: Clinical Scholar and Historian of Medicine.” 1989; J Hist Med Allied Sci 44: 285-87.

 

Koehler, F A, “Army Operational Rations: Historical Background.” 1958; Quartermaster Corps Historical Studies Series II, number 6. Accessed at: https://qmmuseum.army.mil/research/history-heritage/subsistence/Army-Operational-Rations-Historical-background.html

 

Bean, W B, “Field Testing of Army Rations.” 1948; J Appl Physiol 1 (6): 448-57.

 

Bean, W B, “The Ecology of the Soldier in World War II.” 1968; Persp Biol Med 11 (4): 675-86.

 

A full index of past essays is available at: https://museumofmedicalhistory.org/j-gordon-frierson%2C-md