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Fuller Albright (January 12, 1900 – December 8, 1969) was an American endocrinology who made numerous contributions to his field, especially to the area of calcium metabolism. Albright made great strides and contributions to the understanding of disorders associated with calcium and phosphate abnormalities in the body. He also was a published author and in his books he detailed his findings.
The family was descended from Andrew Albright, a gunsmith who supplied arms to the troops of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, who had come to America in 1750. Joseph was a coal agent for Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and eventually, President of the First National Bank.
He was subsequently assistant resident to Warfield Longcope at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he performed numerous experiments often without realizing their significance together with his friend John Eager Howard. He then spent a year in Vienna with pathologist Jakob Erdheim.
Albright is credited with numerous discoveries in medicine. He described polyostotic fibrous dysplasia (a version of this disease with an endocrine component was later called McCune–Albright syndrome), the clinical and pathological features and different types of hyperparathyroidism (excessive production of parathyroid hormone by the parathyroid glands), the mechanism of Cushing's syndrome, and renal tubular acidosis (inability of the to regulate the acid-base balance in the body), and recognized the importance of menopause on osteoporosis. He also delineated forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Known for Lightwood–Albright syndrome, a neonatal form of renal tubular acidosis.F. Albright, W. V. Consolazio, F. S. Coombs, J. H. Talbot; H. W. Sulkowitch. Metabolic studies and therapy in a case of nephrocalcinosis with rickets and dwarfism. Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, 1940, 66: 7–33.
Since 1981, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research has every year given the Fuller Albright Award in recognition of meritorious scientific accomplishment in the field of bone and mineral research.
Albright developed Parkinson's disease in 1937. By 1956 his symptoms were so intractable that he underwent experimental brain surgery, chemical pallidotomy (obliteration of the globus pallidus by injection of ethanol). The intervention on the right was a success, but the left-sided procedure was complicated by haemorrhage, which left him aphasia and comatose for the remaining 13 years of his life, during which he was nursed at Massachusetts General Hospital. (Later, Claire married Richard Horace Bassett (1900-1995), an artist and writer.)
Career
In the early 1930s he returned to Boston, where he became a member of the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). At MGH, he rapidly developed an endocrinology research group. In 1939, he began a longtime research collaboration with Anne Pappenheimer Forbes.
Appointments and honors
In 1941 Albright was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (1943–1944), the Association for the Study of Internal Secretions (1945–1946) and the Endocrine Society (1946–1947). In 1955 he was elected to the National Academy of the Sciences.
Personal life
In 1930, he met Claire Birge (1906-1990) of Greenwich, Connecticut, daughter of Walter William Birge and Mabelle Clair Brown, and by 1933, they were married. As a wedding present, Albright's father bought them a house in Brookline, Massachusetts next door to conductor Serge Koussevitzky. Together, they had two sons:
Death and legacy
Albright died on 8 December 1969. The Albright's dimple sign is named for him.
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