National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is mentioned as a prestigious institution that recognized physician-scientist Thomas Addis, electing him to membership in 1944. In the book’s account, the election marks the standing he had earned through a long career in medical research, alongside his continuing involvement in public and political life.

Membership and Recognition

Addis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1944. The book presents this as a significant professional distinction, placing the election near the culmination of a career that had made him a leading American authority on kidney disease. It does not describe the Academy’s organization or the circumstances of the election.

Thomas Addis’s Scientific Career

Born in 1881 and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Addis pursued postdoctoral research in Berlin and Heidelberg before becoming chief of the Clinical Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1911. He became a physician-scientist and a pioneer in treating kidney disease. His research included demonstrating that normal plasma could be used to treat hemophilia; he also wrote two books on nephritis and more than 130 scientific papers. The account identifies him as America’s leading expert on nephritis by the time of his Academy election.

Professional and Public Life

The Academy membership is one element in a portrait of Addis that joins scientific distinction to political engagement. Despite his privileged background, he was active in public causes: he advocated civil rights for Black people, Jews, and union members, signed petitions, and supported civic organizations. His recognition by the Academy thus appears alongside, rather than in place of, a life extending beyond professional science. The book supplies this membership as a credential in Addis’s biography, not as evidence of any institutional role the Academy played in the events it recounts.