Schick, Bela
SCHICK, BELA
SCHICK, BELA (1877–1967), pediatrician. Born in Boglar, Hungary, Schick became an assistant at the Children's Clinic in Vienna and later associate professor of pediatrics at Vienna University. He left Austria for the U.S. and, in 1923, became pediatrician in chief at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, and in 1936 clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University. Schick was famous for his discovery of a skin test for determining susceptibility to diphtheria, known as the Schick test. This test enabled early diagnosis and treatment and thus made it possible to save thousands of lives. He also made important studies on scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and the nutrition of infants. He described a symptom for tuberculosis of the bronchial glands, known as the Schick sign. His publications include The Serum Diseases (with C. Pirquet, 1905), Scarlet Fever (with Th. Escherich, 1912), and Diphtheria (1931).
bibliography:
S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 367.
[Suessmann Muntner]