Alfred Baring Garrod

Alfred Baring Garrod (1819 - 1907) was an English physician who was a native of Ipswich. He was the father of physician Archibald Edward Garrod (1857-1936) and zoologist Alfred Henry Garrod (1846-1879).

He initially apprenticed at Ipswich Hospital, and later moved to University College Hospital, where he earned his medical doctorate in 1843. Afterwards he was an assistant at West London Hospital and a physician at the Aldersgate Dispensary. In 1849 be was appointed full physician at University College Hospital, and in 1863 became a professor of materia medica and therapeutics at King's College Hospital.

In 1848 Garrod discovered an abnormal increase of uric acid in the blood of patients with gout, and was the first to propose lithium as a remedy for the disorder. He recommended lithium as a treatment for mental illness, and hypothesized that gout could be a cause of mood disorders such as mania and depression. He is also credited for coining the term "rheumatoid arthritis".

In 1887 he was knighted as "Sir Alfred Baring Garrod", and in 1890 was appointed "Physician Extraordinary" to Queen Victoria.

Selected writings

* "Observations on the blood and urine of gout, rheumatism and Bright's disease"; Medical Chirurgical Transactions 1848;31:83.
* "Treatise on nature and treatment of gout and rheumatic gout"; London: Walton and Maberly, 1859.
* "A treatise on gout and rheumatic gout (rheumatoid arthritis)"; 3rd edn. London: Longman Green, 1876.

References

* [http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/10/1189 Rheumatology, Heberden Historical Series, Biography of Alfred Baring Garrod]
* [http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862000000400014&nrm=iso&tlng=pt Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Lithium treatment for bipolar disorder]