In refining the technique of cardiac catheterization, Dickinson Woodruff Richards made significant contributions to the study of cardiopulmonary function in human patients. In collaboration with his colleague André F. Cournand, Richards elaborated upon earlier research by German physician Werner Forssmann, leading ultimately to the discovery of how pulmonary efficiency could be measured. For their work, Richards, Cournand, and Forssmann shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology.

Richards was born in Orange, New Jersey to Sally (Lambert) and Dickinson Woodruff Richards. Richards' maternal grandfather practiced general medicine in New York City, as did three of Richards' uncles; all either received their training or were otherwise affiliated with Bellevue Hospital or Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, where Richards himself would eventually study.

Richards received his A.B. from Yale University in 1917, and three months later enlisted in the United States Army, serving in France with the...