William P. Murphy received the 1934 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his role in the discovery of liver as the successful dietary treatment for pernicious anemia, a deadly disorder in which bone marrow ceases to produce the fully mature red blood cells needed to carry oxygen to all parts of the body. Murphy's professional persistence following the discovery led to the simple, effective, and inexpensive treatment of the disease by intramuscular injection of a highly-concentrated liver extract.

Murphy shared the Nobel Prize with George Hoyt Whipple, who had observed that a diet of liver, kidney, meat, and vegetables had a regenerative effect on the blood of dogs in which he had induced anemia; and George Richards Minot, who, building on Whipple's research, isolated liver as the effective dietary factor. Murphy and Minot collaborated on the highly successful study in which pernicious anemia patients were fed one-quarter to...