- Person
- Béla Schick
- Lived
- 1877–1967
- Field
- Pediatrics, immunology
- From
- Hungarian-American
The story
Béla Schick was born in Hungary in 1877 and grew up in a Jewish family in Graz, Austria, where he trained as a doctor. In 1902 he joined the children's clinic of the University of Vienna. At that time diphtheria was one of the great killers of children. The bacterium settles in the throat and releases a toxin that can block the airway and damage the heart and nerves. In the United States the disease struck about 100,000 people in 1927 and caused about 10,000 deaths.
Doctors already had a weapon: antitoxin made from the blood of horses. But the horse serum often caused serum sickness, a painful reaction of rashes, fever and swollen joints, so doctors did not want to give it to children who did not need it. The problem was knowing who did. Some children had already built up their own protection; others had none.
Schick's answer, announced in 1913, was remarkably simple. A doctor injected a tiny amount of diluted diphtheria toxin into the skin of the arm. If the spot turned red and swollen over the next few days, the child lacked protective antibodies and was vulnerable. If little or nothing happened, the child was already immune. The test was cheap, quick and easy to read, and it made Schick famous around the world.
After he moved to New York in 1923 to become pediatrician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, Schick helped lead a five-year campaign against diphtheria. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company distributed 85 million pieces of literature urging parents to save your child from diphtheria. As toxoid vaccines came into use, the Schick test let doctors check whether immunization had worked and whether protection lasted. The campaign is credited with virtually eliminating the disease.
Once safer toxoids made it routine to vaccinate every child, the test was no longer needed. In the United States, where diphtheria once caused 100,000 to 200,000 cases a year in the 1920s, only 11 cases were reported between 2000 and 2025.
Why it matters
The diphtheria vaccines that protect about 110 million babies a year continue the work Schick's test began: identifying who lacks immunity and making sure every child is protected.
About Béla Schick
Hungarian-born pediatrician whose simple skin test for diphtheria helped turn a leading killer of children into a rare disease, and who helped found the study of allergy.
More about Béla Schick
Sources
- Bela Schick Jewish Virtual Library
- Schick, Bela (1877-1967) Encyclopedia.com (World of Microbiology and Immunology)
- Diphtheria World Health Organization
- Schick test Wikipedia
- Diphtheria Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.