Minot (left) and Murphy seen here reading the announcement that they, along with Dr. George H. Whipple, would share the Nobel Prize for Medicine. William Parry Murphy (February 6, 1892 - October 9, 1987) was an American physician and medical researcher. In 1924, Murphy bled dogs to make them anemic, and then fed them various substances to gauge their improvement. He discovered that ingesting large amounts of liver seemed to restore anemia more quickly of all foods. Minot and Whipple then set about to chemically isolate the curative substance. The active ingredient, found serendipitously, was not iron, but rather a water-soluble extract containing a new substance. From this extract, chemists were ultimately were able to isolate vitamin B12 from the liver. He died at the age of 95. George Richards Minot (December 2, 1885 - February 25, 1950) was an American medical researcher. In 1915, he secured a junior position on the medical staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he started research on blood anemia. He shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with William Murphy and George Whipple for their work on the treatment of blood anemia. He died in 1950 at the age of 64.