born Sept. 9, 1923, Yonkers, N.Y., U.S.
U.S. physician and researcher.
He received his M.D. from Harvard University. He provided the first medical description of the central-nervous-system disorder kuru, unique to the Fore people of New Guinea, and concluded that it was spread by their funeral custom of ritually eating the deceased's brains. With Clarence Gibbs, Jr., he proposed that it was caused by an extremely slow-acting virus. Though kuru is now known to be caused by prions, his study had significant implications for research into multiple sclerosis, parkinsonism, and other degenerative neurological conditions. He shared a 1976 Nobel Prize with Baruch S. Blumberg .