Blacks Who Should Have Won Nobel Prizes
- By
MadameNoire
4. Percy Lavon Julian (1899-1975)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Percy Julian synthesized and identified physostigmine, a drug used to treat glaucoma and to improve memory in Alzheimer’s patients. It was also used as an antidote to nerve gas. Julian, who was born in Montgomery, AL, as the grandson of a slave, devised a way of filtering the chemicals in soybean oil to allow quantity production of hormones for medical applications. He acquired more than 115 patents in his career. One was for a foam used to extinguish oil and gasoline fires during World War II.
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