Introduction
Soma Weiss (1898–1942) was a Hungarian-born American physician.
Early life
Soma Weiss was born in 1898 in Beszterce, Transylvania, then part of Hungary. He studied physiology and biochemistry in Budapest. Immediately after the end of World War I, he immigrated to the United States and qualified in medicine in 1923.
Ernest Sachs, Jr., a neurosurgeon who was Goldman Sachs's founder Marcus Goldman's great-grandson, was Weiss's cousin.
Career
After initially working at Cornell University, Weissmoved to Harvard Medical School, and in 1939 became physician-in-chief and professor at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. He published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, the majority relating to cardiovascular diseases and pharmacology.
Death and legacy
Weiss died suddenly in 1942, aged only 43 years, secondary to a ruptured intracranial aneurysm. An annual lecture in his name is held at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in his honour - The Soma Weiss Award. Harvard celebrated 75th Soma Weiss Student Research Day to honor him in January 2015.
Medical achievements
- He was the first to describe the carotid sinus hypersensitivity syndrome
- In 1925, with Hermann Blumgart performed the first application of in-vivo circulating blood radioactive tracers
- In 1929, with G. Kenneth Mallory described hemorrhagic lacerations of the cardiac orifice of the stomach due to vomiting: Mallory-Weiss syndrome