Robert Crane | Noted biochemist, 90
Robert Crane, 90, a biochemist whose discoveries about how salt and sugar are absorbed by the body led to the development of oral rehydration therapy, died Oct. 31 at his home in Fayette County, Tenn.
Robert Crane, 90, a biochemist whose discoveries about how salt and sugar are absorbed by the body led to the development of oral rehydration therapy, died Oct. 31 at his home in Fayette County, Tenn.
The rehydration therapy is used to treat people with cholera or severe diarrhea and has been credited with saving millions of lives, particularly in developing nations where clean drinking water is scarce.
Dr. Crane was researching metabolism at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis when he discovered that sodium and glucose are most efficiently absorbed in the small intestine when mixed together. The breakthrough was described by the British medical journal the Lancet in 1978 as "potentially the most important medical advance this century."
Robert Kellogg Crane was born in Palmyra, Burlington County. He held a Ph.D. in medical sciences from Harvard. He was chairman of the biochemistry department at the Chicago Medical School and the department of physiology and biophysics at the Rutgers Medical School.
After his 1986 retirement, he and his wife, Laura Jane Crane, built horse farms in New Jersey and then Tennessee.
- AP