Soma Weiss

Soma Weiss (1898-1942) was born in Beszterce, Transylvania, then part of Hungary. He studied physiology and biochemistry in Budapest. Immediately after the end of World War I, he emigrated to the United States and qualified in medicine in 1923. After initially working at Cornell University, Weiss moved 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. He 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.

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