Physician and medical researcher. Raised by two physician parents (though they were Jewish, Beutler's mother was the pediatrician for the Goebbels children), he moved to Milwaukee with his family in 1935, entered the University of Chicago at 15, and received his M.D. in 1950, valedictorian of his class. While in the Army in the early 1950s, he discovered G-6PD deficiency, a hereditary enzyme defect that leads to a severe hemolytic anemia in some individuals who take antimalarial drugs and certain other medications. He also studied Q fever while stationed at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Dr. Beutler made contributions to the knowledge of iron metabolism while on the University of Chicago faculty (which led to much later discoveries in the study of hemochromatosis, a significant cause of diabetes and hepatic cirrhosis). He became chairman of the department of medicine at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, in 1959, and assumed chairmanship of the department of clinical research at Scripps Clinic in 1979, remaining in that position until a few days before his death. While in California, he purified the enzyme responsible for Tay-Sachs disease, discovered both a test and treatment for Gaucher's disease, and developed a neonatal screening test for galactosemia. He and his group developed a single drug regimen, 2-CdA, that successfully treats the majority of patients with hairy cell leukemia...the drug was tried on chronic lymphocytic leukemia with much less success, and is now being used for multiple sclerosis. Dr. Beutler was founding editor of "Williams Hematology" in the 1970s, holding the position until his death. He was president of the American Society of Hematology in 1979, and received the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1975, as well as an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University. Ironically, he died of lymphoma.