Armand James Quick

As a boy Armand James Quick contracted tuberculosis of the cervical spine, giving him a permanent handicap with restricted motion of his neck. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin as a chemistry major, Phi Beta Kappa, and in 1920 earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois. He subsequently worked at the Philadelphia General Hospital, and the University of Pennsylvania, before he began his medical studies. He obtained his M.D. in 1928 at Cornell, New York. After serving his internship he found a job in a research lab on New York City's Fifth Avenue. One of his co-workers at the thrombosis lab was Dr. Margaret Stanley-Brown, President Garfield's Granddaughter.

The depression caused him to return home to Wisconsin to set up a medical practice, but in 1935 he was offered an assistant professorship at Marquette’s medical school, where he later became Quick became Chairman of Biochemistry, a position he held until retirement.

Quick’s early research interests lay in the fields of liver function and blood clotting. His test, developed in 1932 with F. Bancroft and Margaret Stanley-Brown, commenced a new era in coagulation and with it he defined a number of coagulation deficiencies for the first time, including factor II and VII deficiencies. He also developed a test for liver function based on the synthesis of hippuric acid in 1933.

In his later years Quick drew attention to the effects of aspirin on haemostasis and was able first to show that aspiring could prolong the skin bleeding time. This was met with ridicule, but later his original work led to studies on the affect aspirin might have in preventing strokes and heart attacks.

Armand James Quick died at the age of 83.

"...As far as old age is concerned, I myself would be very disturbed if I happened to get a stroke or a heart attack and, at my age, to be rushed to a hospital or to have an emergency operation. I think that at my age, you have the right to die in a dignified manner, which means you don't die with needless in your veins, an oxygen mask over your head."
Quick to Milwaukee Sentinel reporter Dan Patrinos a year before he died.

"What was most amazing about his research was that he made so many important medical contributions on such a tiny budget." The outlay for medical equipment used by Dr. Collentine under Dr. Quick's guidance was a princely one hundred dollars."
George Collentine, MD, who began his study under Quick's guidance

"Dr. Quick was always a lone wolf and a scrapper,: Dr. Madison once said. "But among the coagulationists you had to be a scrapper.. Their meetings were characterized by sometimes abusive disagreement. Armand always held his ground."
Frederick W, Madison, MD, Clinical professor of medicine at
Marquette medical school and an old friend and personal physician to Quick.

• Edith M. Ebel:
  The Quick Tests: The Life and Work of Dr. Armand J. Quick.
  Blacksburg, VA, Pocahontas Press, 1995. 454 pages. Paperback, July 2001.