E.W. Goodpasture
E.W. Goodpasture (born October 17, 1886, Montgomery county, Tennessee, U.S.βdied September 20, 1960, Nashville, Tennessee) was an American pathologist whose method (1931) for cultivating viruses and rickettsia in fertile chicken eggs made possible the production of vaccines for such diseases as smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and other illnesses caused by agents that can be propagated only in living tissue.
Goodpasture spent most of his career (1924β55) at the medical school of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Citation Information
Article Title:
E.W. Goodpasture
Website Name:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published:
13 October 2025
Access Date:
November 14, 2026