Memories and Reflections

1 Memories and Reflections By Professor A. V. Hill Transcribed and edited from the files held by Churchill College by Roger Thomas Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience University of Cambridge 2 Brief Biography Edited from Wikipedia Born in Bristol, Archibald Vivian Hill was educated at Blundell's School and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge as third wrangler in the mathematics tripos before turning to physiology. While still an undergraduate at Trinity College, he derived in 1909 what came to be known as the Langmuir equation. Hill made many exacting measurements of the heat released when skeletal muscles contract and relax. A key finding was that heat is produced during contraction, which requires investment of chemical energy, but not during relaxation, which is passive. While a student he had enrolled in the Officer’s Training Course; he was a crack shot. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hill because the musketry officer of the Cambridgeshire Regiment. At the end of 1915, while home on leave he was asked by Horace Darwin from the Ministry of Munitions to come for a day to advise them on how to train anti-aircraft gunners. On site, Hill immediately proposed a simple two mirror method to determine airplane's heights. He was later awarded an OBE. Hill returned briefly to Cambridge in 1919 before taking the chair in physiology at the University of Manchester in 1920 in succession to William Stirling. Using himself as the subject —he ran every morning from 7:15 to 10:30 — he showed that running a dash relies on energy stores which afterwards are replenished by increased oxygen consumption. Paralleling the work of German Otto Fritz Meyerhof, Hill elucidated the processes whereby mechanical work is produced in muscles. The two shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for this work. In 1923 he succeeded Ernest Starling as professor of physiology at University College London, a few years later becoming a Royal Society Research professor there, where he remained until retirement in 1951. In 1933, he became with Lord Beveridge and Lord Rutherford a founder member and vice-president of the Academic Assistance Council (which in 1936 became the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning). By the start of the Second World War, the organisation had saved 900 academics (18 of whom went on to win Nobel Prizes) from Nazi persecution. In 1935 he served with Patrick Blackett and Sir Henry Tizard on the committee that gave birth to radar. He was also biological secretary of the Royal Society. He served as an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Cambridge University from 1940 to 1945. In 1940 he was posted to the British Embassy in Washington to promote war research in the still neutral United States. The mobilization of Allied scientist was one of the major successes in the war. After the war he rebuilt his laboratory at University College and vigorously carried on research. [13] In 1951 his advocacy was rewarded by the establishment of 3 a Biophysics Department under his leadership. In 1952 he became head of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and Secretary General of the International Union of Scientific Organizations. He was President of the Marine Biological Association from 1955 to 1960. In 1967 he retired to Cambridge where he gradually lost the use of his legs. He died in 1977 "held in the greatest affection by more than a hundred scientific descendants all over the world". 4 These elegant little volumes were made by the Archives Centre of Churchill College Cambridge, with the help of, the Xerox Centre of the University Library. For several years I have been collecting and polishing material under the title Memories and Reflections But as one approaches 90 one ceases to be “news", so I have put my thoughts and experiences on record, while my wits are about me, so that future biographers or historians may be informed of some of the people and events in a happy and sometimes adventurous life. I am grateful to all those who have helped and encouraged me, particularly Iris Gaddum; some of them think there is still material for a final smaller volume. We shall see. (Note by AVH at the front of the original volumes he deposited at Churchill.) Presented by Professor A. V. Hill, CH, OBE, FRS May 1974 Memories and Reflections Preface My last experiments in physiology were completed in 1967, just before we returned to Cambridge after forty seven years elsewhere. Their results were published in 1970 in a book, First and Last Experiments in Muscle Mechanics. That left me free to turn to something else. At the age of twenty three I became a physiologist; and so remain today, at least in cast of mind if not in occupation. Being a physiologist has many advantages, not least that it saves one from believing in magic; and physiologists as a rule, like sailors or engineers, are pleasant companions. But at intervals I was persuaded, or was conscripted, or even deliberately chose, to do something quite different; which provided many friendships and adventures, as well as disappointments. These are reflected in various things I have written; which, when I read them again after many years, seem less dull than might have been feared. With much help and encouragement from others I have been collecting a lot of things together, as though for publication. It seems uncertain whether I shall ever publish these myself, but if I put them in order perhaps someone else will look at them later in a friendly way and decide which should be allowed to survive. But even if survival is allowed, how long can it last. I agree with a sentence in a letter from a wise friend: My belief is that we are witnessing something like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, compressed into ten years instead of four hundred. 5 That is certainly no joke; but what can one do about it at eighty-seven if the lemmings are determined, as they seem to be, on self-destruction? APOLOGIA The reader may think that a good deal of nonsense has been included in Chapters 1 to 6. Some indeed was put in deliberately as in Alice in Wonderland, Just for fun. But there was usually a better reason. Over the years I have been in frequent conflict with the inhumanity of nonsense, ranging from Hitler's to anti-vivisection, from politics to panic, from religious conservatism to persecution, from snobbery to racial violence, from belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics to murder. Nonsense is generally best defeated by counter nonsense, or derision; that is better than arguing about it seriously. Contents First come six chapters 1 – 6; the ch.7, an autobiographical sketch; and finally descriptions of eight previous books, made by using their prefaces or introductions. The numbers, 1 to 130, of the articles in chapters 1 to 6 are used for the main index; also for cross-references in the text, where they are shown (without other indication) in heavy (bold face) type. There are no cross-references between chapters 7 and 8, and then rest. EDITOR’S NOTE. Given how easy it is now to search a word or pdf file, I have not tried to prepare a new index or recreate any of the original cross-referencing. I have also failed to insert most of the accents in the quotations from the original French. 6 LIST OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 ABOUT PEOPLE 1. Sydney Holland, Lord Knutsford of the London Hospital, (1855-1931). 2. P.S. Kupalov (-1964), Russian physiologist, pupil, friend and colleague of Pavlov; with "Pavlov's Bequest! 3. Karl Pearson, mathematician, statistician and philosopher (1857-1936). 4. Diphtheria and Prejudice, Ernest Brown and Wilson Jameson; the useful. guinea-pig, 1941 and 1943. 5. Jewels in my acquaintance with C.S. Sherrington (1857-1952). 6. Vinogradov, Maisky and Henry Dale; 1942 and 1946 7. W.R. Hardy, sailor, biologist, physical-chemist; venturing beyond the visible horizon (1864 -1934). 8. "On doing things poorly"; Al, Jerry and Lem, pilots or Liberators, 1943. 9. A Pathan "grandson" and others, 1952. 10. 10. J.F. Hill, embryologist, and an unusual missile,1931. 11. Frederick Kenyon (1863-1952). 12. Jack Egerton as Secretary of the Royal Society, 1938-38. 13. Tizard. Review of book, 1965, and speech by H.T.T.,1942. 14. G.H. Hardy (1877-1947), mathematician, on prostituting one's brains, 1916. 15. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), An adventurous life. 16. Camille Soula, Toulouse. (1888-1963) A bitter enemy or a devoted friend. 17. Captain V. Lord (-1963). I loved every timber in the old ship. 18. Simon the Bird and Alan Cress, 1944. 19. Lord Cherwell and the Archbishop; about 1943. 20. James Thomson (1823-1854), a splendid understatement; and Boris Babkin (1877-1950), who never forgot. 21. Louis Lapicque: I cannot distinguish between one kind of fascism and another, 1935. 22. Gaetano Martino: from a physiologist to Foreign Minister (not by P.G. Wodehouse), 1927-54. 23. G.H. Hardy - a message of reconciliation, 1940 and 1952. 24. L. Orbeli, in Cambridge1909-10. 25, Gouraud and Birdwood: magicians, 1917. 26. W.H. Gaskell (1847-1914). The origin of vertebrates. 27. W.K. Slater (1693-1970). A tribute. 28. Fairfield Osborn (167-1969). A story, 1909. 29. Baldie Maton (?1887-1965) A rough usage trial. 30. Trenchard (1873-1956). An argument. 31. Henry Archdall (1886- ). A “hymn” and a German pastor. 32. Old soldiers and others. 7 33. "I don't think a professor ought to kick a chap below the belt", 1939.

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