BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL LONDON SATURDAY JUNE 4 1955 SIR HENRY DALE'S CONTRIBUTION TO PHYSIOLOGY* BY LORD ADRIAN, O.M., M1D., F.R.C.P., P.R.S. Master of Trinity College, Cambridge There is no one who could write adequately about the pharmacologists, organic chemists, and clinicians on whole field of Sir Henry Dale's scientific work, but no their own ground; he could use their methods as well one can write about any part of it without feeling that as speak their language, and could see the bearing of a in this case our conventional labels and signposts are a discovery in one department on the advance of another. mistake. Certainly he began in the early years of this But the marvel has been that he can still do so in spite century with work which would then have ranked as of all the expansion of medical science in this half- physiology, and he is now century, the entry of bio- regarded by physiologists _ chemistry and physical in every part of the world chemistry, the multiplica- with the affectionate vener- tion of hormones and vita- ation we reserve for our mins and enzymes, and the greatest masters. But his proliferation of technical first researches could be terms and methods of claimed now by the anato- every sort. The great mists, his major contribu- triumphs of chemotherapy tions have- enriched the been in the field O | 1have fields of pharmacology which he knows best, but and therapeutics, and, as it is difficult to think of head of the National Insti- any in which he cannot tute for Medical Research still hold his own. and President of the Royal Society, he has helped to Clarity of Ideas guide the whole course of Part of the secret must scientific work in Great lie in the clarity of ideas Britain. which has always made it Labels, in fact, can only a pleasure to read his tend to obscure what all of papers. The volumes of us would wish to empha- the Journal of Physiology size, that he has always in the years before the first been the leader who de- war contain many classics, cides where the advance for those were the days should go and never the when physiology could subordinate commander c l a i m a n undisputed who must keep to one leadership; there was also sector of the field. --_ _ Langley's stern editing to No one could have led as make every writer keep to Dale has done if his know- Sir Henry I)ale, O.M. the point. Dale's papers ledge of the field had been Sir Henry Dale is 80) o)n Thursday, June 9. then were among those limited to any one sector. which every student could It is true that in the early years of the century, when he read and remember without any thought of the exami- began his career in the Wellcome Research Laboratories, nations ahead. They might deal with subjects of forbid- the field was a great deal smaller than it is to-day. Bio- ding unfamiliarity-/3-iminazolylethylamine, for instance chemistry had scarcely begun, no one measured H-ion -but as soon as one began to read them one could see concentrations, the hormones were few, and the vitamins why Dale thought the subject important, and before one had still to arrive. At that time Dale's grasp of the whole finished it had become evident that he had made it so. range of physiology and of the sciences which could He would use the standard techniques of the pharma- assist it seemed remarkable enough. He could meet cologist, the kymographic tracing of blood pressure and respiration and volume change: the records he pub- *The first of four invited contributions to celebrate the eightieth his skill was birthday of Sir Henry Dale on June 9. lished left no doubt that experimental The photograph is supplied by Walter Stoneman. of a very high order, but he avoided unnecessary 4926 1356 JUNE 4, 1955 SIR HENRY DALE MEDIcAiBRnmSJOUR?NAL complications and unusual apparatus. There was no DALE need to change the technique so long as it could give SALUTE TO HENRY HALLETT decisive answers, and they were decisive because the BY right questions were asked. In fact, he has been ready 01T0 LOEWI, M.D. to adopt whatever new method would be more effective; Foreign Member of the Royal Society but for Dale the technique has always seemed to follow the problem and rarely to suggest it. Sir Henry Dale's eightieth birthday is a welcome occasion for reflections on what science in general and Assembling of Evidence scientists themselves owe to him. Such retrospection is especially gratifying to one who has had the good luck This may do less than justice to the strategy which has to enjoy Henry Dale's friendship for more than half a led to so many advances. An attack cannot be planned century. We met for the first time in 1903, in the small without regard to the arms which can be employed, and and poorly equipped, yet extremely creative and Dale has always known where to find them and what dynamic laboratory of Ernest Starling. Our interests to expect from them. His many collaborators and pupils and aspirations had much in common, and before long have never found him set in his ways; it is rather that a close mutual relationship developed, from which he can develop his theme with such knowledge and emerged our lifelong friendship. This was deepened authority that in the completed account of an investi- when, as time went on, our main interest and work gation we follow the argument and rarely stop to think coincided in the field of the chemical transmission of of all the difficulties which must have been surmounted nervous impulses. That such a mechanism existed had in assembling the evidence for it. Yet no one can have been seriously considered first by Elliott (1904) and then seen Dale at work in the laboratory or listened to his by Dale (1914), because of the correspondence they communications to the Physiological Society without had noted between the effects produced by adrenaline or realizing that it is the evidence which is all-important. acetylcholine and those due to the activities of sym- Dale has never let his theories take charge: often pathetic or parasympathetic nerves respectively. Later the enough his evidence has led to elaborate theorizing by chemical transmission of impulses from post-ganglionic others-about the role of histamine for instance, or nerves was established, and then Dale demonstrated, about humoral transmitters in the nerve fibre. When through ingenious planning, methods, and experiments, such new horizons are opened it is hard to keep to that the chemical transmission holds good to a much the solid and familiar ground, but Dale has been greater extent than I had realized. No better evidence more concerned to apply the brake than to be first in of this can be offered than a quotation from a certain the gold rush. The gold he has found will keep Harvey Lecture (1933): "I personally do not believe its value. in a humoral mechanism in the case of striated muscle." Those who have listened to his lectures must often Within the next year Dale demonstrated the chemical have been surprised to learn that he has never occupied nature of transmission from spinal nerves to striated a professorial chair at a university. He would have muscles. It was a discovery that made me happy, which shone in teaching as he has in research, and medical may seem strange in view of the sentence just quoted. education would have profited by his wisdom. But he But it was not strange at all, for the fact stood forth has taught the whole body of physiologists throughout that physiology owed and still owes to Date the know- his career, through the medium of his published work ledge that the transmission of impulses from all peri- and even more by his personal contact with them at pheral, efferent nerves to their effector organs is of congresses and symposia. For many years he has set chemical nature. the example at the International Congresses of Physio- It is fascinating to follow Dale's development from the logy by showing the rank and file how much more very beginning. He was introduced to experimental interesting a communication can be when it is clearly medicine by some of the great physiologists of those presented and illustrated. All of us are agreed that days: Gaskell, Langley, Anderson, Starling, and Bayliss. the kymographic records which bear the hall-mark of At the age of 29 he accepted a post as independent the National Institute for Medical Research have research worker in the Wellcome Physiological Research set a standard which few laboratories can hope to Laboratories. He has since said: " I was attracted to reach. the offer . by an instinctive feeling that it would be Such virtues are no doubt of minor account in com- a good thing for me, at that stage, to be obliged to parison with Dale's specific achievements in the field of stand scientifically on my own feet, to find my own scientific investigation, but his effect on the develop- problems, to plan my own experimental attack upon ment of medical science generally has been of major them, to learn and devise methods for myself and to importance. Though he could not serve on the Medi- make my own mistakes." Dale's continual develop- cal Research Council when he was Director of the ment ever since has fully justified the early confidence National Institute, his ideas have played a large part he had in himself.