John Scott Haldane FRS | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1860-05-02)2 May 1860 Edinburgh, Scotland,United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Died | 14 March 1936(1936-03-14) (aged 75) Oxford, England,United Kingdom |
| Education | Edinburgh Academy |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh Friedrich Schiller University ofJena |
| Known for | Black Veil Respirator Haldane effect Haldane's decompression model |
| Spouse | Louisa Kathleen Coutts Trotter |
| Children | J. B. S. Haldane Naomi Mitchison |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society, member of theRoyal College of Physicians and of theRoyal Society of Medicine; many honorary degrees |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physiology, medicine |
| Institutions | University of Glasgow New College, Oxford University of Birmingham |
John Scott HaldaneCH FRS[1] (/ˈhɔːldeɪn/; 2 May 1860 – 14/15 March 1936) was a Scottish physicianphysiologist and philosopher famous for intrepid self-experimentation which led to many important discoveries about the human body and the nature of gases.[2] He also experimented on his son, the celebrated and polymathic biologistJ. B. S. Haldane, even when he was quite young.[3] Haldane locked himself in sealed chambers breathing potentially lethal cocktails of gases while recording their effect on his mind and body.[4]
Haldane visited the scenes of many mining disasters and investigated their causes.[2][5] When the Germans used poison gas inWorld War I, Haldane went to the front at the request ofLord Kitchener and attempted to identify the gases being used. One outcome of this was his invention of a respirator, known as theblack veil.[2][6][4]
Haldane's investigations intodecompression sickness resulted in the concept ofstaged decompression, and the first reasonably reliabledecompression tables, and hismathematical model is still used in highly modified forms for computing decompression schedules.[2][4]
Haldane was born inEdinburgh to Robert Haldane, whose father was Scottish evangelistJames Alexander Haldane, and Mary Elizabeth Burdon-Sanderson, daughter of Richard Burdon-Sanderson and the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Burdon. His maternal uncle was the physiologistJohn Scott Burdon-Sanderson. He was the brother ofElizabeth Haldane,William Haldane andRichard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane.[1]
On 12 December 1891 John Scott Haldane married Louisa Kathleen Coutts Trotter (1863–1961),[7] daughter ofCoutts Trotter FRGS and Harriet Augusta Keatinge.[8] The couple had two children, the biologist J.B.S. 'Jack' Haldane (born in 1892) and the writerNaomi Mitchison (born in 1897). After the birth of Naomi, the family lived for a time in a house at 10 Randolph Crescent in Edinburgh'sNew Town before returning toOxford. They spent summers at the Haldane family's country house at Cloan inPerthshire.[9]
John Scott Haldane's nephew was the New Zealand doctor and public health administratorRobert Haldane Makgill.[10]
Haldane attendedEdinburgh Academy,Edinburgh University and theFriedrich Schiller University of Jena. He graduated in medicine fromEdinburgh University Medical School in 1884, after which he was a Demonstrator at University College, Dundee. From 1907 to 1913 he was aReader in Physiology at Oxford University where his uncle,John Burdon-Sanderson, was Waynflete Professor of Physiology.[4]
Haldane also published his philosophical ideas about the true significance of biology.[4]
Haldane was Gifford Lecturer in theUniversity of Glasgow, Fellow ofNew College, Oxford, from October 1901,[11] and Honorary Professor of theUniversity of Birmingham. Haldane received numerous honorary degrees. He was also President of the English Institution of Mining Engineers, a Member of theOrder of the Companions of Honour, a Fellow of theRoyal Society,[12] a member of theRoyal College of Physicians and of theRoyal Society of Medicine.[13]
Haldane became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1897, was aRoyal Medallist of the Society in 1916, was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1928 for work on industrial disease, and was aCopley Medallist in 1934.[4]
Haldane died inOxford at midnight on the night of 14 March/15 March 1936 of pneumonia.[4] He had just returned from a trip he had undertaken to investigate cases ofheat stroke in the oil refineries inPersia.[13][14]
SirHenry Newbolt wrote a poem called "For J. S. Haldane", published in his anthologyA Perpetual Memory and other Poems in 1939.[15]
Haldane was an international authority onether andrespiration and the inventor of theBlack Veil Respirator, an early gas mask, duringWorld War I.[2][16]
He was also an authority on the effects ofpulmonary diseases, such assilicosis caused by inhalingsilica dust. After being forced out of combatting poison gases in World War I, through alleged German sympathies, he shifted into working with victims ofgas warfare and developed oxygen treatment including theoxygen tent.[17][18]
Haldane helped determine the regulation of breathing, and discovered theHaldane effect inhaemoglobin: Deoxygenated haemoglobin has a greater affinity for carbon dioxide than oxygenated haemoglobin, so the release of oxygen from the capillaries to the tissues facilitates the removal of carbon dioxide in those capillaries, and in the lung capillaries the high oxygenation of the blood promotes the release of carbon dioxide to the plasma, which allows it to diffuse into the alveolar gas.[4]
Haldane was the founder ofThe Journal of Hygiene.[13]
In 1907 Haldane had adecompression chamber made at the Lister Institute for his experimental work which was to help makeunderwater diving safer and produced the firstdecompression tables using his concept of stage decompression after extensive experiments with animals, and with divers in Scottish deep-water lochs.[2][19][20][4] The decompression experiments examined the depth and pressure exposure, duration, and the pattern of decompression. Initial experiments used rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice, but the difficulty of detecting symptoms in the smaller animals led to the choice of goats, which were the largest animals easily available that were conveniently manageable in the available facilities.[4]
The mathematical model on which these tables were based, though considerably revised and modified, remains a widely accepted method of decompressing divers from non-saturation exposures. In 1908, Haldane published the findings with A. E. Boycott and G. C. C. Damant in the paper "Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness" in theJournal of Hygiene.[4] He also found by experiment that part of the cause for divers losing consciousness while working at around 120 feet in standard helmets was a buildup of carbon dioxide in the helmet caused by insufficient ventilation, and established a minimum flow rate of 1.5 cubic feet (42 L) per minute at ambient pressure.[21]
He investigated the principle of action of many different gases. He investigated numerousmine disasters, especially the toxic gases which killed most miners afterfiredamp andcoal dust explosions. The toxic mixtures of gases found in mines includedafterdamp,blackdamp andwhitedamp. His description of the way a flamesafety lamp can be used to detect firedamp by the increase in height of the flame, andchokedamp by the dying of the flame, is a classic exposition in his textbook,Respiration. Althoughelectronic gas detectors are now used widely in all coal mines, flame lamps are still used extensively for their ease and simplicity of operation. He identifiedcarbon monoxide as the lethal constituent of afterdamp, the gas created bycombustion, after examining many bodies of miners killed in pit explosions. Their skin was coloured cherry-pink fromcarboxyhaemoglobin, the stable compound formed in the blood by reaction with the gas. It effectively displaces oxygen, and so the victim dies ofasphyxia. As a result of his research, he was able to design respirators for rescue workers. He tested the effect of carbon monoxide on his own body in a closed chamber, describing the results of his slow poisoning.[4]
In the late 1890s, Haldane introduced the use of small animals for miners to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide underground, either white mice or canaries. With a faster metabolism, they showed the effects of poisoning before gas levels became critical for the workers, and so gave an early warning of the problem.[4] Thecanary in British pits was replaced in 1986 by the electronicgas detector.[22] Electronic gas detectors rely on a catalytic chip which can be poisoned by atmospheric impurities.[23]
Haldane pioneered the study of the reaction of the body to low air pressures, such as that experienced at high altitudes. He led an expedition toPike's Peak in 1911, which examined the effect of low atmospheric pressure on respiration. Since then, Pike's Peak has continued to be a site of research into respiration.[24]
In addition to his work on mine atmospheres, he investigated the air in enclosed spaces such as wells and sewers. One surprising result of his analysis of the air in the sewers beneath theHouse of Commons was to show that the level of bacterial contamination was relatively low.[4] During this research, he investigated fatalities of workmen in a sewer, and showed thathydrogen sulfide gas poisoning was the cause of death.[4]
