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Henry Herbert Donaldson (12 May 1857 – 23 January 1938) was an American pioneer of neurology. One of his most influential studies was on the effect of sensory deprivation, based on the study ofLaura Bridgman's brain, on the development of the brain which resulted in the landmark workThe Growth of the Brain (1895). He served as a professor of neurology at theWistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and was a major influence on a generation of American neurologists and was a key promoter of the use of the rat as a laboratory research model.
Donaldson was born inYonkers, New York, to banker John Joseph and Louisa Goddard (McGowan) both of Irish origins.[1] He was sent to study business but he showed an interest in science and after his studies atPhillips Academy he went to Yale graduating in 1879. He spent an extra year working underRussell H. Chittenden examining arsenic residues in the body. He then went to study medicine for a year but found research was more of his interest than practice.
Following this, he joinedJohns Hopkins University in 1881 working underH. Newell Martin on aspects of physiology. He studied the effect of digitalin on the heart and for his PhD, he examined the neurology of the temperature sense underG. Stanley Hall. He then spent some time in Europe underAuguste Forel at Zurich,Theodor Meynert at Vienna andCamillo Golgi at Pavia. Returning to Johns Hopkins, he worked with Hall, following him toClark University, Worcester. Here he became an assistant professor in 1889 and began to work on the brain of Laura Bridgman which resulted in the monograph on theGrowth of the Brain published in 1895.
In 1892 he suffered from an infection of the knee and had to spend some time to recover. He left Clark University following administrative problems in 1892 to join theUniversity of Chicago. In 1905 he moved to the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology at Philadelphia and worked there until his death. Here he began to conduct experiments on rats, following his colleagueShinkishi Hatai, rather than the older model organisms, frogs. This would lead to the production of theWistar white rat as a standard for research.[2][3] Donaldson was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1906 and the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences in 1914.[4][5]
He served as the 12th president of theAssociation of American Anatomists from 1915 to 1917.
Donaldson married Julia Desboro Vaux in 1884 and theyhad two sons, John C. Donaldson andNorman V. Donaldson. After her death in 1904, he married Emma Brace in 1907. After his death, his brain was donated to theAmerican Anthropometric Society[6] and is currently stored at theWistar Institute.[7]
