Ernest Henry Starling

Starling, Ernest Henry 

Born Apr. 17,1866, in London; died May 2,1927, on a steamer in the port of Kingston, Jamaica. English physiologist.

Starling graduated from the medical school at the University of London in 1886 and subsequently worked in Breslau and Paris. From 1899 to 1923 he was a professor at University College, which was incorporated into the University of London in 1907.

Starling wrote on blood circulation, lymph formation, intestinal movements and innervation, renal function, and pancreatic secretion. In 1902, together with W. Bayliss, he discovered secretin, and in 1905 he introduced the concept of hormone. His colloid-osmotic theory clarified the process of lymph formation (Starling’s ultrafiltration theory). Starling proposed, independently of I. P. Pavlov and N. Ia. Chistovich, a modification of a heart-lung preparation. Later becoming widely accepted, the modification enabled him to detect many mechanisms in the activity of an isolated heart.

WORKS

Elements of Human Physiology, 8th ed. London, 1907.
Lectures on Recent Advances in the Physiology of Digestion . . . Chicago, 1906.
Lectures on the Fluids of the Body. London, 1909.
Linacre Lecture on the Law of the Heart. London, 1918.
Principles of Human Physiology, 9th ed. Philadelphia, 1945; in Russian translation: Osnovy fiziologii cheloveka, vols. 1–2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1931–33.

REFERENCE

Martin, C. J. “Prof. E. H. Starling.” Nature, 1927, vol. 119, no. 3,002, pp. 715–21.