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Joshua Harold Burn

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Joshua Harold Burn
Born(1892-03-06)6 March 1892
Barnard Castle,England
Died13 July 1981(1981-07-13)(aged 89)
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society[1]
Scientific career
FieldsPharmacology

Joshua Harold BurnFRS[1](6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981) was an Englishpharmacologistand professor of pharmacology atOxford University.[2]

Burn worked on the internal control of the body by the autonomic nervous system, carrying out seminal work on the release of noradrenaline from these nerves and introducing the controversial Burn-Rand hypothesis.[3]

TheNobel LaureateJohn Vaneclaimed "If anyone can be said to have moulded the subject of pharmacology around the world, it is he".[4]

Life[edit]

Burn was born inBarnard Castle,County Durham, England.[5]He was educated atBarnard Castle School.[5]Burn enteredEmmanuel College, Cambridgein 1909 where he read theNatural SciencesTripos.[5]He specialised inphysiologyfor Part II.[6]His tutor wasFrederick Gowland Hopkins.After receiving his BA he was awarded a research grant by Emmanuel College and a Michael Foster Studentship by the university. The next 18 months were spent in research withJoseph Barcroft.[7]Other figures in physiology at Cambridge at the time wereKeith Lucasand theNobel LaureatesArchibald HillandEdgar Adrian.In January 1914 Burn went to work forHenry Hallett Dalein London.

In October 1914, Burn enlisted in the army as a Signals Officer with the rank of corporal. By the end of 1917 he was required to return to England to finish his medical training. From 1920 to 1926 he worked with Henry Dale at theNational Institute for Medical ResearchinHampstead.His work involved the standardisation of medicines. In 1926 he became director of the Pharmacological Laboratories at thePharmaceutical Society of Great Britain,again involved in the standardisation of medicines. Between 1926 and 1937 Burn had 44 co-workers, of which 30 came from overseas.[8]From 1933 he worked closely withEdith Bülbring.[8]In 1931 he was a founder member of theBritish Pharmacological Societyand he was a member of the commission that produced the reformingBritish Pharmacopoeiain 1932.[8]In 1933 he was appointed Dean ofThe School of Pharmacy, University of London.

From 1937 to 1959 Burn held the chair of Pharmacology at theUniversity of Oxford.[9]Over the years he had 162 academic staff, includingJohn Robert Vane(1927–2004), one of three winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982.

Burn was an honorary Doctor ofYale University,theUniversity of Mainzand theUniversity of Bradford.He was an honorary member of theBritish Pharmacological Society,the German Pharmacological Society and the Czechoslovakian Medical Society ofJan Evangelista Purkyněand a member of theLeopoldinaand aFellow of the Royal Society(elected 1942).[1]In 1967 he received the Schmiedeberg-badge of the German Pharmacological Society and in 1979 the Wellcome Gold Medal of the British Pharmacological Society.

Publications[edit]

Methods of Biological Assay, 1928; Recent Advances in Materia Medica, 1931; Biological Standardization, 1937; Background of Therapeutics, 1948; Lecture Notes on Pharmacology, 1948; Practical Pharmacology, 1952; Functions of Autonomic Transmitters, 1956; The Principles of Therapeutics, 1957; Drugs, Medicines and Man, 1962; The Autonomic Nervous System, 1963; Our most interesting Diseases, 1964; A Defence of John Balliol, 1970

References[edit]

  1. ^abcBulbring, E.;Walker, J. M. (1984). "Joshua Harold Burn. 6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.30:45–89.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1984.0002.JSTOR769820.PMID11616006.S2CID32218225.
  2. ^"BURN, Joshua Harold", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007accessed 21 March 2012
  3. ^"Joshua Harold Burn - British Pharmacological Society".Archived fromthe originalon 29 October 2013.Retrieved24 October2013.
  4. ^Physiology or medicine: 1981–1990, Volume 6 By Tore Frängsmyr, Jan E. Lindsten, p142
  5. ^abcJoshua Harold Burn. 6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981 Edith Bülbring and J. M. Walker Page 47 of 44–89
  6. ^"Archived copy".Archived fromthe originalon 29 October 2013.Retrieved24 October2013.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ^Joshua Harold Burn. 6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981 Edith Bülbring and J. M. Walker Page 48 of 44–89
  8. ^abcJoshua Harold Burn. 6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981 Edith Bülbring and J. M. Walker Page 52 of 44–89
  9. ^Joshua Harold Burn. 6 March 1892 – 13 July 1981 Edith Bülbring and J. M. Walker Page 53 of 44–89

External links[edit]

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