Dale, Henry Hallett

Henry Dale was a physiologist and pharmacologist 1875-1968. He qualified BCh, Cambridge, in 1902 and in 1904 he began a research post in physiology at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories. He spent 10 years there, the first eighteen months as their pharmacologist and the remainder of the time as their director. Here he met George Barger and worked with a number of young men who started their scientific career with him, including Arthur Ewins, Alexander Glenny, P. P. Laidlaw, and J. H. Burn. After Sir Henry Wellcome died in 1936, Dale became one of the founding trustees of the Wellcome Trust and subsequently, its chairman in 1938, and from 1960-68, scientific advisor to the organisation. In 1907 Dale discovered histamine in an extract of ergot, and with George Barger, determined its chemical structure and physiological actions. In 1910, after extensive study, they introduced the term 'sympathomimetic' which is now in general use, for chemicals that imitated the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. In 1936 he was awarded the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine for his work on the role of acetylcholine in chemical neurotransmission, shared with the Austrian pharmacologist Otto Loewi. He made an immense contribution to therapeutics worldwide through his experimental and administrative work from the 1920s onwards, estalishing international standards for hormones, vitamins and various other drugs and providing the first international standard for insulin. He published numerous scientific articles and two books, one of which, Adventures in Physiology, is an annotated collection of his most important papers.

Dale became the first director of the National Institute of Medical Research in 1928, a position which he held until 1942. He was secretary of the Royal Society from 1925-35 and its wartime president from 1940-45. During his presidency the number of fellows elected each year was increased from twenty to twenty-five, women were first admitted to the fellowship (1945) and the meeting of the society was held outside Britain for the first time. Dale was a member of the Medical Research Council (1942-6), chairman of its post-war Committee on the Medical and Biological Application of Nuclear Physics (1945-9), member of the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy (1945-7), chairman of the Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee (1949-52), of the governing body of the Lister Institute, and of the Scientific Committee of the British Council. He was president of the Royal Society of Medicine (1948-50) and of the British Council (1950-55) and was a trustee of the National Central Library (later part of the British Library lending division) and a member of the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries.

Dale's work was recognised by his CBE (1919); Knight (1932); GBE (1943); and by his admission to the OM (1944). The Dale medal was struck in his honour by the Society of Endocrinolgy in 1959 and in 1961 the Wellcome Trust commemorated his services as chairman by endowing a Royal Society professorship, the Henry Dale Research Professorship. He recieved honorary degrees from twenty-five universities inlcuding eleven in Britain; was the recipient of seventeen medals, an honorary member of the Physiological Society, British Pharamacological Society, Pharmaceutical Society, Royal Society of Medicine, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Royal Society of New Zealand, an honorary associate of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and an honorary, foreign, corresponding, or associate member of thirty-seven foreign scientific societies. He died in Cambridge on 23 July 1968.