Joseph Erlanger (1874–1965): the cardiovascular investigator who won a Nobel Prize in neurophysiology

Abstract

Born in San Francisco in 1874 into the family of German immigrants in which he was the only one to proceed beyond elementary education, Joseph Erlanger graduated from the University of California (Berkeley) in 1894. He was about to enter the local Cooper Medical School when he was told that the new medical school in Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) aimed to surpass all others, and there he graduated and was later coached for a career in academic life by William H Howell (1860–1945). In due course he held the Chairs of Physiology in the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Washington University at St Louis, Missouri. He showed that the Bundle of His is indeed the functional link between the atria and the ventricles in the mammalian heart and that the Korotkoff sounds are produced by a ‘breaker’ phenomenon resulting from instability of the pulse wave in a partially occluded artery. With Herbert S Gasser (1888–1963) he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944 for their work on action currents in peripheral nerve fibres. The history of science occupied him during his retirement. He died at St Louis in 1965.

Keywords

Bundle of His Korotkoff sounds compund action potential

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Flexner

. Medical education in the United States and Canada, New York: Carnegie Foundation, 1910.

Bordley

III McGehee Harvey

. Two centuries of American medicine 1776–1976, Philadelphia: Saunders, 1976.

Erlanger

Hewlett

. A study of metabolism in dogs with shortened small intestines. American Journal of Physiology 1901; 6: 1–30.

Kurylo

Susskind

. Ferdinand Braun. A life of the Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the cathode ray oscilloscope, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978.

Monnier

. Erlanger Joseph. DSB 1971; Vol. 4, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 397–399.

His

. Die Tätigkeit des embryonalen Herzens und deren Bedeutung für die Lehre von der Herzbewegung beim erwachsenen. Arbeiten aus der medizinische Klinik zu Leipzig 1893; 23: 14–49.

Erlanger J. On the physiology of heart block in mammals, with special reference to the causation of Stokes-Adams disease. J Exp Med 1905; 7: 676–724; 1906; 8: 8–58. Further studies of heart block. Am J Physiol 1906; 15: 153–206; 1906; 16: 160–187.

Kent

AFS

. Researches on the structure and function of the mammalian heart. J Physiol 1893; 14: 233–254.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Annu Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 1–14.

10.

James

. The development of ideas concerning the conduction system of the heart. Ulster Med J 1982; 51: 81–97.

11.

Erlanger

. Studies in blood pressure determination by indirect methods. I. The mechanism of oscillatory criteria. Am J Physiol 1916; 39: 401–446.

12.

Erlanger

. Studies in blood pressure determination by indirect methods. II. The mechanism of the pressure sound of Korotkoff. Am J Physiol 1916; 40: 82–125.

13.

Erlanger

. Movements of the artery under compression during blood pressure determination. Am J Physiol 1921; 55: 84–155.

14.

Bramwell

. The intervening disturbance is a “breaker” phenomenon produced by the instability of the wave front, the crest of the wave travelling faster than the base. Heart 1925; 12: 23–71.

15.

Gasser

Newcomer

. Physiological action currents in the phrenic nerve. Am J Physiol 1921; 57: 1–26.

16.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Ann Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 12–12.

17.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Ann Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 14–14. (photograph on p.13.

18.

Gasser

Erlanger

. Action currents and excitability in mammalian nerve fibres. Am J Physiol 1922; 62: 496–524.

19.

Erlanger

Gasser

. The compound nature of the action currents of nerve as disclosed by the cathode-ray oscilloscope. Am J Physiol 1924; 70: 624–666.

20.

Gasser

Erlanger

. The role played by the sizes of the constituent fibers of a nerve trunk in determining the form of its action potential waves. Am J Physiol 1927; 80: 522–547.

21.

Erlanger J and Gasser HS. Electrical signs of nervous activity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1937, reprinted 1968.

22.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Ann Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 5–5.

23.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Ann Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 10–10.

24.

Erlanger

. A physiologist reminisces. Ann Rev Physiol 1964; 26: 9–9.

25.

Erlanger

. William Henry Howell, 1860–1945. A biographical memoir, Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1951, pp. 153–179.