Henry Pickering Bowditch
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Henry Pickering Bowditch (April 4, 1840 – March 13, 1911) was an American soldier, physician, physiologist, and dean of the Harvard Medical School.[1][2] Following his teacher Carl Ludwig, he promoted the training of medical practitioners in a context of physiological research. His teaching career at Harvard spanned 35 years. He is known for Bowditch effect.
Early life
Henry P. Bowditch was born to the Massachusetts Bowditch family, noted for the mathematician
After graduation from Harvard Medical School in 1868, he went to Paris to study with Claude Bernard. In Bernard’s lab he worked alongside Louis-Antoine Ranvier, later known for neuroanatomy, and Étienne-Jules Marey who promoted the use of photography to capture physiological dynamics. According to Walter Bradford Cannon, when in Paris, Bowditch joined with fellow Bostonians John Collins Warren Jr., William James, and Charles Emerson for frog-hunting parties. Bowditch continued his European studies in Bonn with
Career
Bowditch was appointed assistant professor of physiology at Harvard in 1871.[2] While still in Germany, he purchased European materials to support the investigative training program he planned. And dramatically, on 9 September 1871, just days before sailing for Boston, he married Selma Knuth of Leipzig. The Bowditch laboratory at Harvard, the first physiological laboratory in the United States,[1] began modestly in attic rooms.
In 1875–1876, Bowditch,
Bowditch's career at Harvard was parallel to that of William James who instituted his program of experimental psychology in 1875. Bowditch and James represented the New Education espoused by Charles William Eliot, Harvard's President. In 1876 Bowditch was promoted to full professor.[2] In 1887 he co-founded and was the first president of the American Physiological Society.[5] At Harvard he rose to the position of dean of the medical school, serving from 1883 to 1893.[1] In 1903 he was honoured with the George Higginson chair. In 1904, Bowditch was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.[6] After 35 years teaching for Harvard, he retired in 1906, and died in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts in 1913.[1] His students included Walter Bradford Cannon, Charles Sedgwick Minot and G. Stanley Hall.
Manfred Bowditch, Henry's son, gave a personal description of his father. Bowditch did much experimentation in a cottage at an Adirondack camp at the head of
Bowditch was granted honorary degrees from five universities: Cambridge, Edinburgh, Toronto, Pennsylvania, and Harvard. Since 1956 the American Physiological Society has selected a distinguished physiologist to deliver the "Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lecture".[9]
Research
Henry Pickering Bowditch was known for his physiological work on
He also developed an interest in anthropometry, and showed that nutrition and environmental factors contribute to physiological development. Bowditch can be seen as a link between theNotes
- ^ a b c d Barnhart, Clarence L., ed. (1954). "Bowditch, Henry Pickering". New Century Cyclopedia of Names, Volume One, A – Emin Pasha. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. p. 606.
- ^ a b c d Herringshaw, Thomas William, ed. (1909). "Bowditch, Henry Pickering". Herringshaw's national library of American biography, Volume 1, Aaron–Clason. Chicago, Illinois: American Publishers' Association. p. 385.
- ^ Kelly, Howard A.; Burrage, Walter L. (eds.). . . Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Company.
- ^ "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original (Searchable database) on July 1, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2016. Note: This includes Rachel D. Carley (January 2012). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Putnam Camp" (PDF). Retrieved February 1, 2016. and Accompanying photographs
- ^ "APS Founders". American Physiological Society. Archived from the original on March 26, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
Three of them, Henry Pickering Bowditch, S. Weir Mitchell, and Henry Newell Martin, were signers of the original letter of invitation to attend the organizational meeting.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
- ^ Bryan, John M. (2005). Maine Cottages: Fred L. Savage and the Architecture of Mount Desert. Springer Verlag. p. 48.
- ^ Manfred Bowditch (1978) Henry Parker Bowditch: an intimate memoir, from American Physiological Society
- ^ Recipients of the Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lectureship Archived 2017-07-20 at the Wayback Machine from the American Physiological Society.
- ISBN 0-521-56046-2.
- ^ Short biography, bibliography, and links on digitized sources in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
- ISBN 0-8369-0548-2.
References
- Everette Mendelsohn (1970) "Henry Pickering Bowditch", Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
- Walter B. Cannon (1922) Biographical Memoir: Henry Pickering Bowditch 1840-1911. (PDF) National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XVII, Eighth Memoir, Washington D.C.