Henry Hallett Dale
Dale, Henry Hallett
Born June 9, 1875, in London; died July 23, 1968, in Cambridge, England. English pharmacologist and physiologist. Dale received his medical education at Cambridge, graduating in 1909.
From 1928 to 1942 Dale was director of the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead (London). From 1939 to 1959 he was professor of physiology at the University of London, and from 1942 to 1946 he was director of the Royal Institute’s Davy-Faraday Laboratory. He was a member (from 1914), general secretary (1925-35), and president (1940-45) of the Royal Society of Medicine; he was also president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (from 1947).
Dale’s principal works are devoted to pharmacology and to the physiology of the transmission of nerve impulses. For his studies on the role of acetylcholine in transmitting nerve impulses, he was awarded (together with O. Loewi) the Nobel Prize in 1936. Dale was the first to isolate histamine and ergotoxine.
WORKS
“The Vasodilator Action of Histamine and of Some Other Substances.” Journal of Physiology, 1918, vol. 52, p. 110. (Together with A. N. Richards.)Adventures in Physiology With Excursions Into Auto pharmacology. London, 1953.
An Autumn Gleaning: Occasional Lectures and Addresses. London, 1954.