Stephen Hales

For other people named Stephen Hales, see Stephen Hales (disambiguation).

Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales (1677–1761)
Born	17 September 1677 Bekesbourne, Kent
Died	4 January 1761 (aged 83) Teddington
Nationality	English
Fields	Plant physiology Chemistry

Stephen Hales, FRS (17 September 1677 – 4 January 1761) was an English clergyman who made major contributions to a range of scientific fields including botany and physiology. He invented several device including a ventilator, a pneumatic trough and a surgical forceps for the removal of renal stones. He was also a philanthropist who opposed slavery and wrote a popular tract on alcoholic intemperance.

Work

Hales is best known for his Statical Essays. The first volume, Vegetable Staticks (1727), contains an account of numerous experiments in plant physiology — the loss of water in plants by evaporation, the rate of growth of shoots and leaves, and variations in root force at different times of the day. The second volume (1733) on Haemastaticks, containing experiments on the "force of the blood" in various animals, its rate of flow, and the capacity of the different vessels.

Stephen Hales died on 4 January 1761 in Teddington at the age of 83. He was buried under the tower of the church where he had worked many years.

Testimony

From the Nobel Prize in Medicine acceptance speech given by Werner Forssmann in 1956:

"The credit for carrying out the first catheterization of the heart of a living animal for a definite experimental purpose is due to an English parson, the Reverend Stephen Hales. This scientifically interested layman undertook in Tordington (sic) in 1710, 53 years after the death of William Harvey (1578–1657), the first precise definition of the capacity of a heart. He bled a sheep to death and then led a gun-barrel from the neck vessels into the still-beating heart. Through this, he filled the hollow chambers with molten wax and then measured from the resultant cast the volume of the heartbeat and the minute-volume of the heart, which he calculated from the pulse-beat. Besides this, Stephen Hales was also the first, in 1727, to determine arterial blood pressure, when he measured the rise in a column of blood in a glass tube bound into an artery."

—Werner Forssmann, 

The genus of trees Halesia is named after him.

See also

• Pneumatic chemistry

References

• Andreae, L.; Fine, L. G. (1997). "Unravelling dropsy: from Marcello Malpighi's discovery of the capillaries (1661) to Stephen Hales' production of oedema in an experimental model (1733)". Am. J. Nephrol. 17 (3-4): 359–68. doi:10.1159/000049605. PMID 9189256. 
• Bloch, H (August 1978). "Rev. Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S. (1677-1761)". The Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey 75 (9): 625–7. PMID 355637. 
• Boss, J M (March 1978). "A collection of some observations on bills of mortality & parish registers: an unpublished manuscript by Stephen Hales, F.R.S. (1677-1761)". Notes and records of the Royal Society of London 32 (2): 131–47. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1978.0012. PMID 11610330. 
• Clark-Kennedy, A. E. (1977). "Stephen Hales, DD, FRS". British medical journal 2 (6103): 1656–8. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.6103.1656. PMC 1633314. PMID 338121. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1633314. 
• Cohen, I. B. (May 1976). "Stephen Hales". Sci. Am. 234 (5): 98–107. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0576-98. PMID 775633. 
• Felts, J. H. (October 1977). "Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure". North Carolina medical journal 38 (10): 602–3. PMID 335256. 

• Geist, D. C. (May 1972). "An English clergyman and environmental health (Stephen Hales)". Arch. Environ. Health 24 (5): 373–7. PMID 4553667. 
• Hall, W. D. (August 1987). "Stephen Hales: theologian, botanist, physiologist, discoverer of hemodynamics". Clinical cardiology 10 (8): 487–9. doi:10.1002/clc.4960100816. PMID 3304746. 
• Heberden, E. (April 1985). "Correspondence of William Heberden, F.R.S. with the Reverend Stephen Hales and Sir Charles Blagden". Notes and records of the Royal Society of London 39 (2): 179–89. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1985.0008. PMID 11611813. 
• Hoff, H. E.; Geddes, L. A.;; McCrady, J. D. (November 1965). "The contributions of the horse to knowledge of the heart and circulation. 1. Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure". Connecticut medicine 29 (11): 795–800. PMID 5320322. 
• James, P. J. (1985). "Stephen Hales' "statical way"". History and philosophy of the life sciences 7 (2): 287–99. PMID 3909194. 

• Jarcho, S. (March 1983). "Some excerpts from the writings of Stephen Hales, with comment on their relation to the concept of heart failure". Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia 5 (1): 19–28. PMID 6340260. 

• Lewis, O. (December 1994). "Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure". Journal of human hypertension 8 (12): 865–71. PMID 7884783. 
• Mann, R. J. (March 1978). "The statical way of inquiry of the Reverend Stephen Hales, 1677-1761". Mayo Clin. Proc. 53 (3): 191–4. PMID 342838. 
• Smith, I. B. (June 1993). "The impact of Stephen Hales on medicine". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 86 (6): 349–52. PMC 1294486. PMID 8315630. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1294486. 

• West, J. B. (September 1984). "Stephen Hales: neglected respiratory physiologist". Journal of Applied Physiology 57 (3): 635–9. PMID 6386767. 

Further reading

From Vegetable Staticks, opposite page 262

• Hales, Stephen (1727) Vegetable Staticks, London: W. and J. Innys — from the Missouri Botanical Garden's library
• Hales, Stephen (1738). "Philosophical experiments: containing useful, and necessary instructions for such as undertake long voyages at sea. Shewing how sea-water may be made fresh and wholsome: and how fresh water may be preserv'd sweet. How biscuit, corn, &c. may be secured from the weevel, meggots, and other insects. And flesh preserv'd in hot climates, by salting animals whole. To which is added, an account of several experiments and observations on chalybeate or steel-waters ... which were read before the Royal-society, at several of their meetings", London: W. Innys and R. Manby
• Parascandola, John and Ihde, Aaron J. (1969). "History of the Pneumatic Trough", Isis, vol. 60, no. 3, pages 351–361
• Stephen Hales at the Galileo Project — details on Hales's life and work

• For a calendar of manuscript correspondence and writing of Stephen Hales see: D.G.C. Allan and R.E. Schofield, Stephen Hales. Scientist and philanthropist (London: Scolar Press, 1980), p. 178, and for his published writing see ibid p. 191
• For Hales’s work as parish priest of Teddington see: David G.C. Allan, Science, Philanthropy and Religion in 18th century Teddington: Stephen Hales DD, FRS, (1677–1761) (Twickenham: Borough of Twickenham Local History Society, 2004). This work contains reconstructions of the enlargement of St Mary’s Church, Hale’s copyhold parsonage house and a map of his drainage scheme (Map by Ken Howe).
• For a general assessment see: David G.C. Allan, Hales, Stephen (1677–1761) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• For the 2009 celebration of his life and work see The William Shipley Group for RSA History Newsletter no. 22 (Nov 2009)
• For Hales’s association with the Society of Arts see David G.C. Allan, ‘Founder of the Society of Arts’ group article in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online supplement, 2008)

•  "Hales, Stephen". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Hales, Stephen". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Works by Stephen Hales at Project Gutenberg
• Archival material relating to Stephen Hales listed at the UK National Register of Archives