H. Newell Martin

H. Newell Martin

Henry Newell Martin, FRS (1 July 1848 – 27 October 1896) was a British physiologist.

He was born in Newry, County Down, the son of Henry Martin, a Congregational minister, and educated at the University of London and Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1876 he was appointed to the first professorship of physiology at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. He co-wrote with Thomas Huxley Practical instruction in elementary biology. He collaborated with George Nuttall. He developed the first isolated mammalian heart lung preparation (first described in 1881) which Starling later used to great effect. Martin's own scientific career was curtailed around 1893 due to alcoholism.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1885, having delivered their Croonian Lecture in 1883 on "The Direct Influence of Gradual Variations of Temperature upon the Rate of Beat of the Dog's Heart".

Admitted to the University of London at sixteen and apprenticed to a physician, by 1874 Martin was a Fellow of University College, London, and the value of his research had already been recognized. Daniel Coit Gilman, founding president of Johns Hopkins University, persuaded Martin to come to the United States in the summer of 1876.

Martin was one of the first five full professors appointed to the Hopkins faculty. His field was under suspicion since the basic tenets of biology/physiology seemed to support the theory of evolution, and evolution was considered to be opposed to Christianity. Among Martin’s friends and colleagues was Thomas Huxley, a leading proponent of evolution. In addition to the conflict between Evolution and Christianity, biology labs were under attack by those opposed to experiments on live animals, a procedure known as vivisection. Martin was unapologetic in his defense of vivisection, though he recognized that it was not always necessary. He justified his position by stating bluntly, “Physiology is concerned with the phenomena going on in living things, and vital processes cannot be observed in dead bodies.” Martin did not try to hide his methods, and invited visitors to his lab to observe the experiments underway.

It was understood when Martin was hired that he would be laying the foundation for a medical school that would open in the future, since physiology was one of the primary building blocks for an academic medical school. Offering preparatory training to undergraduates would help place the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine – which eventually opened in 1893 – on a firm scientific footing.

Pre-medicine was not Martin’s only concern. With the hiring of William Keith Brooks came the opening of the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory. Despite its name, after initially confining its work to the Chesapeake Bay, the Zoological Laboratory conducted its work at stations from Beaufort, North Carolina, to the Bahamas, studying marine life and interdependencies between species.

Personal life/death

In 1879, he married Hetty Cary, widow of Confederate General John Pegram. He died in 1896 in Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire.

Works

• Martin, H. Newell (November 1873). "The structure of the olfactory mucous membrane". Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 8 (Pt 1): 39–44.1. PMC 1318999. PMID 17231007.
• Huxley, T.H.; Martin, H.N. (1875). A course of practical instruction in elementary biology. London, UK: Macmillan and Co. p. 290.
• Martin, H. Newell (January 1877). "The study and teaching of biology". Popular Science Monthly. 10: 298–309. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
  Introductory lecture, 23 October 1876.
• Martin, H. Newell (1879). "The normal respiratory movements of the frog, and the influence upon its respiratory centre of stimulation of the optic lobes". Stud Biol Lab Johns Hopkins University (1). Retrieved 12 October 2011.
• Martin, H. Newell (1881). The human body, an account of its structure and activities and the conditions of its healthy working. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
• Martin, H. Newell (1881). "A new method of studying the mammalian heart". Stud Biol Lab Johns Hopkins University (2): 119–130. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
• Martin, H.N.; Moale, WA (1881). A handbook of vertebrate dissection. New York: Macmillan and Co.
• Martin, H. Newell (1882). "Observations on the direct influence of variations of arterial pressure upon the rate of beat of the mammalian heart". Stud Biol Lab Johns Hopkins University. 2: 213–233. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
• Martin, H. Newell (1883). "The direct influence of gradual variations of temperature upon the rate of beat of the dog's heart". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 174: 663–688. doi:10.1098/rstl.1883.0021. hdl:2027/nnc2.ark:/13960/t7pn9td9j.
• Martin, H. Newell; Stevens, Lewis T. (1883). "The action of ethyl alcohol upon the dog's heart". Stud Biol Lab Johns Hopkins University: 477–494. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
• Martin, H. Newell (1885). A correction of certain statements published in the 'Zoophilist' also A castigation and an appeal. Baltimore, MD. p. 11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Martin, H. Newell (1884). The human body. A beginner's text-book of anatomy, physiology and hygiene. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
  Various co-authors (including his wife for the 1st edition).10th edition online.
• Martin, H. Newell (1891). "Effects of bleeding and starvation upon the proteids of the blood". Medical Record. 40: 365–366.
  Quoted by Fye.
• Martin, H. Newell (1895). Physiological papers. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 264.
  Collected articles.

External links

• Breathnach, CS (July 1969). "Henry Newell Martin (1848–1893). A pioneer physiologist". Med Hist. 13 (3): 271–9. doi:10.1017/s0025727300014538. PMC 1033954. PMID 4893626.
• H. Newell Martin bibliography, medicalarchives.jhmi.edu. Retrieved 6 May 2014.