1947 – 1955
1947
■ Milton O. Lee is hired as the Society’s first executive secretary. Lee also served as the
Managing Editor for the Society’s publications program and as the executive secretary
for FASEB.
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Carl Ferdinand Cori and
Gerty Theresa Cori, née Radnitz “for their discovery of the course of the catalytic
conversion of glycogen” and to Bernardo Alberto Houssay “for his discovery of the part
played by the hormone of the anterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism of sugar.”
■ Fritz Lipmann discovers Coenzyme A.
■ Marshall Plan proposed to help European nations recover economically from World War II.
■ India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain.
■ The Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered at Qumran.
■ Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Milton O
. Lee
■ Hollywood “Black List” created by HUAC.
■ APS begins publishing the Journal of Applied Physiology.
1948
■ Ernest Basil Verney demonstrated that the osmotic activity of the extracellular fluid determines the rate of renal water
excretion and coins the word osmoreceptor for the involved receptor mechanism.
■ Raymond Ahlquist demonstrated that a single sympathetic mediator could produce both excitatory and inhibitory
responses and that adrenergic receptors were of two different types.
■ Phillip Hench and colleagues report the anti-inflammatory actions of the hormone cortisone in the treatment of
rheumatoid arthritis.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Paul Müller “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT
as a contact poison against several arthropods.”
■ Geoffrey W. Harris publishes the review “Neural Control of the Pituitary Gland” which launched the field of
neuroendocrinology.
Jackie R
obinson
■ Robert W. Berliner and his colleagues and Gilbert H. Mudge and his colleagues independently demonstrated with
clearance studies that potassium is secreted by the renal tubules in normal animals.
■ Roy P. Forster revived and extended the approach first shown in 1933 by Chambers for
examining renal tubular secretion in isolated, nonperfused renal tubules in vitro.
■ Harry Truman ends racial segregation in the US military.
■ Margaret Sanger founds the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
■ Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
■ Israel Declared its Independence.
Robert W
. Berline
1949
■ L eon Velluz and Gaston Amiard discover Vitamin D – the “sunshine vitamin.” ■ Giuseppe Moruzzi and Horace Magoun recognized the significance of the ascending
reticular activating system as an arousal system.
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Walter Rudolf Hess “for
his discovery of the functional organization of the interbrain as a coordinator of the
activities of the internal organs” and Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz
“for his discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses.”
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■ Hermann Rahn and Arthur B. Otis defined the response to hypoxia sustained at high altitude as ventilator
acclimatization, a progressive increase in ventilation and the resultant elevation in arterial Po2 which mitigates the
impact of environmental hypoxia.
■ Joseph Erlanger characterized the relation between spike height and polarizing current in single medullated
nerve fibers.
■ Communist People’s Republic of China formally proclaimed by Chairman Mao Zedong.
■ Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
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1950
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■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Edward Calvin Kendall, Tadeus Reichstein and Philip
Showalter Hench “for their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological
effects.”
■R
achmiel Levine and colleagues demonstrate that insulin acts to accelerate the passage of glucose into cells.
■ Bernard Katz defines the processes of mechanoelectrical transduction in
sensory nerves.
■ Korean War begins when North Korean Communist forces invade South Korea.
■ Assassination attempt on President Harry Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists.
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1951
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■W
allace O. Fenn, Arthur B. Otis, and Hermann Rahn describe the work carried out during World War II on respiratory
physiology, providing the modern foundations of both pulmonary mechanics and pulmonary gas exchange.
■ Hans Henrikson Ussing and Karl Zerahn described the short-circuit technique for the study of epithelial ion
transport (the Ussing chamber) and demonstrated directly that the transport of sodium ions is an active process.
■ T he Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Max Theiler “for his discoveries concerning yellow fever
and how to combat it.”
■ Bart Hargitay and Werner Kuhn described the principle of countercurrent multiplication as the basis of
urinary concentration.
■ L loyd Beidler and Haldan K. Hartline developed the methodology to quantify responses from the
whole rat chorda tympani in order to determine binding properties of taste receptors.
■ 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, limiting the number of terms a president may serve, is ratified.
■ UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), the first business computer to handle both numeric and alphabetic data,
is introduced.
■ J ohn Gibbon develops the heart-lung machine that leads to open heart surgery.
■R
ita Levi-Montalcini and V. Hamburger begin studies of the origin of the nerve growth factor.
Rita L
1952
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ontalc
ini
■A
lan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley discover the ionic mechanism by which nerve impulses
are transmitted.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Selman A. Waksman “for his discovery of streptomycin,
the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis.”
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Alan Hod
1953
■ J.H. Welsh discovers the neurotransmitter, serotonin, which is found to take part in many functions of the brain.
■ The Handbook of Physiology was initiated by Maurice Visscher.
■ The APS “Guiding Principles in the Care and Use of Animals” was approved by Council and issued as a statement of
experimental ethics.
■ The first successful open heart procedure on a human utilizing the heart lung machine was performed by John
Gibbon at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
■ H. J. Schatzmann publishes the first account that cardiac glycosides inhibit active potassium and sodium transport in
erythrocytes.
■ A. Erslev demonstrated the existence of a humoral erythropoietic factor in rabbits by transfusing normal animals with
plasma from severely anemic donors.
1954
■ T wo scientific teams, led by Andrew Huxley and Hugh Huxley,
discover the sliding filaments in skeletal muscle.
■ During the presidency of Louis N. Katz, the APS purchases the
Hawley estate in Bethesda, MD to serve as the headquarters of
the APS and FASEB and its member societies. The estate was
renamed the Beaumont campus in honor of the physiologist,
William Beaumont.
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1955
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Hugh Hu
■ Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman recognized a new phase of sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, which
demonstrated that sleep was a complex process.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Hans Adolf Krebs “for his discovery of the citric acid
cycle” and Fritz Albert Lipmann “for his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism.”
■ Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins make x-ray structures of DNA that are used by James Watson and Francis
Crick to deduce the structure of the double helix.
■ Sylvia Simpson and James Tait isolate aldosterone.
■ P. A. di Sant’Agnese demonstrates the role of the sweat chloride test in the diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.
■ Lloyd Beidler characterized the properties of chemoreceptors of the tongue of rats.
■ Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal reach the top of Mt. Everest.
■ First kidney transplantation between living patients (identical twins) was performed by Joseph Murray, J. Hartwell
Harrison and John P. Merrill and others.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller and Frederick
Chapman Robbins “for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types
of tissue.”
■ In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the Supreme Court unanimously bans racial segregation in public schools.
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Louis N.
■ Vincent duVigneaud and colleagues synthesize the first peptide hormone oxytocin for which he is awarded the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1955. ■ Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus, breaking Montgomery, Ala.,
segregated seating law.
■ The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Hugo Theorell “for his discoveries concerning the nature
and mode of action of oxidation enzymes.”
■ Martin Luther King, Jr., leads 381-day black boycott of Montgomery bus system.