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Stephen Hales

Stephen Hales, FRS (17 September 1677 – 4 January 1761) was an English physiologist, chemist and inventor. Hales studied the role of air and water in the maintenance of both plant and animal life. He gave accurate accounts of the movements of water in plants, and demonstrated that plants absorbed air. Hales discovered the dangers of breathing stale air, and invented a ventilator which improved survival rates when employed on ships, in hospitals and in prisons. Hales is also credited with important developments in the collection of gases.

Life and work

Stephen Hales was born at Bekesbourne in Kent. In June 1696 he was entered as a pensioner of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with the view of taking holy orders, and in February 1703 was admitted to a fellowship. In 1708 Hales was presented to the perpetual curacy of Teddington in Middlesex, where he remained all his life, notwithstanding that he was subsequently appointed rector of Porlock in Somerset, and later of Faringdon in Hampshire.

In 1717 Hales was elected fellow of the Royal Society, which awarded him the Copley Medal in 1739. In 1732 he was named one of a committee for establishing a colony in Georgia, and the next year he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oxford. He was appointed almoner to the princess dowager of Wales in 1750. On the death of Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, Hales was chosen foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences.

Known as a pioneer of experimental physiology, Hales showed that some reflexes are mediated by the spinal cord. Hales studied stones taken from the bladder and kidneys and suggested solvents which might reduce them without surgery. He also invented the surgical forceps.

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 84. 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 genus of trees Halesia is named after him.

Notes

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.
Lewis, O (1994). "Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure". Journal of human hypertension 8 (12): 865–71.
Smith, I B (1993). "The impact of Stephen Hales on medicine". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 86 (6): 349–52.
Hall, W D (1987). "Stephen Hales: theologian, botanist, physiologist, discoverer of hemodynamics". Clinical cardiology 10 (8): 487–9.
Heberden, E (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.
James, P J (1985). "Stephen Hales' "statical way"". History and philosophy of the life sciences 7 (2): 287–99.
West, J B (1984). "Stephen Hales: neglected respiratory physiologist". Journal of applied physiology: respiratory, environmental and exercise physiology 57 (3): 635–9.
Jarcho, S (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.
Bloch, H (1978). "Rev. Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S. (1677-1761)". The Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey 75 (9): 625–7.
Boss, J M (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.
Mann, R J (1978). "The statical way of inquiry of the Reverend Stephen Hales, 1677-1761". Mayo Clin. Proc. 53 (3): 191–4.
Clark-Kennedy, A E "Stephen Hales, DD, FRS". British medical journal 2 (6103): 1656–8.
Felts, J H (1977). "Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure". North Carolina medical journal 38 (10): 602–3.
Cohen, I B (1976). "Stephen Hales". Sci. Am. 234 (5): 98–107.
Geist, D C (1972). "An English clergyman and environmental health (Stephen Hales)". Arch. Environ. Health 24 (5): 373–7.
Hoff, H E; Geddes L A, McCrady J D (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.

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
Biographical information (Dictionary of National Biography, 1890, pages 32–36)
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