Stephen Hales

Infobox Scientist
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caption =Stephen Hales (1677–1761)
birth_date = 17 September 1677
birth_place = Bekesbourne, Kent
death_date = 4 January 1761
death_place = Teddington
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nationality = English
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field = physiology chemistry
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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 reflexesare 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

*cite journal
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last=Andreae
first=L
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coauthors=Fine L G
year=1997
month=
title=Unravelling dropsy: from Marcello Malpighi's discovery of the capillaries (1661) to Stephen Hales' production of oedema in an experimental model (1733)
journal=Am. J. Nephrol.
volume=17
issue=3-4
pages=359–68
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pmid = 9189256
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doi = 10.1159/000049605
*cite journal
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last=Lewis
first=O
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year=1994
month=Dec
title=Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure
journal=Journal of human hypertension
volume=8
issue=12
pages=865–71
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pmid = 7884783
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*cite journal
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last=Smith
first=I B
authorlink=
year=1993
month=Jun
title=The impact of Stephen Hales on medicine
journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
volume=86
issue=6
pages=349–52
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pmid = 8315630
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*cite journal
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last=Hall
first=W D
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year=1987
month=Aug
title=Stephen Hales: theologian, botanist, physiologist, discoverer of hemodynamics
journal=Clinical cardiology
volume=10
issue=8
pages=487–9
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pmid = 3304746
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*cite journal
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last=Heberden
first=E
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year=1985
month=Apr
title=Correspondence of William Heberden, F.R.S. with the Reverend Stephen Hales and Sir Charles Blagden
journal=Notes and records of the Royal Society of London
volume=39
issue=2
pages=179–89
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pmid = 11611813
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doi=10.1098/rsnr.1985.0008
*cite journal
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last=James
first=P J
authorlink=
year=1985
month=
title=Stephen Hales' "statical way"
journal=History and philosophy of the life sciences
volume=7
issue=2
pages=287–99
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pmid = 3909194
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*cite journal
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last=West
first=J B
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year=1984
month=Sep
title=Stephen Hales: neglected respiratory physiologist
journal=Journal of applied physiology: respiratory, environmental and exercise physiology
volume=57
issue=3
pages=635–9
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 6386767
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*cite journal
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last=Jarcho
first=S
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year=1983
month=Mar
title=Some excerpts from the writings of Stephen Hales, with comment on their relation to the concept of heart failure
journal=Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
volume=5
issue=1
pages=19–28
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pmid = 6340260
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*cite journal
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last=Bloch
first=H
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year=1978
month=Aug
title=Rev. Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S. (1677-1761)
journal=The Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey
volume=75
issue=9
pages=625–7
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 355637
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*cite journal
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last=Boss
first=J M
authorlink=
year=1978
month=Mar
title=A collection of some observations on bills of mortality & parish registers: an unpublished manuscript by Stephen Hales, F.R.S. (1677-1761)
journal=Notes and records of the Royal Society of London
volume=32
issue=2
pages=131–47
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pmid = 11610330
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doi=10.1098/rsnr.1978.0012
*cite journal
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last=Mann
first=R J
authorlink=
year=1978
month=Mar
title=The statical way of inquiry of the Reverend Stephen Hales, 1677-1761
journal=Mayo Clin. Proc.
volume=53
issue=3
pages=191–4
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pmid = 342838
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*cite journal
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last=Clark-Kennedy
first=A E
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year=
month=
title=Stephen Hales, DD, FRS
journal=British medical journal
volume=2
issue=6103
pages=1656–8
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pmid = 338121
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*cite journal
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last=Felts
first=J H
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year=1977
month=Oct
title=Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure
journal=North Carolina medical journal
volume=38
issue=10
pages=602–3
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pmid = 335256
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*cite journal
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last=Cohen
first=I B
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year=1976
month=May
title=Stephen Hales
journal=Sci. Am.
volume=234
issue=5
pages=98–107
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pmid = 775633
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*cite journal
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last=Geist
first=D C
authorlink=
year=1972
month=May
title=An English clergyman and environmental health (Stephen Hales)
journal=Arch. Environ. Health
volume=24
issue=5
pages=373–7
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pmid = 4553667
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*cite journal
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last=Hoff
first=H E
authorlink=
coauthors=Geddes L A, McCrady J D
year=1965
month=Nov
title=The contributions of the horse to knowledge of the heart and circulation. 1. Stephen Hales and the measurement of blood pressure
journal=Connecticut medicine
volume=29
issue=11
pages=795–800
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 5320322
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Further reading

* [http://www.illustratedgarden.org/mobot/rarebooks/title.asp?relation=QK711H341727 Hales, Stephen] (1727) "Vegetable Staticks", London: W. and J. Innys — from the Missouri Botanical Garden's library
* [http://www.archive.org/details/philosophicalexp00halerich 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
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=6yYJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA35&dq=vegetable+staticks&as_brr=1#PPA32,M1 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
* [http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/hales.html Stephen Hales at the Galileo Project] — details on Hales's life and work