Giles Skey Brindley FRS (born April 30, 1926), is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

and composer, known for his contributions to the physiology of the retina and colour vision, and treatment of

erectile dysfunction Erectile dysfunction (ED), also called impotence, is the type of sexual dysfunction in which the penis fails to become or stay erect during sexual activity. It is the most common sexual problem in men.Cunningham GR, Rosen RC. Overview of ma ...

Medical career

Brindley is perhaps best known for an unusual scientific presentation at the 1983

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

meeting of the

American Urological Association The American Urological Association (AUA) is a professional association in the United States for urology professionals. It has its headquarters at the William P. Didusch Center for Urologic History in Maryland. AUA works with many internationa ...

, where he removed his pants to show the audience his chemically induced erection and invited them to inspect it closely. He had injected phenoxybenzamine (using one mL of a mixture of 5 mg of Phenoxybenzamine in 10 mL of saline) into his penis in his hotel room before the presentation. He is also a pioneer in

visual prosthetics A visual prosthesis, often referred to as a bionic eye, is an experimental visual device intended to restore functional vision in those with partial or total blindness. Many devices have been developed, usually modeled on the cochlear implant or ...

, developing one of the first visual prostheses in the 1960s. The device was tested on four blind patients, giving them some basic visual sensation, but given the technology of the day further development was impractical. He also developed sacral anterior root stimulators for bladder control in paraplegic patients. Trained in Cambridge and

London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and sp ...

, he saw service in the RAF before taking up academic appointments first in Cambridge and then at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

, authoring more than 100 scientific papers in a variety of subjects. He was doctoral advisor to David Marr who later developed computational theories of vision that had great impact in the neuroscience of vision and

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human ...

, and post-doctoral adviser to Duco Hamasaki, a professor at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He was, for a while, a member of the

Ratio Club The Ratio Club was a small British informal dining club from 1949 to 1958 of young psychiatrists, psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues in cybernetics., p. 95. History The idea of the club arose ...

with

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

Horace Barlow Horace Basil Barlow FRS (8 December 1921 – 5 July 2020) was a British vision scientist. Life Barlow was the son of the civil servant Sir Alan Barlow and his wife Lady Nora (granddaughter of the naturalist Charles Darwin). He was educated ...

John Westcott John Hugh Westcott FRS, FREng, Hon FIEE (3 November 1920 – 10 October 2014) was a British scientist specialising in control systems and Professor of Computing and Automation at Imperial College London. Career Westcott was educated at W ...

and others from various fields, who met between 1949 and 1952 to discuss brain mechanisms, new technology and related issues. He gave the 1986 Ferrier Lecture, a

triennial An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

prize lectureship.

Music

Brindley invented a musical instrument in the 1960s, the 'logical

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuos ...

', an electronically controlled version of the bassoon. It was easier to play than a normal bassoon,Brindley GS (March 1968),″The Logical Bassoon″, Galpin Society Journal Vol 21. but was never marketed. He has also composed music for

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

s, including ''Variations on a Theme by Schoenberg'' and ''The Watermans Daughter'' .

Selected publications

* ''Physiology of the Retina and Visual Pathway''. 2nd edition. Edward Arnold, London, 1970.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brindley, Giles 1926 births Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge British musicologists British composers British physiologists Inventors of musical instruments Living people British medical researchers Neuroprosthetics Fellows of the Royal Society Place of birth missing (living people) Recipients of the St Peter's Medal The Journal of Physiology editors