John Scott Haldane (; 2 May 1860 – 14/15 March 1936) was a Scottish physician

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

and philosopher famous for intrepid self-experimentation which led to many important discoveries about the human body and the nature of gases. He also experimented on his son, the celebrated and polymathic biologist J. B. S. Haldane, even when he was quite young. Haldane locked himself in sealed chambers breathing potentially lethal cocktails of gases while recording their effect on his mind and body. Haldane visited the scenes of many mining disasters and investigated their causes. When the Germans used poison gas in

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, Haldane went to the front at the request of Lord Kitchener and attempted to identify the gases being used. One outcome of this was his invention of a respirator, known as the black veil. Haldane's investigations into

decompression sickness Decompression sickness (DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from Solution (chemistry), solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during D ...

resulted in the concept of staged decompression, and the first reasonably reliable decompression tables, and his

mathematical model A mathematical model is an abstract and concrete, abstract description of a concrete system using mathematics, mathematical concepts and language of mathematics, language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed ''mathematical m ...

is still used in highly modified forms for computing decompression schedules.

Background and family

Haldane was born in

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to Robert Haldane, whose father was Scottish evangelist James Alexander Haldane, and Mary Elizabeth Burdon-Sanderson, daughter of Richard Burdon-Sanderson and the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Burdon. His maternal uncle was the physiologist John Scott Burdon-Sanderson. He was the brother of Elizabeth Haldane, William Haldane and

Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, (; 30 July 1856 – 19 August 1928) was a Scottish-born English lawyer, philosopher, an influential British Liberal and later Labour politician and statesman. He was Secretary of State for War ...

. On 12 December 1891 John Scott Haldane married Louisa Kathleen Coutts Trotter (1863–1961), daughter of Coutts Trotter FRGS and Harriet Augusta Keatinge. The couple had two children, the biologist J.B.S. 'Jack' Haldane (born in 1892) and the writer

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical an ...

(born in 1897). After the birth of Naomi, the family lived for a time in a house at 10 Randolph Crescent in Edinburgh's

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before returning to

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. They spent summers at the Haldane family's country house at Cloan in

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. John Scott Haldane's nephew was the New Zealand doctor and public health administrator Robert Haldane Makgill.

Education

Haldane attended Edinburgh Academy,

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and the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. He graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University Medical School in 1884, after which he was a Demonstrator at University College, Dundee. From 1907 to 1913 he was a Reader in Physiology at Oxford University where his uncle, John Burdon-Sanderson, was Waynflete Professor of Physiology. Haldane also published his philosophical ideas about the true significance of biology.

Career

Haldane was Gifford Lecturer in the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

, Fellow of

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, from October 1901, and Honorary Professor of the

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. Haldane received numerous honorary degrees. He was also President of the English Institution of Mining Engineers, a Member of the

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, a Fellow of the

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, a member of the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians of London, commonly referred to simply as the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of ph ...

and of the

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. Haldane became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1897, was a

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list of the Society in 1916, was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1928 for work on industrial disease, and was a

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list in 1934.

Death

Haldane died in

at midnight on the night of 14 March/15 March 1936 of pneumonia. He had just returned from a trip he had undertaken to investigate cases of

heat stroke Heat stroke or heatstroke, also known as sun-stroke, is a severe heat illness that results in a body temperature greater than , along with red skin, headache, dizziness, and confusion. Sweating is generally present in exertional heatstro ...

in the oil refineries in

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. Sir

Henry Newbolt Sir Henry John Newbolt, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (6 June 1862 – 19 April 1938) was an English poet, novelist and historian. He also had a role as a government adviser with regard to the study of English in England. He is perhaps ...

wrote a poem called "For J. S. Haldane", published in his anthology ''A Perpetual Memory and other Poems'' in 1939.

Accomplishments

Respiration and anaesthesia

Haldane was an international authority on

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group, a single oxygen atom bonded to two separate carbon atoms, each part of an organyl group (e.g., alkyl or aryl). They have the general formula , where R and R� ...

and respiration and the inventor of the Black Veil Respirator, an early gas mask, during

. He was also an authority on the effects of pulmonary diseases, such as silicosis caused by inhaling

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , commonly found in nature as quartz. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and abundant f ...

dust. After being forced out of combatting poison gases in World War I, through alleged German sympathies, he shifted into working with victims of gas warfare and developed oxygen treatment including the

oxygen tent An oxygen tent consists of a canopy placed over the head and shoulders, or over the entire body of a patient to provide oxygen at a higher level than normal. Some devices cover only a part of the face. Oxygen tents are sometimes confused with alt ...

. Haldane helped determine the regulation of breathing, and discovered the Haldane effect in

haemoglobin Hemoglobin (haemoglobin, Hb or Hgb) is a protein containing iron that facilitates the transportation of oxygen in red blood cells. Almost all vertebrates contain hemoglobin, with the sole exception of the fish family Channichthyidae. Hemoglobi ...

: Deoxygenated haemoglobin has a greater affinity for carbon dioxide than oxygenated haemoglobin, so the release of oxygen from the capillaries to the tissues facilitates the removal of carbon dioxide in those capillaries, and in the lung capillaries the high oxygenation of the blood promotes the release of carbon dioxide to the plasma, which allows it to diffuse into the alveolar gas. Haldane was the founder of ''The Journal of Hygiene''.

Diving physiology

In 1907 Haldane had a decompression chamber made at the Lister Institute for his experimental work which was to help make

underwater diving Underwater diving, as a human activity, is the practice of descending below the water's surface to interact with the environment. It is also often referred to as diving (disambiguation), diving, an ambiguous term with several possible meani ...

safer and produced the first decompression tables using his concept of stage decompression after extensive experiments with animals, and with divers in Scottish deep-water lochs. The decompression experiments examined the depth and pressure exposure, duration, and the pattern of decompression. Initial experiments used rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice, but the difficulty of detecting symptoms in the smaller animals led to the choice of goats, which were the largest animals easily available that were conveniently manageable in the available facilities. The mathematical model on which these tables were based, though considerably revised and modified, remains a widely accepted method of decompressing divers from non-saturation exposures. In 1908, Haldane published the findings with A. E. Boycott and G. C. C. Damant in the paper "Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness" in the Journal of Hygiene. He also found by experiment that part of the cause for divers losing consciousness while working at around 120 feet in standard helmets was a buildup of carbon dioxide in the helmet caused by insufficient ventilation, and established a minimum flow rate of per minute at ambient pressure.

Coal and other mining incidents

He investigated the principle of action of many different gases. He investigated numerous mine disasters, especially the toxic gases which killed most miners after firedamp and

coal dust Coal dust is a fine-powdered form of coal which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverizer, pulverization of coal rock. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created by mining, transporting, or mechanically handling it. ...

explosions. The toxic mixtures of gases found in mines included

afterdamp Afterdamp is the toxic mixture of gases left in a mine following an explosion caused by methane-rich firedamp, which itself can initiate a much larger explosion of coal dust. The term is etymologically and practically related to other terms for ...

, blackdamp and whitedamp. His description of the way a flame safety lamp can be used to detect firedamp by the increase in height of the flame, and chokedamp by the dying of the flame, is a classic exposition in his textbook, ''Respiration''. Although electronic gas detectors are now used widely in all coal mines, flame lamps are still used extensively for their ease and simplicity of operation. He identified

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...

as the lethal constituent of afterdamp, the gas created by

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion ...

, after examining many bodies of miners killed in pit explosions. Their skin was coloured cherry-pink from carboxyhaemoglobin, the stable compound formed in the blood by reaction with the gas. It effectively displaces oxygen, and so the victim dies of

asphyxia Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are m ...

. As a result of his research, he was able to design respirators for rescue workers. He tested the effect of carbon monoxide on his own body in a closed chamber, describing the results of his slow poisoning. In the late 1890s, Haldane introduced the use of small animals for miners to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide underground, either white mice or canaries. With a faster metabolism, they showed the effects of poisoning before gas levels became critical for the workers, and so gave an early warning of the problem. The canary in British pits was replaced in 1986 by the electronic gas detector. Electronic gas detectors rely on a catalytic chip which can be poisoned by atmospheric impurities.

Pike's Peak expedition

Haldane pioneered the study of the reaction of the body to low air pressures, such as that experienced at high altitudes. He led an expedition to Pike's Peak in 1911, which examined the effect of low atmospheric pressure on respiration. Since then, Pike's Peak has continued to be a site of research into respiration.

Sewer gas

In addition to his work on mine atmospheres, he investigated the air in enclosed spaces such as wells and sewers. One surprising result of his analysis of the air in the sewers beneath the

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was to show that the level of bacterial contamination was relatively low. During this research, he investigated fatalities of workmen in a sewer, and showed that

hydrogen sulfide Hydrogen sulfide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless chalcogen-hydride gas, and is toxic, corrosive, and flammable. Trace amounts in ambient atmosphere have a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs. Swedish chemist ...

gas poisoning was the cause of death.

Bibliography

Writings

* J. S. Haldane, ''The Philosophical Basis of Biology: Donnellan Lectures, University of Dublin, 1930'', Hodder and Stoughton Limited (1931). * J. S. Haldane and JG Priestley, ''Respiration'', 2nd Ed, Oxford University Press (1935). * J. S. Haldane, ''The Philosophy of a Biologist'', 2nd Ed, Oxford University Press (1936).