The synapse: people, words and connections.

This paper provides a review of some of the major historical developments in synaptic research and neurotransmission since the first appearance of the word 'synapsis' in 1895. The key contributions and inter-relationships of several significant scientists and Nobel Laureates, including Charles Sherrington, Henry Dale, Edgar Adrian and John Eccles are highlighted, and the influence of others such as John Langley and Thomas Elliott is stressed. A recurrent theme is the importance of language and the creation of new words.

WHITE COATS AND NO TROUSERS: NARRATING THE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN TECHNICIANS IN MEDICAL LABORATORIES, 1930-90.

Laboratory technicians are a vital part of any working lab. Not only is their knowledge and expertise important for the success of research, but they also often maintain the lab's intellectual and social life. Despite the importance of their work, they are rarely acknowledged in publications, and leave only a few traces within the historical recordthe voices of women laboratory technicians are even harder to uncover. This paper attempts to correct this imbalance by presenting the narratives of women who worked as laboratory technicians at places such as the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), the Wellcome Research Laboratories, and established hospital and university labs in Cambridge, Oxford and London. The data were collected though narrative interviews. Specifically, the paper looks at the roles of these women within the lab, their experiences of the social and gender dynamics of the lab, and the development of expertise in regard to the work they carried out and the extent to which they received credit for their contributions to science.

The early education of a Nobel laureate: Henry Dale's schooldays.

This paper examines the early schooling, in London and in Cambridge, of the later Nobel laureate and President of the Royal Society, the physiologist Sir Henry Dale (1875-1968). The influence of key teachers who directed the boy's interest towards science, and the impact of his schooling on his university education and later scientific career, are examined in particular. The significance of the zoologist Edward Butler of Tollington Park College, who taught Dale in his early teenage years, is highlighted.

Keeping the culture alive: the laboratory technician in mid-twentieth-century British medical research.

This paper reports results from a detailed study of the careers of laboratory technicians in British medical research. Technicians and their contributions are very frequently missing from accounts of modern medicine, and this project is an attempt to correct that absence. The present paper focuses almost entirely on the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research in North London, from the first proposal of such a body in 1913 until the mid 1960s. The principal sources of information have been technical staff themselves, largely as recorded in an extensive series of oral history interviews. These have covered a wide range of issues and provide valuable perspectives about technicians' backgrounds and working lives.

Henry Dale and the discovery of acetylcholine.

In 1936 Sir Henry Dale of London and Professor Otto Loewi from Graz shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on chemical neurotransmission. This paper uses much unpublished archival material to augment an examination of Dale's work, from his discovery of naturally occurring acetylcholine in 1913, through to evidence of its role as a neurotransmitter at autonomic ganglia, post-ganglionic parasympathetic nerve terminals and the neuromuscular junction.

Pavlov at home and abroad: His role in international physiology.

Contemporary science is conducted internationally. This is a comparatively recent phenomenon that developed during the last century, most notably after the second world war. During the first half of the twentieth century, however, I P Pavlov became the first major international physiologist, travelling widely and contributing to major scientific meetings around the world. This paper records and assesses Pavlov's international role, with an especial focus on the International Congresses of Physiology, set in the dynamic context of his domestic position in Imperial Russia and later in the Soviet Union.

The nursing wellness center: a win-win situation for faculty.

This article discusses the community-based wellness center as a solution to faculty needs for community-based student clinical practice sites, faculty practice and the mission of service to the community. The development of the concept at our school is traced, and the benefits of such a program to faculty, students, and the University are explored.

"The Queen has been dreadfully shocked": aspects of teaching experimental physiology using animals in Britain, 1876-1986.

Animal experimentation has been subject to legislative control in the United Kingdom since 1876. This paper reviews the impact of that legislation, which was replaced in 1986, on the teaching of practical physiology to undergraduate students. Highlights and case studies are also presented, drawing on Government reports and statistics, published books and papers, and unpublished archival data.

Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coal mines: an eye-witness account of the MRC surveys (1937-1942).

In the mid-1930s reports were accumulating from the British coalfields, particularly from the anthracite area of South Wales, that coal face workers suffered a disabling lung condition that was not recognized as the (compensatable) silicosis of rock workers. The Second World War was threatening and discontent was rife. Government, through the Medical Research Council, initiated a medical and environmental investigation of chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coalminers to make a systematic survey. The medical surveys, 1936-1942, were undertaken by a member of MRC staff, Dr Philip D'Arcy Hart assisted by Dr Edward Aslett of the Welsh National Memorial Association. One colliery (Ammanford) was intensively investigated; fifteen others less so; coal trimmers at the docks were added. The main observations were to confirm and describe radiographically the frequency of serious lung lesions apparently due to coal dust, and distinguishable from classical silicosis. Among recommendations accepted by Government, the lung condition became recognized for compensations, and the generic term pneumoconiosis of Coal Workers' was substituted for silicosis.

Not committing barbarisms: Sherrington and the synapse, 1897.

The word synapse first appeared in 1897, in the seventh edition of Michael Foster's Textbook of Physiology. Foster was assisted in writing the volume on the nervous system by Charles Sherrington, who can be credited with developing and advocating the physiological concept of a synapse. The word itself however, was derived by a Cambridge classicist, Arthur Verrall.

The coming of the electronic age to the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory: E.D. Adrian's valve amplifier in 1921.

E.D. Adrian, F.R.S. (1889-1975) was one of Britain's most distinguished neurophysiologists, who, during a long and productive lifetime, achieved most honours and distinctions available to a scientific man. These included the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, shared with Sir Charles Sherrington, F.R.S., the Order of Merit (1942), and Presidency of the Royal Society (1950-55). His interest in the nervous system started at the beginning of his undergraduate career, much influenced by his Director of Studies, Keith Lucas, F.R.S. (1879-1916). Lucas, a skilled and imaginative neurophysiologist, was particularly renowned for his technical ability to design and build new equipment. In turn, his pupil's work on recording and analysing the electrical impulses in nervous tissue was also facilitated by the development of appropriate, sensitive instrumentation. This paper will describe Adrian's first use of valve amplifiers to enlarge the extremely small electrical signals then obtainable in the physiological laboratory, a development that epitomized the beginning of the electronic revolution in life sciences' laboratories.