Marshall Hall (physiologist) 736057 180781686 2007-12-29T11:18:36Z Aqvilina 3704384 +sv <!-- Unsourced image removed: [[Image:Marshall-hall.jpg|framed|right|Marshall Hall]] --> '''Marshall Hall''' ([[1790]] &ndash; [[1857]]) was an English [[physician]] and [[physiologist]]. His name is attached to the theory of [[reflex arc]] mediated by the [[spinal cord]], to a method of [[resuscitation]] of [[drowning|drowned]] people, and to the elucidation of function of [[capillary]] vessels. Hall was born on the [[February 18]] [[1790]], at [[Basford, Nottinghamshire|Basford]], near [[Nottingham]], [[England]], where his father, Robert Hall, was a [[cotton]] manufacturer. Having attended the Rev. J. Blanchards academy at Nottingham, he entered a chemists shop at [[Newark-on-Trent]], and in 1809 began to study medicine at [[Edinburgh University]]. In 1811 he was elected senior president of the [[Royal Medical Society]]; the following year he took the M.D. degree, and was immediately appointed resident house physician to the [[Edinburgh Royal Infirmary]]. This appointment he resigned after two years, when he visited [[Paris]] and its medical schools, and, on a walking tour, those also of [[Berlin]] and [[Göttingen]]. In 1817, when he settled at Nottingham, he published his ''Diagnosis'', and in 1818 he wrote the ''Mimoses'', a work on the affections denominated bilious, nervous, &c. The next year he was elected a fellow of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]], and in 1825 he became physician to the Nottingham general hospital. In 1826 he removed to [[London]], and in the following year he published his ''Commentaries on the More Important Diseases of Females''. In 1830 he issued his ''Observations on Blood-letting Founded on Researches on the Morbid and Curative Effects of Loss of Blood'', denouncing the adverse effects of the widespread practice of [[bloodletting]], which was acknowledged by the medical profession to be of vast practical value, and in 1831 his ''Experimental Essay on the Circulation of the Blood in the Capillary Vessels'', in which he was the first to show that the [[capillary|capillaries]] are intermediate channels between the [[arteries]] and the [[veins]] and put the blood in contact with [[biological tissue]]s. In the following year he read before the Royal Society a paper ''On the Inverse Ratio which Subsists between Respiration and Irritability in the Animal Kingdom''. His most important work in physiology was concerned with the theory of [[reflex action]], embodied in a paper ''On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and the Medulla Spinalis'' (1832), which was supplemented in 1837 by another ''On the True Spinal Marrow, and the Excito-motor System of Nerves''. In this theory, he stated that the [[spinal cord]] is comprised by a chain of units that functions as an independent [[reflex arc]]s, and their activity integrates [[sensory nerve|sensory]] and [[motor nerve]]s at the segment of the spinal cord from which these nerves originate. He proposed in addition that those arcs are interconnected and interacting in the production of coordinated [[locomotion|movement]]. The reflex function excited great attention on the continent of [[Europe]], though in England some of his papers were refused publication by the [[Royal Society]]. Hall thus became the authority on the multiform deranged states of health referable to an abnormal condition of the [[nervous system]], and he gained a large practice. In ''Asphyxia, its Rationale and its Remedy'' (1856), Hall developed a technique for preventing victims of drowning by freeing their [[respiratory system|respiratory]] [[airway]] and by providing immediate [[Ventilation (physiology)|ventilation]], as the initial steps in [[resuscitation]]. He died at [[Brighton]] of a throat infection, aggravated by lecturing, on the [[August 11]], [[1857]]. In 1831, he outlined five principles to govern [[animal experimentation]]. #An experiment should never be performed if the necessary information could be obtained by observations #No experiment should be performed without a clearly defined and obtainable, objective #Scientists should be well-informed about the work of their predecessors and peers in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of an experiment #Justifiable experiments should be carried out with the least possible infliction of suffering (often through the use of lower, less sentient animals) #Every experiment should be performed under circumstances that would provide the clearest possible results, thereby diminishing the need for repetition of experiments. ==External links== * [http://www.trauma.org/history/resuscitation.html Trauma resuscitation]. ==Source== {{1911}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Marshall}} [[Category:British physiologists]] [[Category:British neuroscientists]] [[Category:History of neuroscience]] [[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]] [[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]] [[Category:People from Nottinghamshire]] [[Category:1790 births]] [[Category:1857 deaths]] [[de:Marshall Hall]] [[sv:Marshall Hall]]