David H. Hubel

In 1953, Hubel married Shirley Ruth Izzard. For the first two years of their married life Hubel did not have any income and it was Ruth, who stood by her struggling husband and provided all the necessary support. The couple had three children; Carl, Eric and Paul.

David and Ruth remained married till her death in 2013. Soon after the incidence, Hubel’s health also deteriorated. He died on September 22, 2013 from kidney failure at Lincoln, Massachusetts, at the age of 87.

David Hunter Hubel was born on February 27, 1926, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada into a well-to-do family of Bavarian ancestry. However, both his parents were born and brought up in Detroit, USA. So, David, their only child, was Canadian by birth and American through his parents.

David’s paternal grandfather migrated to USA from Bavaria and made money by inventing the first procedure for producing gelatin pill capsules on mass scale. His father, Jesse Hunter Hubel, was a chemical engineer, who at the time of David’s birth, was employed at the Windsor Salt Company.

David’s mother, Elsie M. Hunter Hubel, had a keen interest in electronics. However, she never studied the subject and lived with that regret. She compensated that by allowing David to pursue his line of interest.

When David was three years old, the family moved to Montreal. There at the age of six, he was admitted to Strathcona Academy in Outremont. When the time came, he chose Latin as additional subject, because it was considered appropriate for future medical studies while those who took biology were considered dumb.

From his father, David inherited an interest in chemistry and from early childhood, he often carried out experiments in the basement of his home. One of them made such loud bang that it brought the city police to his door. Electronics was another of his favorite subject. He also learnt to play the piano well.

In 1954, Hubel moved to the United States of America and joined Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as an assistant resident in neurology. In 1955, before he could establish himself, he was drafted in the United States army.

Fortunately, he was assigned to the Neurophysiology Division of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as part of his military service. Here he received the mentorship of Michelangelo Fuortes and also had the first opportunity to do research on his own.

He first began to work on spinal cord, which prepared him for his later works on neurophysiology. However, his main project was to compare the spontaneous firing of single cortical cells in sleeping and waking cats.

To record the electrical impulses of the nerve cells, he first invented a tungsten microelectrode, which took him one year. He then placed it in the visual cortex area of the brain and went on to record sleeping as well as freely moving cats. Subsequently, he found that neuronal activity depended upon the level of arousal.

From the reaction of his subjects during wakeful hours, Hubel also realized that it was possible to study how brain operates during the visual process. However, before he could proceed much, his military service was over and in 1958, he went back to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Hubel is best remembered for his work on the nerve impulses, which flow from retina to the sensory and motor centers in the brain. By implanting tiny electrodes in the brain of anesthetic cats he, along with Wiesel, proved that specific nerve cells are responsible for specific types of visual comprehension.

Hubel had also authored number of books. They include:‘The Visual Cortex of the Brain’ (1963), and ‘Eye, Brain, and Vision’ (1988). Moreover, he co-wrote ‘Brain Mechanisms of Vision’ (1979) and ‘Brain and Visual Perception: The Story of a 25-Year Collaboration’ (2004) with Torsten Wiesel and ‘The Brain’ (1984) with Francis Crick.