Henry Hallett Dale

In 1904, Henry Hallett Dale married his first cousin, Elen Harriet Hallett. The couple had a son and two daughters.

He died on 23 July 1968 after a brief period of illness.

Henry Hallett Dale was born on 9 June 1875, in London, to Charles James Dale, a pottery businessman, and his wife, Frances Anne Hallett. He had six siblings.

He attended Tollington Park College, London and then Leys School, Cambridge. In 1894, he joined Trinity College, University of Cambridge with a scholarship.

In 1898, he achieved a First Class in Natural Sciences Tripos (specializing in physiology and zoology) and obtained the Coutts-Trotter studentship at Trinity College. For the next two years, he worked under physiologist John N. Langley and also came under the influence of Gaskell and Sir Hopkins, leading to the publication of his first scientific paper in the Journal of Physiology at the age of 24.

In 1900, he received a scholarship and joined St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London for clinical medical studies. He researched under Professor Ernest Starling at University College London (UCL) and in 1903, was part of the team that conducted a vivisection of a dog, leading to the notorious event of the Brown Dog affair. At UCL, he met his lifelong friend Otto Loewi.

In 1903, he also studied under Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt, Germany for four months following which he returned to UCL as Sharpey Scholar. He qualified as B.Ch. Cambridge the same year.

In 1904, Henry Hallett Dale became a pharmacologist at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories. Two years later in 1906, he became Director of these laboratories and continued in the post for the next six years. Meanwhile, he received his M.D. from Cambridge in 1909.

In 1914, he became Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research, London. The same year, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and served as Secretary from 1925 to 1935.

In 1928, he became Director of the National Institute for Medical Research London, a post he held till 1942. Meanwhile, he was honoured with a knighthood in 1932 and four years later, he and Otto Loewi jointly won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Medicine.

During World War II, he served on the Scientific Advisory Committees of the cabinet. He also served as President of the Royal Society from 1940 to 1945.

In 1942, he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at Royal Institution, London. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1944.

Sir Henry identified the compound histamine in animal tissues in 1911 and determined that the chemical’s physiological effects such as the dilation of blood vessels and contraction of smooth muscles were similar to the symptoms of some allergic and anaphylactic reactions.

In 1914, he successfully isolated acetylcholine and established its occurrence in animal tissue. Later in the 1930s, he confirmed its presence at nerve endings. His research established the role of acetylcholine in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses.

Apart from frequent articles and papers published in medical and scientific journals, he authored ‘Adventures in Physiology’ in 1953 and ‘An Autumn Gleaning’ in 1954.