Archibald Hill

Archibald Vivian Hill ( born September 26, 1886 in Bristol, † June 3, 1977 in Cambridge ) was a British physiologist. For his discoveries in the field of heat generation of the muscles he received in 1922, together with Otto Fritz Meyerhof the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Biography

Early years and education

Archibald Vivian Hill was born 1886 in Bristol, England. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge and his doctorate in this subject. Then he got a job at the physiologist WM Fletcher, who was at that time secretary of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge and dealt with the study of processes in the muscle tissue. Hill decided to also work in this area.

Changeover to the Muscle Physiology

In 1909, Archibald Vivian Hill began his own research on muscle, which he wanted to determine the energy released in muscle energy work. He built it on the research of the German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz, who could, however, obtain results due to the lack of measurement technology. Hill developed a special thermocouple, with which he could see small temperature fluctuations than changes in the resulting voltage at a bimetal and made so measurable. He succeeded in attaining in this way measuring a difference of 0.003 ° C in the muscle at intervals of a few hundredths of a second.

By 1913 he was able to find in this way that heat was evolved in a muscle until after the actual muscular work and the associated oxygen consumption. He also noted that free will about 70 percent of the implemented chemical energy during muscular work in the form of heat and thus the muscles of the body of the main heat supplier is the organism.

The application of its results

In 1920, Archibald Vivian Hill Professor of Physiology, 1926 until his retirement in 1952 also professor at the Biophysical Laboratory of the University College in Cambridge. He received the Nobel Prize for elucidating the thermodynamic processes in the muscle while his colleague Otto Fritz Meyerhof was awarded for research into the relationship of oxygen consumption to lactic acid production. By combining the results of both researchers a comprehensive view of the muscle work was possible with their physical and chemical implications.

He discovered in 1924, the maximum oxygen uptake ( VO2max) and coined the terms O2 deficit, steady state and O2 Debt, which are still common in sports science.

In 1933 he supported William Henry Beveridge at the foundation of the Academic Assistance Council (AAC, now the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics ), the first vice - president he was.

Parliamentarian

From 1940 to 1945 he represented his university at one of the two it is entitled to seats in the House of Commons.

More Awards

In 1918 he was elected as a member ( "Fellow" ) to the Royal Society, which honored him in 1926 with the Royal Medal and 1948 with the Copley Medal. Since 1929 he was a foreign member of the Roman Accademia dei Lincei.