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.
Bradley
J K
JK
Department of History of Science, Technology & Medicine, Imperial College, London.
Tansey
E M
EM
D000669:Amplifiers, Electronic / Q000266:history*; D004867:Equipment Design / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007753:Laboratories / Q000266:history*; D009482:Neurophysiology / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014495:Universities / Q000266:history