Abstract
Sir Henry Hallet Dale can undisputedly be accoladed as one of the greatest British pharmacologists of the twentieth century. His work was pivotal in laying down the principles of chemical neurotransmission. This article gives some account of Dale’s life and his most important discoveries, including the identification of acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter in the autonomic and somatic nervous systems.
Similar content being viewed by others
Suggested Reading
H H Dale, Adventures in Physiology, Pergamon Press Ltd, 1953.
H H Dale, An Autumn Gleaming, Pergamon Press Ltd, 1954.
H W Davenport, Early History of the Concept of Chemical Transmission of the Nerve Impulse, The Physiologist, 34, pp.129–190, 1991.
W Feldberg, Henry Hallett Dale 1875–1968, British Journal of Pharmacology, 35, pp.1–9, 1969.
S Finger, Minds Behind the Brain, Oxford University Press, 2000.
M C Fishman, Sir Henry Hallett Dale and the Acetylcholine Story, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 45, pp.104–118, 1972.
G B Koelle, Henry Hallett Dale 1875–1968, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 7, pp.288–289, 1986.
M R Lee, The History or Ergot of Rye (Claviceps purpurea) II: 1900–1940, The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 39, pp.365–369, 2009.
H O Schild, Dale and the Development of Pharmacology, British Journal of Pharmacology, 56, pp.3–7, 1976.
G W Shepherd, Creating Modern Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, 2010.
E M Tansey, Henry Dale and the Discovery of Acetylcholine, Comtes Rendus Biologies, 329, pp.419–425, 2006.
E M Tansey, Henry Dale, Histamine and Anaphylaxis: Reflections on the Role of Chance in the History of Allergy, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 34, pp.455–472, 2003.
E S Valenstein, The Discovery of Chemical Neurotransmitters, Brain and Cognition, 49, pp.73–95, 2002.
E S Valenstein, The War of the Soup and the Sparks, Columbia University Press, 2005.
A P Wickens, A History of the Brain: From Stone Age Surgery to Modern Neuroscience, Psychology Press, 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Andrew Wickens was a lecturer in Neuroscience at the University of Central Lancashire for over 25 years. His History of the Brain won the best textbook of the year award by the British Psychological Society in 2016.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wickens, A. Sir Henry Hallet Dale. Reson 24, 833–845 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-019-0847-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-019-0847-8