Haldane, John Scott Haldane

John Scott Haldane CH FRS (2 May 1860 - 14/15 March 1936) was a Scottish physiologist famous for intrepid self-experimenting which led to many important discoveries about the human body and the nature of gases. He also used his son J. B. S. Haldane as a guinea pig, even when he was quite young. Haldane locked himself in sealed chambers breathing potentially lethal cocktails of gases while recording their effect on his mind and body.

Haldane visited the scenes of many mining disasters and investigated their causes. When the Germans used poison gas in World War I Haldane went to the front at the request of British secretary of state, Lord Kitchener and attempted to identify the gases being used. One outcome of this was his invention of the first gas mask. His son, J. B. S. Haldane became equally famous, both by extending his father's interest in diving and as a key figure in the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Haldane was born in Edinburgh. He was the son of Robert Haldane and the grandson of the Scottish evangelist James Alexander Haldane. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Burdon-Sanderson, the daughter of Richard Burdon-Sanderson and the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Burdon. His maternal uncle was the physiologist John Scott Burdon-Sanderson. He was the brother of Elizabeth Haldane, William Stowell Haldane and Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane.

Haldane attended Edinburgh Academy, Edinburgh University and the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. He graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University Medical School in 1884.

He married Louisa Kathleen Trotter in 1891 and had two children; the scientist J. B. S. Haldane and the author Naomi Mitchison.

Created 2015-10-29 by Anna St.Onge.

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