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physiologist who, with William Bayliss, discovered secretin and in 1905
coined the word 'hormone'. He formulated Starling's law, which states that
the force of the heart's contraction is a function of the length of the
muscle fibres. He is considered one of the founders of endocrinology. Starling and Bayliss researched the nervous mechanisms that control the activities of the organs of the chest and abdomen, and together they discovered the peristaltic wave in the intestine. In 1902 they found the hormone secretin. It was the first time that a specific chemical substance had been seen to act as a stimulus for an organ at a distance from its site of origin. Starling was born and educated in London, and was professor of physiology at University College, London, 1899-1923. Starling also studied the conditions that cause fluids to leave blood vessels and enter the tissues. In 1896 he demonstrated the Starling equilibrium: the balance between hydrostatic pressure, causing fluids to flow out of the capillary membrane, and osmotic pressure, causing the fluids to be absorbed from the tissues into the capillary. |