| John
Jacob Abel was born near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1857 and received his Ph.B.
in 1883 from the University of Michigan. To prepare for a career in scientific
medicine, he spent a year at the Johns Hopkins University studying physiology
under Henry Newell Martin and then studied for several years at various
European universities. In 1888, he received his M.D. from the University
of Strasbourg and then returned to the University of Michigan to accept
the professorship in materia medica. In 1893, Abel was recruited
to establish the department of pharmacology at the newly founded Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine. He thus became the first full-time
professor of pharmacology in the United States. He changed the course
of teaching in the basic sciences by encouraging his students to conduct
experiments and become active participants in his laboratory research.
One of the early goals of Abel's department was the isolation of pure
hormones, and in 1897 he reported the isolation of a derivative of epinephrine.
In 1926, he reported the isolation and crystallization of insulin. Abel
also investigated the functions of the kidney and devised a vividiffusion
apparatus for removing toxins from the blood of living animals, an apparatus
that is widely regarded as a forerunner of the artificial kidney. Abel
founded the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 1905 and the Journal
of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 1909. |