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9th APS President (1921-1922)
John James Rickard Macleod
(1876-1935)
At the APS Meeting in New Haven in 1921, the first year of his
presidency, Macleod introduced a paper by F. G. Banting and C. H. Best; it
was their initial announcement of their celebrated research on insulin
carried out in Macleod's laboratory. The following year, at a joint session
of the Federation in Toronto, Banting and Best, again introduced by Macleod,
reported the isolation and purification of insulin. In 1923, for the
discovery of insulin, Macleod and Banting were awarded the Nobel Prize,
which they divided with their co-workers, Best and J. B. Collip.
Macleod was born in Scotland and received his medical training at the
University of Aberdeen. He was a demonstrator of physiology and a lecturer
in biochemistry at the London Hospital School before being offered the chair
of physiology at Western Reserve Medical School in 1903. He was immediately
elected a member of APS. In 1918 he became professor of physiology at the
University of Toronto. In 1928 he returned to his alma mater, the University
of Aberdeen, as Regius Professor of Physiology. Macleod's publications dealt
with a wide range of physiological and biochemical topics, including
carbamates, purine metabolism, the breakdown of liver glycogen, intracranial
circulation, ventilation, and surgical shock, as well as diabetes, on which
he published a book as early as 1913. Macleod's textbook, Physiology and
Biochemistry in Modern Medicine (1918), which went through seven
editions during his lifetime, was unique in its emphasis on the important
role of chemistry in physiology.
Macleod was first elected to APS Council in 1915. During his presidency,
the first APS Porter Fellow, John Hepburn, spent his fellowship year (1921)
with Macleod in Toronto working with the insulin group. Macleod was named to
the initial Board of Editors of Physiological Reviews established in
1920. When he left North America in 1928 he was asked to remain on the
board, because APS Council decided it would be valuable to have a British
representative. This was the origin of the present European Editorial
Committee.
Selected Publications
1. Anonymous. John James Rickard Macleod, 1876-1935. Physiologist
9: 1, 1966.
2. Howell, W. H., and C. W. Greene. History of the American
Physiological Society Semicentennial, 1887-1937. Baltimore, MD: Am.
Physiol. Soc., 1938, p. 113-115.
3. Stevenson, L. G. John James Rickard Macleod. In: Dictionary of
Scientific Biography. New York: Scribner, 1973, vol. 8, p. 614-615.
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