Sir Michael FosterBorn 8 Mar 1836; died 28 Jan 1907 at age 70. English physiologist and educator who introduced modern methods of teaching biology and physiology that emphasized laboratory training and became standard in the teaching of the biological sciences in English universities. As Foster's Royal Society obituary said, “He insisted that practical work, carried on by the student himself, illustrative of the facts on which the lecture was based, must immediately follow the lecture. (In this he was following principles used by Huxley). The physiology of each organ must be dealt with as a whole in the lecture, and the practical work must be so arranged as to bring home to the student all of the points of each lecture at the time. His ideal laboratory would be of sufficient size to provide each student with his own working place, both in the histological and in the chemical department at the same time.” He also studied if the heartbeat is either dependant on nerve impulses, or any degree of independance if the heart muscles have their own capability for rhythmic contraction. |
