John Scott HaldaneBorn 3 May 1860; died 14 Mar 1936 at age 75. Scottish physiologist and philosopher of science whose extensive work on human respiration included the effects of pulmonary diseases and the physiology of the blood. Early in his career he studied the air in sewers for microorganisms, which he found rather limited. Haldane was known for experimentation on himself to find the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood was a stimulus for the respiratory centre of the brain. He reported on investigations of the effects of carbon monoxide from mine fires and explosions (1896). For the safety of deep-sea divers, he built on Paul Bert's work on the bends and produced the first staged decompression tables (1907). He also devised a decompression apparatus. He invented a gas mask used in WW I.« |
