Background
Bainbridge was born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1874 and educated at The Leys School.
Bainbridge was born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1874 and educated at The Leys School.
Trinity College.
He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1893, graduating Bachelor in 1896 and earning a doctorate in 1904. In 1911 he became a professor of physiology at Durham University. Bainbridge is best remembered for showing that an increase in pressure on the venous side of the heart resulted in an increased heart rate due to denervation of vagal influences to the heart.
The eponymous "Bainbridge reflex" is named after him, being explained as an increased heart rate due to an increase of right atrial pressure.
Bainbridge"s findings contradicted "Marey"s Law", a law that stated that an increase in blood pressure caused a lowering of the heart rate. Marey"s Law was devised in 1861 by French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904).
Bainbridge also made important contributions in his studies of the mechanism of lymph formation, as well as on filtration properties of the glomeruli in the kidneys. His most popular publications were "Essentials of Physiology" (1914) and "Physiology of Muscular Exercise" (1919).
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1919.
Royal Society.
