Background
Henry Newell Martin was born on July 1, 1848, in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland. The son of a congregational minister and sometime schoolmaster, Martin was the oldest of twelve children.
Senate House, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom
Martin's early training being obtained mainly at home. When about sixteen years of age, he matriculated at the University of London, and attended the Medical School of University College, being at the same time apprenticed to a physician in the neighborhood. Later, in 1870, he went to Cambridge on a scholarship, becoming at the same time demonstrator to the prelector of physiology at Trinity College, Michael Foster. Both at London and Cambridge he made a brilliant record for scholarship in natural science, gaining eventually the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at London.
The Old Schools, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
Later, in 1870, Martin went to Cambridge on a scholarship, becoming at the same time demonstrator to the prelector of physiology at Trinity College, Michael Foster. Both at London and Cambridge he made a brilliant record for scholarship in natural science, gaining eventually the degree of Bachelor of Science at Cambridge and the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at London. He was the first to take the degree of Doctor of Science in physiology at Cambridge. He thus had the advantage of instruction under Foster in physiology and also under Huxley in biology, and in 1874 he served as assistant to Huxley in the latter's course in elementary biology.
Senate House, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom
Martin's early training being obtained mainly at home. When about sixteen years of age, he matriculated at the University of London, and attended the Medical School of University College, being at the same time apprenticed to a physician in the neighborhood. Later, in 1870, he went to Cambridge on a scholarship, becoming at the same time demonstrator to the prelector of physiology at Trinity College, Michael Foster. Both at London and Cambridge he made a brilliant record for scholarship in natural science, gaining eventually the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at London.
The Old Schools, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
Later, in 1870, Martin went to Cambridge on a scholarship, becoming at the same time demonstrator to the prelector of physiology at Trinity College, Michael Foster. Both at London and Cambridge he made a brilliant record for scholarship in natural science, gaining eventually the degree of Bachelor of Science at Cambridge and the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at London. He was the first to take the degree of Doctor of Science in physiology at Cambridge. He thus had the advantage of instruction under Foster in physiology and also under Huxley in biology, and in 1874 he served as assistant to Huxley in the latter's course in elementary biology.
Henry Newell Martin was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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1883
Henry Newell Martin was born on July 1, 1848, in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland. The son of a congregational minister and sometime schoolmaster, Martin was the oldest of twelve children.
Martin's early training being obtained mainly at home. When about sixteen years of age, he matriculated at the University of London, and attended the Medical School of University College, being at the same time apprenticed to a physician in the neighborhood. Later, in 1870, he went to Cambridge on a scholarship, becoming at the same time demonstrator to the prelector of physiology at Trinity College, Michael Foster. Both at London and Cambridge he made a brilliant record for scholarship in natural science, gaining eventually the degree of Bachelor of Science at Cambridge and the degree of Bachelor of Medicine at London. He was the first to take the degree of Doctor of Science in physiology at Cambridge. He thus had the advantage of instruction under Foster in physiology and also under Huxley in biology, and in 1874 he served as assistant to Huxley in the latter's course in elementary biology.
The youthful Martin was particularly attracted by the teaching and example of Michael Foster, then physiology instructor at the Medical School; despite his long hours as apprentice physician, Martin soon mastered the subject sufficiently to win a place as Foster’s demonstrator. When Foster was called to Cambridge as praelector in physiology at Trinity College, Martin followed, receiving a scholarship at Christ’s College, where he was to place first in the natural science tripos. Martin also served as assistant to T. H. Huxley in the latter’s innovative biology course at the Royal College of Science, South Kensington. Under Huxley’s supervision, Martin performed the “chief labour” in writing A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology in 1875. Still, in his twenties, Martin was clearly one of England’s most promising young physiologists.
At the same time, D. C. Gilman, president of the projected Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was hard at work in assembling a faculty equal to his hopes of establishing a truly research-oriented university in the United States. Huxley recommended Martin, who, after some negotiation, accepted the well-paid professorship. He was only twenty-eight.
Though Martin published only fifteen research papers in his abbreviated scholarly career, he did complete a series of significant investigations based on his success in surgically isolating a mammalian heart and perfusing it so as to create experimental situations in which he could evaluate the role of such variables as temperature, alcohol, and venous and arterial pressure in cardiac function. Martin was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on the basis of this work and in 1883 delivered the Society’s Croonian Lecture on the influence of temperature variation upon heartbeat.
Martin’s institutional role was almost certainly more significant than his scientific work. When he arrived in Baltimore, only one other course in physiology was offered in the United States (by H. P. Bowditch at Harvard). Between 1876 and 1893 the Johns Hopkins University was to play a uniquely influential role in the establishment of a research-oriented scientific community in the United States. From his strategic position at the Hopkins, Martin was to exert a significant influence in this evolution, especially in the development of physiology. Although never a magnetic lecturer, Martin was a warm and successful graduate teacher and colleague; William T. Sedwick, William Councilman, Henry Sewall, George Sternberg, W. K. Brooks, and Martin’s successor at Hopkins, William H. Howells, were among his students or sometimes associates. When the American physiological society was organized in 1887, six of the twenty-four founding members were Martin’s students.
Martin was not only active in the founding and early years of the American Physiological Society, but served on the editorial board of Foster’s Journal of Physiology - even managing to wring a small subvention for it from the Johns Hopkins administration. In addition he edited and founded Studies from the Biological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, five volumes of which appeared between 1877 and 1893.
A fortunate marriage to Hattie Pegram, the socially prominent widow of a Confederate officer, allowed him greater access to Baltimore society, and thus to serve more effectively as an advocate of the university. The young physiologist even offered a Saturday morning course in physiology for local teachers and normal school students. In the early 1890’s Martin’s health began to fail and in 1893 he resigned. With a small pension from the Hopkins trustees, he returned to England in an effort to restore his health. Despite attempts to continue working at Cambridge, Martin’s health did not improve and he died in 1896.
Martin held that physiology should be studied without regard to its applications to medicine; "that it should be cultivated as a pure science absolutely independent of any so-called practical affiliation". At the same time, he realized quite well that all knowledge of function must in time contribute to a fuller understanding of medicine. His own researches were mainly in the field of cardiac physiology, especially noteworthy being his discovery of a new method of studying the isolated mammalian heart, which paved the way many years later for extended researches by others on the functions of the heart, yielding results of great value to medicine.
Not only did he create and sustain an atmosphere of scholarship in his own laboratory, but Martin also consistently advocated the need for basic science excellence in the John Hopkins projected medical school, which opened in 1893. Although of necessity he taught general biology and animal morphology, Martin though consistently in disciplinary terms; he never lost sight of his identity as a physiologist, and he was deeply committed to establishing the independence of physiology from the needs and attitudes of clinical medicine.
Martin was also a defender of the university against the attacks of antivivisectionists and spokesmen of religious orthodoxy disturbed by the encroachments of evolutionary naturalism.
The eminence attained by many of his pupils testifies to his ability as a teacher. He was endowed with a pleasing personality, always interested in the welfare of his pupils, sympathetic and with a joyous outlook on life that made him an interesting as well as a helpful companion.
In 1878 Martin married Hetty Cary Pegram, the widow of an officer who served in the Confederate army.