William F. Hamilton

William Ferguson Hamilton (born March 8, 1893 in Tombstone , Arizona , † December 18, 1964 in Augusta , Georgia ) was an American biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to cardiology .

Life

Hamilton was the son of a roaming doctor on farms and mining companies. He went to high school in Tucson and studied at Pomona College in Claremont (California) with a bachelor's degree in 1917, was there from 1914 to 1917 assistant in biology, 1917 to 1919 in the Army Medical Corps and from 1917 laboratory assistant at the University of California, Berkeley where he received his doctorate in zoology in 1921. He was an instructor in biology at the University of Texas in 1920/21 and at Yale University from 1921 to 1923 . He was then at the University of Louisville , from 1930 as a professor, and from 1932 to 1934 professor at George Washington Universitybefore becoming Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Georgia in 1934 . From 1942 he was only professor of physiology. When the Medical College of the University of Georgia was established in 1950, he was professor of physiology there. In 1960 he retired.

He initially dealt with behavioral research in animals and marine biology, then with the physiology of sensory organs (color vision) and finally from around 1929 with the blood circulation. Here he developed more precise measurement methods for blood flow, blood pressure and volume and dealt with them theoretically. For example, he was interested in the pulse rate and the effects of standing and reflected pulse waves and the ratios of blood pressure in various body organs and changes in blood pressure at work, under drugs, in a state of shock and the like. a. With JW Kinsman and JW Moore in Louisville in 1932 he developed a method of determining the volume of blood flow (cardiac output) using the dyes dissolved in it (Stewart-Hamilton equation).

He also contributed to the understanding of electrocardiograms and developed the falling drop method for determining the specific gravity of blood.

In 1960 he received the Gairdner Foundation International Award . 1955/56 he was President of the American Physiological Society (APS).

Fonts

Textbook of human physiology, Philadelphia: FA Davis, 2nd edition 1949
The physiology of cardiac output, Circulation, 8, 1953, 527-543
with DW Richards : The output of the heart, in AP Fishman, DW Richards (Ed.) The circulation of blood: Men and Ideas , Bethesda, American Physiological Society 1982, chapter 2
Measurement of cardiac output, in WF Hamilton, P. Dow (Ed.), Handbook of Physiology. Circulation, American Physiological Society 1962, Section 2, Volume 1, 551-584
with G. Brewer, I. Brotman: Pressure pulse contours in the intact animals I: analytical description of a new high frequency hypodermic manometer with illustrative curves of simultaneous arterial and intracardiac pressures, Am. J. Physiol., 107, 1934, 427
with Moore, Kinsman, Spurling: Studies on the circulation IV: Further analysis of the injection method, and in changes in hemodynamics under physiological and pathological conditions, American Journal of Physiology , 99, 1934, 534
with Moore, Kninsman, Spurling: Studies on the circulation II: Cardiac output determinations, comparison of the injection method with the direct Fick procedure, Am. J. Physiol., 89, 1929, 331
with RA Woodbury, HT Harper: Physiological relationship between intrathoracic, intraspinal and arterial pressures, Journal of the American Medical Association , 107, 1936, 853

literature

Philip Dow: William F. Hamilton , The Physiologist 8, 1965, 95-96
CH Baker et al. a .: William F. Hamilton , The Physiologist, 27, 1984, 64-66

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Hamilton, William F.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hamilton, William Ferguson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH	March 8, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH	Tombstone
DATE OF DEATH	18th December 1964
Place of death	Augusta , Georgia