Bernardo Houssay and endocrine research

Abstract

Background: Bernardo Houssay (1877-1971) was the first Latin American scientist to receive the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology in 1947. His academic training took place entirely in Argentina, where he founded and directed the Institute of Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires. He later created the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine. He taught hundreds of young people and carried out with his disciples multiple experimental investigations in the areas of endocrine physiology, neuroendocrinology, comparative endocrinology, biochemistry and pharmacology. The result was the publication of about two thousand scientific articles and several academic awards. Methodology: The main endocrinological research undertaken by Dr. Houssay has been described in detail, interpreting the historical and epistemological framework that allowed him to develop a conceptual horizon and laboratory techniques that were able to compete with the most sophisticated research centers in Europe and the United States. Results and conclusions: It has been hypothesized that the work of Claude Bernard, read in depth by Dr. Houssay, led him to conceive and structure his scientific method of experimentation, being a self-taught man, and without having been trained in any foreign laboratory of physiological research. However, the breadth and depth of his scientific work put him on a par with such distinguished figures as Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Walter Bradford Cannon, Lawrence J. Henderson and Charles Scott Sherrington, among others. In addition, it highlights and analyzes his pioneering vision in the integral conception of the pituitary gland and its regulatory relationships with the rest of the endocrine glands, with the body metabolism and the preservation of homeostasis.