Prof. L. J. Henderson

Abstract

THE cost of the new University Library at Cam bridge, which is to be opened by the King on October 22, was defrayed, in part, from a munificent bene faction given by the Rockefeller Foundation; the rest of that benefaction having been devoted to the development of biological science. It is appropriate, therefore, that the University should utilise the occa sion to confer the honorary degree of Sc.D. on two biologists from the United States, Dr. Lawrence J. Henderson, professor of biological chemistry at Harvard University, and Dr. K. Landsteiner, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Henderson comes of that old New England stock from which so much of the flower of Harvard has grown. He graduated at that University in 1898 and has held his present chair since 1919. It is difficult to-day to imagine that at the commence ment of the present century, there were no exact ideas about the ‘reaction’ of biological fluids and that the sign ‘pH.’ did not exist. To-day, hydrogen ion concentration is regarded as one of the most fundamental conditions which govern the reactions of the body. Henderson had a great hand in this revolution, and especially in the investigation of the balance between carbonic acid and base, by which the hydrogen ion concentration of the body is main tained so close to neutrality. The famous ‘Henderson-Hasselbalch equation’ stands like a monumental stone testifying to the part which Henderson played. After the War, Henderson concerned himself with a more comprehensive study of the equilibria occurring in blood. The investigation of these centred principally about three groups of factors: (1) the properties of haemoglobin; (2) the composition of the plasma; and (3) the nature of the membrane which separates one from the other.