Ernest Starling

Ernest Starling was an English physiologist born on April 17 1866, in London, and died on May 2 1927. He worked mainly at University College London, although he also worked for many years in Germany and France. His main collaborator in London was his brother-in-law, William Maddock Bayliss.

Starling is most famous for developing the "Frank-Starling law of the heart", presented in 1915 and modified in 1919.

Other major contributions to physiology were:
 * The Starling equation, describing fluid shifts in the body (1896)
 * The discovery of secretin, the first hormone, with Bayliss (1902) and the introduction of the concept of hormones (1905).
 * The discovery that the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney reabsorbs water and various electrolytes.

Starling was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1899.

John Henderson. A Life of Ernest Starling. Oxford University Press. 2005.