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Edgar Adrian

The Right Honourable
The Lord Adrian
OM PRS
Edgar Douglas Adrian nobel.jpg
President of the Royal Society
In office
1950–1955
Preceded by Sir Robert Robinson
Succeeded by Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood
Personal details
Born (1889-11-30)30 November 1889
Hampstead, London, England
Died 4 August 1977(1977-08-04) (aged 87)
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Nationality United Kingdom
Spouse(s) Hester Adrian (m. 1923)
Children
  • Anne Keynes
  • Richard Adrian (1927–1995)
  • Jennet Campbell (b. 1927)
Scientific career
Fields Biology (electrophysiology)
Alma mater University of Cambridge
Notable awards Fellow of the Royal Society
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1932
Royal Medal (1934)
Copley Medal (1946)
Albert Medal (1953)

Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian OM PRS (30 November 1889 – 4 August 1977) was an English electrophysiologist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology, won jointly with Sir Charles Sherrington for work on the function of neurons. He provided experimental evidence for the all-or-none law of nerves.

Adrian was born at Hampstead, London, to Alfred Douglas Adrian, legal adviser to the Local Government Board, and Flora Lavinia Barton. He attended Westminster School and studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1911 and in 1913, he was elected to a Fellowship of Trinity College on account of his research into the "all or none" law of nerves.

After completing a medical degree in 1915, he did clinical work at St Bartholomew's Hospital London during World War I, treating soldiers with nerve damage and nervous disorders such as shell shock. Adrian returned to Cambridge as a lecturer and in 1925 began research on the human sensory organs by electrical methods.

Adrian married Hester Agnes Pinsent on 14 June 1923 and they had three offspring – a daughter and mixed twins:

Continuing earlier studies of Keith Lucas, he used a capillary electrometer and cathode ray tube to amplify the signals produced by the nervous system and was able to record the electrical discharge of single nerve fibres under physical stimulus. An accidental discovery by Adrian in 1928 proved the presence of electricity within nerve cells. Adrian said,


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