| Authorised form of name | Wilkie; Douglas Robert (1922 - 1998); physiologist |
| Dates | 1922 - 1998 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | London, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 02/10/1922 |
| Place of death | London, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 21/05/1998 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Burial: Highgate Cemetery |
| Occupation | Physiologist |
| Research field | Muscle mechanics |
| Physiology |
| Activity | Education:
Bec School and Brighton Technical College; MD Yale (1943) MB BS Lond (1944)
Career:
House physician, University College Hospital, London (1944); assistant lecturer at the Physiology Department, University College London (1945); military service at the Institute of Aviation Medicine in Farnborough (1948-1950); Locke Research Fellow, University College London (1951-54); Reader in Experimental Physiology (1954-65); Professor of Experimental Physiology (1965-69); Jodrell Professor and Head of Physiology Department; (1969-79) (Emeritus); Jodrell Research Professor of Physiology, London University 1979-88 (Emeritus); retired (1988).
Memberships:
MRCP 1945
FRCP 1972 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 18/03/1971 |
| Age at election | 48 |
| Proposer | Archibald Vivian Hill |
| Alan Lloyd Hodgkin |
| Andrew Fielding Huxley |
| Hugh Esmor Huxley |
| John Carew Eccles |
| Relationships | Spouse: (m. 1949) June Hill (d. 1997), medical scientist, (divorced 1982).
Children: Andrew Wilkie, medical scientist. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 21080 |
| OtherInfo | Has made numerous experimental and theoretical contributions to the study of muscle, and his profound and critical understanding of the field has been an important factor in recent progress.
His early work provided the best data available even now on the force-velocity, active-state and series-elastic characteristics of muscle.
His simultaneous measurements of thermal, mechanical and chemical changes in a wide variety of types of contraction have shown that the total energy liberated as work and heat is accounted for by the amount of phosphocreatine hydrolysed. He is the only person able to make all these different types of technically difficult measurements himself and so provide the essential condition for reliable correlations to be made between them. He has greatly clarified the application of thermodynamics to muscle. His new methods for suddenly freezing a muscle is providing data of a quality previously unattainable concerning the chemical changes during contraction itself. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Source | Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 2001 vol 47 pp 481-495, plate, by Roger C Woledge |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/277488148 |
| Code | NA4874 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/GA/SGRS/8436 | Wilkie, Douglas Robert | 1986 |
| IM/GA/JGRS/7859 | Wilkie, Douglas Robert | 1976 |
| EC/1971/32 | Wilkie, Douglas Robert: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| DRW | Correspondence and papers of Douglas Robert Wilkie FRS, physiologist | 1940s-1990s |