Record

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 October 1922
Place of death	London, England, United Kingdom
Date of death	21 May 1998
Occupation	Physiologist
Research field	Muscle mechanics
Research field	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: Andrw 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

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