Lawrence Joseph Henderson (June 3, 1878,
Lynn, MassachusettsLynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An older industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park. Currently, Edward "Chip" Clancy, Jr. is serving his second term as Mayor.-History:The area known as Lynn...
– February 10, 1942,
Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent...
) was a physiologist,
chemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the science of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density, acidity, size and shape. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component...
,
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, philosopher, and sociologist. He became one of the leading biochemists of the first decades of the 20th century.
Lawrence Henderson graduated from
Harvard CollegeHarvard College is one of two undergraduate degree granting schools, and the oldest school, of Harvard University, a private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature...
in 1898 and from
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is currently ranked first among American research medical schools by U.S. News and World Report....
in 1902, receiving the M. D. (Medical Doctor) degree cum laude. Then followed two years in chemical research at the
University of StrasbourgThe University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
with advanced scientific training in
Franz HofmeisterFranz Hofmeister was an early protein scientist, and is famous for his studies of salts that influence the solubility and conformational stability of proteins...
's physiological laboratory.
Lawrence Joseph Henderson (June 3, 1878,
Lynn, MassachusettsLynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An older industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park. Currently, Edward "Chip" Clancy, Jr. is serving his second term as Mayor.-History:The area known as Lynn...
– February 10, 1942,
Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent...
) was a physiologist,
chemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the science of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density, acidity, size and shape. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component...
,
biologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, philosopher, and sociologist. He became one of the leading biochemists of the first decades of the 20th century.
Lawrence Henderson graduated from
Harvard CollegeHarvard College is one of two undergraduate degree granting schools, and the oldest school, of Harvard University, a private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature...
in 1898 and from
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is currently ranked first among American research medical schools by U.S. News and World Report....
in 1902, receiving the M. D. (Medical Doctor) degree cum laude. Then followed two years in chemical research at the
University of StrasbourgThe University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
with advanced scientific training in
Franz HofmeisterFranz Hofmeister was an early protein scientist, and is famous for his studies of salts that influence the solubility and conformational stability of proteins...
's physiological laboratory. He became professor of biological chemistry, and later professor of chemistry, in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was also introduced into philosophy and sociology by faculty members of Harvard University. He established some institutes in Harvard, especially the Fatigue Laboratory for physiological and sociological research on fatigue with the support of the
Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School is a graduate business school in Boston, Massachusetts. The school offers a full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, as well as many . The School owns Harvard Business School Publishing, which publishes business books, online management tools for corporate learning, case...
, and the
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is currently ranked first among American research medical schools by U.S. News and World Report....
, and he became the director.
Henderson investigated acid-base regulation (1906-1920). He found that acid-base balance is regulated by buffer systems of the blood in complex coordination with respiration, the
lungThe lung or pulmonary system is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart...
, red blood cells, and with the kidneys. After him is named the Henderson equation and the
Henderson-Hasselbalch equationIn chemistry, the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation describes the derivation of pH as a measure of acidity in biological and chemical systems...
. In addition, he described blood gas transport and the general physiology of blood as physico-chemical system (1920-1932). He invented and constructed new charts, nomograms, with the help of P. M. d'Ocagne. He introduced nomograms into physiology and biology as well.
The consequental inter-relations of various factors were shown in his book
Blood in more than one hundred nomograms.
In his classical book
The Fitness of the EnvironmentThe Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter is a 1913 book written by Lawrence Joseph Henderson. In the book, Henderson discusses the importance of water and the environment with a respect to living things...
(1913) we find "an inquiry into the biological significance of the properties of matter" (Henderson). He saw the properties of matter and the course of cosmic evolution intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities. He concluded: "the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe in its very essence as biocentric".
As a sociologist (1932-1942) he applied the functionalism of physiological regulation to the phenomena of social behavior basing on his concept of
social systemsSocial system is a central term in sociological systems theory. The term draws a line to ecosystem, biological organisms, psychichal systems and technical systems. They all form the environment of social systems...
. He described social systems with the help of the sociology of
Vilfredo ParetoVilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto , born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, was an Italian industrialist, sociologist, economist, and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. "His legacy as an...
. In contrast to Pareto, Henderson applied the concept of social systems to all disciplines that study the meanings communicated in interactions between two or more persons acting in roles or role-sets. Henderson influenced many Harvard sociologists, especially
Talcott ParsonsTalcott Parsons was an American sociologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1927–1973.Parsons developed a general theory for the study of society called action theory, based on the methodological principle of voluntarism and the epistemological principle of analytical...
,
George C. HomansGeorge Casper Homans was the American founder of behavioral sociology and the exchange theory....
,
Robert K. MertonRobert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist perhaps best known for having coined the phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy," the explanation for how a belief or an expectation, correct or incorrect, affects the outcome of a situation or the way a person or a group will behave...
, and
Elton MayoGeorge Elton Mayo was an Australian psychologist, sociologist and organization theorist.He lectured at the University of Queensland from 1911 to 1923 before moving to the University of Pennsylvania, but spent most of his career at Harvard Business School , where he was professor of industrial...
who all became pioneers in sociology or psychology. Henderson was instrumental in promoting Talcott Parsons career at Harvard despite
Pitirim SorokinPitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was a Russian-American sociologist born in Komi . Academic and political activist in Russia, he emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1923. He founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Like C. W. Mills, he was a vocal opponent of Talcott...
's opposition. He also discussed intensively with Parsons the methodological chapters of Talcott Parsons "The Structure" of Social Action" (1937) at the time when Parsons was working on the raw manuscript.
Henderson's investigations had their inception and consummation in the philosopher's chair. In spite of his diversity of interests, his work exhibits in retrospect a fundamental unity; his career was largely devoted to the study of the organization of the organism, the universe, and society.
Books
- The Fitness of the Environment. Macmillan, New York, 1913 (German edition in 1914),
- The Order of Nature. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 1917 (French edition in 1924),
- Blood. A Study in General Physiology. Yale University Press, New Haven, and Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, London, 1928 (French edition in 1931, German edition in 1932),
- Pareto's General Sociology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1935.
- On the Social System. Ed. by Bernard Barber, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970.
External links
- For Henderson's work see: http://mitglied.lycos.de/Windeln/