| Administrative History | According to the correspondence, Joshua Harold Burn (1892 - 1981) was British Editor of 'Physiological Reviews' [see letter dated 23 December 1950], and Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford.
Burn corresponded from various addresses, including Capel Close, Oxford; in letters dated, 21 September and 1 October 1965, Edward Mallinckrodt Department of Pharmacology, St. Louis, Missouri; and Squitchey Lane, Oxford.
Before the First World War (1914 - 1918), Burn trained in Cambridge and was apparently influenced by J. Barcroft, F. G. Hopkins and H. K. Anderson. In January 1914, Burn went to work with Henry Dale at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, and then Burn joined the army for war service. Burn completed his medical degree in 1920 and then went back to work with Dale at the National Institute for Medical Research.
Between 1925 and 1937, Burn was the first Director of the Pharmacological Laboratories of the Pharmaceutical Society. According to John R. Vane in the British Journal of Pharmacology, as the Director, 'Burn pioneered the use of statistical methods in pharmacology, especially for the bioassay of hormones and vitamins. He recognized that the imprecision associated with biological variation - the essence of life which makes one animal or person respond differently from another - could be largely overcome by applying statistical analysis, more precisely to define the limits of the variation. In 1937, he published a book on biological standardization ... which became the accepted text in the field. It was later translated into German and much used in Russia' (Vane, 'Burn', 4).
From 1937, Burn was Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford and 'From London he took with him Harold Ling and Edith Bulbring and then in the 1940's attracted many others, including John Walker, Hugh Blaschko, Miles Vaughan Williams and Harold Ing; all those named stayed with Burn until he retired and with Oxford until they did' (Vane, 'Burn', 4).
According to Vane: 'Everyone who passed through the laboratory either as a casual half hour visitor, or as a research worker or student, could not fail to be impressed by the weight of Burn's authority. His students held him in great respect if not in fear. As well as being a king - maker, he was also king in his own castle' (Vane, 'Burn', 5).
Burn was a founding member of the British Pharmacological Society from 1931 and active member until his retirement in 1959. He was Secretary and Treasurer of the Society in 1934, editor of the British Journal of Pharmacology in 1945 and was Foreign Secretary for the Pharmacological Society between 1947 and 1959. Burn was a Trustee of the Society from 1965 until he died. He was active in the Physiological Society 'of which he was twice a committee member and was the British representative of the International Committee of Pharmacologists, the forerunner of the International Union' (Vane, 'Burn', 5).
'Burn was also a man with a strong social conscience. Long before it became fashionable, he was actively campaigning against smoking, especially in the laboratory' (Vane, 'Burn', 5).
According to Vane, Burn will be best remembered for his 'investigation of autonomic neurones, much of it performed in collaboration with Edith Bulbring'. Also Burn 'was not afraid of controversy ... and his most controversial idea, came [?around 1950s - 70s] with his proposal, along with [Mike] Rand, that acetylcholine was a co - transmitter with noradrenaline in sympathetic nerve fibres. This hypothesis ... became notorious around the world as the 'Burn - Rand hypothesis' ... [but] it did not become generally accepted' (Vane, 'Burn', 5 - 6).
'Professor Burn received many honours and accolades in recognition of his achievements. These included the Fellowship of The Royal Society, numerous memorial lectureships, four prestigious honorary degrees, the honorary presidency of the International Union of Pharmacologists, and honorary membership of the British and other Pharmacological Societies. He was particularly pleased to be awarded by the British Pharmacological Society in 1979 the first Wellcome Gold Medal in Pharmacology. He wrote ten or more books dealing with pharmacology and its applications and was the author of several hundred research papers and reviews' (Vane, 'Burn', 6).
The appreciation by J. R. Vane includes a quote made by Burn, which describes what life was like in his laboratory at Oxford (Burn, 'Vane', 6 - 7).
A photocopy of the appreciation has been included with the correspondence.
Cited from J. R. Vane, 'J. H. Burn: an appreciation' from 'British Journal of Pharmacology' 75 (1982), 3 - 7.
John Michael Rand (1927 - 2002), Pharmacologist, Educator and Research Scientist. 'In 1953, Rand started [his] PhD studies at the University of Sydney, under the supervision of Roland Thorp from the Department of Pharmacology. On completion of his thesis he went to Oxford University in 1956, undertaking post -doctoral studies with J.H. Burn. Together they developed and explored the Burn - Rand hypothesis of the existence of a cholinergic link in noradrenergic transmission'.
Cited from the History of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences at Melbourne web page, 'Rand, John Michael (1927 - 2002), http://www.chs.unimelb.edu.au/programs/jnmhu/umfm/biogs/FM00237b.htm (2005), where further details can be found. |
| Description | Correspondence, regarding the exchange of reprints, and Burn's and Kosterlitz's respective research and work.
Letters, dated 22 March 1952 (from Kosterlitz) and 23 June 1953 (from Burn), mention the fact that Edith Bulbring was working with Burn.
Letter, dated 18 June 1952, from Kosterlitz, says that he has been 'considering whether it would be possible for me to become a member of the Pharmacological Society' and asks Burn if he would consider Kosterlitz a suitable candidate and sponsor him. Letter, dated 4 July 1952, from Burn, says: 'I will certainly propose you for membership of the Pharmacological Society'. Letter, dated 14 April 1955, says that Kosterlitz is still considering whether he should try to become a member of the Pharmacological Society, and asks again whether Burns would sponsor him. Correspondence, dated 23 April 1955 to 4 May 1955, mentions Kosterlitz's application to gain membership of the Pharmacological Society, and letter, dated 27 January 1956, from Kosterlitz, says that he has been elected a member of the Society.
Letter, dated 5 March 1953, from Kosterlitz, saying that he 'received an invitation from Professor [Otto] Krayer to go to Harvard from September, 1953 until January, 1954 and do some work with him on the effects of preganglionic and post - ganglionic sympathetic denervation on the responses of cardiac muscle to sympathomimetic drugs'. Letter also says that 'The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland has given me a grant which will defray the cost of my stay at Boston but not the cost of travel to the U.S.A. I therefore intend to apply for a Fulbright grant and wonder whether I may use your name as one of the three references required in the application'. Letter, dated 6 March 1953, from Burn, agreeing to Kosterlitz using his name as a referee in his application for a Fulbright Grant. Letter, dated 11 June 1953, from Kosterlitz, mentioning that he had been awarded a Fulbright Travel Grant and thanking Burn for his help regarding the application.
Corrrespondence, dated 11 June - 22 June 1953, regards Miss Robinson filling the post of Junior Research Fellow at the Physiology Department, Marischal College, Aberdeen.
Letter, dated 28 August 1971, from Burn to Kosterlitz, says, 'I think the hypothesis is now about to become a theory. You may be interested to know that Otto Loewi accepted the hypothesis before his death ... Then Heymans also thought the hypothesis was right, as he told me in Prague at the Congress there. So two Nobel Prize winners thought it was right. Lastly Philip Bard accepted the evidence, and I was invited to Johns Hopkins to give a Herter Lecture. I have a letter from Philip Bard saying he was convinced ... '.
Reply letter from Kosterlitz, dated 10 September 1971, which mentions, 'I am still neutral as far as the change from cholinergic link hypothesis to theory is concerned'.
Includes copy of a letter from Burn to Kosterlitz, dated 28 May 1972, thanking Kosterlitz for going to the dinner in Worcester College, which was arranged to celebrate Burn's eightieth birthday. Letter says, 'I was asked the other day how many people accept the hypothesis of Burn and Rand about the mode of release of noradrenaline. I have letter s from the following stating their agreement. (1) Otto Leowi, (written 24 March 1960). (2) Philip Bard (2 June 1967). (3) U. S. von Euler (23 Feb. 1971) (4) Ragnar Granit (July 1971). Then Heymans came to me at the Congress in Prague in 1963, just after I had given a summary at the Opening Meeting. He said "You must go on with this; I think you are right". The evidence which has made the hypothesis acceptable to many is that of Eranko. (See Nature, 1971. 231. 237.)'.
Letter, dated 5 October 1976, from Kosterlitz replying to Burn's handwritten letter of 29 September 1976, defining 'ligand' and 'opioid'. Kosterlitz writes, 'The term "ligand" is used in this context to describe a chemical agent which will combine with a receptor, irrespective of whether this agent is an agonist or antagonist. Thus, both acetylcholine and atropine are ligands of the muscarinic receptor. Opioid is a word I personally do not like but it is widely used by our American colleagues. For a long time I held out for morphine - like (not in structure but in action) but have been completely outvoted'.
There are a number of gaps in the correspondence: there is only one letter from 1951, dated 4 January 1951, and no correspondence from July 1953 to January 1955. Also gaps between January - March 1952; March - June 1952; July - December 1952; May 1955 and January 1956; between January 1956 and June 1963 [?except for letter, dated 21 May ?1961 from Burn]; June 1963 and January 1964; January 1964 and October 1965; October 1965 and April 1966; May 1966 and March 1970; March - September 1970; September 1970 and January 1971; January - September 1971; September 1971 and May 1972; May 1972 and June 1975, and 1975 and 1976. |