19 Facts About Alan Hodgkin

Alan Hodgkin was the oldest of three sons of Quakers George Hodgkin and Mary Wilson Hodgkin.

Alan Hodgkin's father was the son of Thomas Hodgkin and had read for the Natural Science Tripos at Cambridge where he had befriended electrophysiologist Keith Lucas.

In 1916, George Alan Hodgkin travelled to Armenia as part of an investigation of distress.

Alan Hodgkin died of dysentery in Baghdad on 24 June 1918, just a few weeks after his youngest son, Keith, had been born.

Alan Hodgkin ended up receiving a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge in botany, zoology and chemistry.

Alan Hodgkin finished Part II of the tripos in July 1935 and stayed at Trinity as a research fellow.

Alan Hodgkin started conducting experiments on how electrical activity is transmitted in the sciatic nerve of frogs in July 1934.

Alan Hodgkin found that a nerve impulse arriving at a cold or compression block, can decrease the electrical threshold beyond the block, suggesting that the impulse produces a spread of an electrotonic potential in the nerve beyond the block.

Alan Hodgkin moved all his equipment to the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in July 1939.

In March 1941, Alan Hodgkin flew on the test flight of a Bristol Blenheim fitted with the first airborne centimetric radar system.

Alan Hodgkin was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953 by Lord Adrian.

From 1951 to 1969, Alan Hodgkin was the Foulerton Professor of the Royal Society at Cambridge.

From 1970 to 1975 Alan Hodgkin served as the 53rd president of the Royal Society.

Alan Hodgkin served on the Royal Society Council from 1958 to 1960 and on the Medical Research Council from 1959 to 1963.

Alan Hodgkin was foreign secretary of the Physiological Society from 1961 to 1967.

Alan Hodgkin held additional administrative posts such as Chancellor, University of Leicester, from 1971 to 1984.

When Rous invited him for dinner to his home, Alan Hodgkin got to know Rous' daughter, Marni, who was then a student at Swarthmore College.

Alan Hodgkin proposed to her before going back to England in 1938, but she rejected him.

Alan Hodgkin suffered from a series of medical problems that began soon after his retirement as Master of Trinity.