20 Facts About Hallowell Davis

Hallowell Davis was an American physiologist, otolaryngologist and researcher who did pioneering work on the physiology of hearing and the inner ear.

Hallowell Davis served as director of research at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St Louis, Missouri.

Hallowell Davis was born on August 31,1896, in New York City, the son of attorney Horace A Davis, and Anna Norwood Davis.

Hallowell Davis's great-grandfather was Massachusetts Governor John Davis, and his grandfather was Civil War Officer Norwood Penrose Hallowell.

Hallowell Davis graduated from Harvard College in 1918, where he was the class orator at graduation.

Related searches

Hallowell Davis earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1922 and then spent a year at the University of Cambridge where he was trained as an electrophysiologist in the laboratory of Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian.

In 1925, Harvard named Davis to serve as an official tutor and instructor in pre-medical sciences, as a means of helping prepare students intending to advance to Harvard and other medical schools to "get the soundest general foundation possible for their medical education".

Hallowell Davis was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1929.

Hallowell Davis focused on the physiology of the inner ear, investigating how neurological impulses are transmitted to the brain via the cochlear nerve.

Hallowell Davis's studies led to the development of electrical-response audiometry, which allowed diagnosis of hearing difficulties in infants.

Robert Galambos credited Hallowell Davis with coining the word "audiology" in the 1940s, with Hallowell Davis saying the then-prevalent term "auricular training" sounded like a method of teaching people how to wiggle their ears.

Hallowell Davis moved to the Central Institute for the Deaf, where some of his early work was for the Veterans Administration in the development of improved hearing aids for soldiers who had experienced hearing loss.

Hallowell Davis was a professor of physiology at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he lectured on hearing and speech.

Research by Hallowell Davis presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1952 showed that hair cells in the inner ear play a pivotal role in transforming the mechanical stimulus of sound into electrical impulses to be sent to and processed by the brain.

Hallowell Davis was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1965.

Hallowell Davis married the former Pauline Allen in 1923 at a refugee camp near Istanbul, where they were treating those with typhus, smallpox and other diseases.

Hallowell Davis served as his research partner until her death in 1942.

Hallowell Davis married Florence Eaton in 1944 and then Nancy Gilson in 1983, three years after the death of his second wife.

Hallowell Davis died at age 95 on August 22,1992, at the Bethesda Dalworth Home in St Louis.

Hallowell Davis was survived by his third wife, Nancy, as well as a daughter, two sons, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.