# Henry Herbert Donaldson

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Henry_Herbert_Donaldson
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Henry_Herbert_Donaldson.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Herbert_Donaldson
> Source revision: 1293230182
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

American neuroscientist (1857-1938)

**Henry Herbert Donaldson** (12 May 1857 – 23 January 1938) was an American pioneer of neurology. One of his most influential studies was on the effect of sensory deprivation, based on the study of [Laura Bridgman](/source/Laura_Bridgman)'s brain, on the development of the brain which resulted in the landmark work *The Growth of the Brain* (1895). He served as a professor of neurology at the [Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology](/source/Wistar_Institute) at the [University of Pennsylvania](/source/University_of_Pennsylvania) and was a major influence on a generation of American neurologists and was a key promoter of the use of the rat as a laboratory research model.

## Early life and education

Donaldson was born in [Yonkers, New York](/source/Yonkers%2C_New_York), to banker John Joseph and Louisa Goddard (McGowan) both of Irish origins.[1] He was sent to study business but he showed an interest in science and after his studies at [Phillips Academy](/source/Phillips_Academy) he went to Yale graduating in 1879. He spent an extra year working under [Russell H. Chittenden](/source/Russell_Henry_Chittenden) examining arsenic residues in the body. He then went to study medicine for a year but found research was more of his interest than practice.

## Career

Following this, he joined [Johns Hopkins University](/source/Johns_Hopkins_University) in 1881 working under [H. Newell Martin](/source/H._Newell_Martin) on aspects of physiology. He studied the effect of digitalin on the heart and for his PhD, he examined the neurology of the temperature sense under [G. Stanley Hall](/source/G._Stanley_Hall). He then spent some time in Europe under [Auguste Forel](/source/Auguste_Forel) at Zurich, [Theodor Meynert](/source/Theodor_Meynert) at Vienna and [Camillo Golgi](/source/Camillo_Golgi) at Pavia. Returning to Johns Hopkins, he worked with Hall, following him to [Clark University, Worcester](/source/Clark_University). Here he became an assistant professor in 1889 and began to work on the brain of Laura Bridgman which resulted in the monograph on the *Growth of the Brain* published in 1895.

In 1892 he suffered from an infection of the knee and had to spend some time to recover. He left Clark University following administrative problems in 1892 to join the [University of Chicago](/source/University_of_Chicago). In 1905 he moved to the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology at Philadelphia and worked there until his death. Here he began to conduct experiments on rats, following his colleague [Shinkishi Hatai](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shinkishi_Hatai&action=edit&redlink=1), rather than the older model organisms, frogs. This would lead to the production of the [Wistar white rat](/source/Laboratory_rat) as a standard for research.[2][3] Donaldson was elected to the [American Philosophical Society](/source/American_Philosophical_Society) in 1906 and the United States [National Academy of Sciences](/source/National_Academy_of_Sciences) in 1914.[4][5]

He served as the 12th president of the [Association of American Anatomists](/source/American_Association_for_Anatomy) from 1915 to 1917.

## Personal life and death

Donaldson married Julia Desboro Vaux in 1884 and they [had two sons](https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.88.2273.72), John C. Donaldson and [Norman V. Donaldson](https://www.usna.edu/Library/sca/man-findingaids/view.php?f=MS%20374). After her death in 1904, he married Emma Brace in 1907. After his death, his brain was donated to the [American Anthropometric Society](/source/American_Anthropometric_Society)[6] and is currently stored at the [Wistar Institute](/source/Wistar_Institute).[7]

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Bronk, Detlev W. (1938). ["Henry Herbert Donaldson, Ph.D., Sc.D. 1857—1938"](http://archneurpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/archneurpsyc.1938.02270060205014). *Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry*. **39** (6): 1313. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1001/archneurpsyc.1938.02270060205014](https://doi.org/10.1001%2Farchneurpsyc.1938.02270060205014). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0096-6754](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0096-6754).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Lazar, J. Wayne (2018-10-02). ["Henry Herbert Donaldson's (1857–1938) contribution to an organized approach to the experimental study of the mammalian central nervous system"](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0964704X.2018.1451159). *Journal of the History of the Neurosciences*. **27** (4): 311–332. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1080/0964704X.2018.1451159](https://doi.org/10.1080%2F0964704X.2018.1451159). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0964-704X](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0964-704X). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [29652555](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29652555). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [4895127](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4895127).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Conklin, E.G. (1939). ["Biographical memoir of Henry Herbert Donaldson, 1857–1938"](http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/donaldson-henry.pdf) (PDF). *Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences*. **20**: 229–243.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["APS Member History"](https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Henry+H.+Donaldson&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced). *search.amphilsoc.org*. Retrieved 2024-01-18.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["Henry H. Donaldson"](https://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20001728.html). *www.nasonline.org*. Retrieved 2024-01-18.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Burrell, Brian (2003). ["The Strange Fate of Whitman's Brain"](https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/wwqr/pdf/anc.00891.pdf) (PDF). *Walt Whitman Quarterly Review*. **20** (3): 128. Retrieved 3 January 2024.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Conklin, Edwin G. (1938). ["Henry Herbert Donaldson"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1664036). *Science*. **88** (2273): 72–74. [Bibcode](/source/Bibcode_(identifier)):[1938Sci....88...72C](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1938Sci....88...72C). [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1126/science.88.2273.72](https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.88.2273.72). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0036-8075](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0036-8075). [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [1664036](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1664036).

## External links

- [The growth of the brain; a study of the nervous system in relation to education](https://archive.org/details/growthofbrainstu00donauoft) (1895)

- [The rat; reference tables and data for the albino rat (Mus norvegicus albinus) and the Norway rat (Mus norvegicus)](https://archive.org/details/ratreferencetabl00dona) (1915)

v t e Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists 1883–1900 Alpheus Hyatt (1883–1884) Grove Karl Gilbert (1885–1886) Harrison Allen (1887–1888) George Lincoln Goodale (1889) H. Newell Martin (1890) William North Rice (1891) Henry Fairfield Osborn (1892) Russell Henry Chittenden (1893) Charles Sedgwick Minot (1894) Edward Drinker Cope (1895) William Berryman Scott (1896) Charles Otis Whitman (1897) Henry Pickering Bowditch (1898) William Gilson Farlow (1899) Edmund Beecher Wilson (1900) 1901–1925 William T. Sedgwick (1901) James McKeen Cattell (1902) William Trelease (1903) Edward Laurens Mark (1904) Charles Davenport (1906) J. Playfair McMurrich (1907) David P. Penhallow (1908) Thomas Hunt Morgan (1909) Daniel Trembly MacDougal (1910) Herbert Spencer Jennings (1911) Edwin Conklin (1912) Ross Granville Harrison (1913) Samuel F. Clarke (1914) Frank Rattray Lillie (1915) Raymond Pearl (1916) George Harrison Shull (1917) William E. Castle (1918) Edward Murray East (1919) Jacques Loeb (1920) Bradley Moore Davis (1921) William H. Wheeler (1922) Rollins A. Emerson (1923) William Henry Howell (1924) Clinton Hart Merriam (1925) 1926–1950 James Arthur Harris (1926) Clarence Erwin McClung (1927) Henry Herbert Donaldson (1928) George Howard Parker (1929) Albert Francis Blakeslee (1930) Samuel Jackson Holmes (1931) Ross Aiken Gortner (1932) Burton Edward Livingston (1933) Aaron Franklin Shull (1934) John Campbell Merriam (1935) Charles Elmer Allen (1936) David Hilt Tennent (1937) Robert Yerkes (1938) Ivey Foreman Lewis (1939) Joseph Hall Bodine (1940) William Walter Cort (1941) Ralph Erskine Cleland (1942) Hermann Joseph Muller (1943) Fay-Cooper Cole (1944) Edmund Ware Sinnott (1945) Charles W. Metz (1946) Karl Lashley (1947) Paul R. Burkholder (1948) Tracy Sonneborn (1949) Theodosius Dobzhansky (1950) 1951–1975 Paul Christoph Mangelsdorf (1951) Sewall Wright (1952) Lewis Stadler (1953) Milislav Demerec (1954) Kenneth V. Thimann (1955) E. Newton Harvey (1956) G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1958) Paul Sears (1959) L. C. Dunn (1960) Marston Bates (1961) Ernst Mayr (1962) Royal Alexander Brink (1963) Albert Tyler (1964) H. Bentley Glass (1965) Reed C. Rollins (1966) Colin Pittendrigh (1967) Jack Shultz (1968) G. Ledyard Stebbins (1969) Bruce Wallace (1970) Harlan Lewis (1971) John Alexander Moore (1972) Hampton L. Carson (1973) Robert W. Allard (1974) Ruth Patrick (1975) 1976–2000 Howard Levene (1976) Norman Giles (1977) Charles Duncan Michener (1978) Janice Spofford (1979) Robert Whittaker (1980) Elliot Spiess (1981) Richard Lewontin (1982) Peter H. Raven (1983) Robert R. Sokal (1984) Lawrence B. Slobodkin (1985) Janis Antonovics (1986) Wyatt Anderson (1987) Thomas Eisner (1988) David B. Wake (1989) Lee Ehrman (1990) James Brown (1991) Philip Hedrick (1992) Raymond B. Huey (1993) Douglas J. Futuyma (1994) Montgomery Slatkin (1995) Henry M. Wilbur (1996) Geerat J. Vermeij (1997) Robert K. Colwell (1998) Peter Grant (1999) Gary Allan Polis (2000) 2001–present James Thomson (2001) Johanna Schmitt (2002) Daniel Simberloff (2003) Richard Grosberg (2004) Joseph Travis (2005) Mary Eleanor Power (2006) Robert Andrew Holt (2007) John N. Thompson (2008) Joel Kingsolver (2009) Jonathan Losos (2010) Robert Ricklefs (2011) Stevan J. Arnold (2012) Dolph Schluter (2013) Trevor Price (2014) Ellen Ketterson (2015) Mark McPeek (2016) Kathleen Donohue (2017) Sharon Y. Strauss (2018) Michael C. Whitlock (2019) Susan Kalisz (2020) Edmund D. Brodie III (2021) Judith Bronstein (2022) Maria Servedio (2023) Jeffrey K. Conner (2024) Daniel I. Bolnick (2025)

Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat National United States Italy Czech Republic Netherlands Norway Israel Other IdRef Open Library Yale LUX

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Henry Herbert Donaldson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Herbert_Donaldson) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Herbert_Donaldson?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.