A. J. Clark

Alfred Joseph Clark (19 August 1885 – 30 July 1941) was a British pharmacologist and Professor of Pharmacology at the University College London. He was a de-bunker of fraudulent remedies and did many early studies on the placebo effect of many claimed cures.

Life He was born in Glastonbury the son of a Quaker, Francis Joseph Clark of Street, Somerset. He was educated at Bootham School in Yorkshire, and attended the University of Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1907 and receiving a postgraduate MA in 1910.

After the First World War he was employed briefly as Professor of Pharmacology at Cape Town University in South Africa, but used this as a stepping-stone to the more prestigious role of Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, where he worked 1919 to 1926. The Department of Pharmacology, University College London was the first to be established in England. In 1926 he became Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh.

He died in Edinburgh on 30 July 1941 following complications from a surgical procedure for an intestinal obstruction on 28 July.

Military service Clark served in both World Wars.

In the First World War he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and received the Military Cross in 1917

In the Second World War he advised the government on gas warfare They had two sons and two daughters.

His son, David Clark, became a prominent psychiatrist.

Publications

He was the author of the classic textbook Applied Pharmacology.

Comparative Physiology of the Heart(1927) The Mode of Action of Drugs on Cells (1933) General Pharmacology (1937) The Metabolism of the Frog's Heart (1938) Patent Medicines (1938)