John Smyth Macdonald

John Smyth Macdonald FRS (1867, Dublin – 29 March 1941) was a British physiologist.

Early life and education Macdonald was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1867 to George Macdonald, a tailor, and his wife, Margaret, née Smyth. The family soon moved to Waterford and subsequently to Chester in England, where he was educated at the King's School for Boys. In 1886, he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics, graduating with a third-class B.A. degree in 1889.

From 1889 to 1891 he studied medicine at University College, Liverpool. In 1897 he qualified L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. by passing the Scottish Conjoint Board Examination.

Career In 1891, Macdonald was appointed the Holt Fellow in Physiology at University College, Liverpool, where he did research under Francis Gotch from 1891 to 1897. After gaining his medical qualifications, he served as house physician at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary for about six months in 1897, under James Barr. From 1897 to 1899, he was a lecturer in physiology at University College, Dundee under Waymouth Reid.

He continued to research this topic at Liverpool, publishing a series of papers in the Journal of Physiology and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. He studied nerve electrical currents, potassium and chloride ions, among other topics. In around 1908, he began to research the mechanism of contraction in striated muscle, publishing an influential paper on the topic in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology. In around 1912, his attention turned to the problem of measuring muscular work in humans. He built a human calorimeter, now in the Wellcome Medical Museum, with which he studied how the heat produced was related to factors such as the intensity of exercise and the subject's weight. With F. A. Duffield, he also studied respiratory gas exchange.

Selected publications