Archibald Hill, Sir | Biography

The 1922 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine recognized Archibald Hill for his discoveries relating to heat production and oxygen use in muscles. Prior to this distinction Hill was knighted for his military work during World War I and elected a member into the Royal Society, both in 1918. He represented Cambridge University in Parliament during World War II, and also served on the War Cabinet Scientific Advisory Committee. It was only after the war, and his retirement in 1952, that Hill returned to research into the physiology of the muscles.

Sir Archibald Vivian Hill was born in Bristol, England, into a family that had been in the lumber business for five generations. Hill's mother, Ada Priscilla Rumney Hill, raised Hill and his younger sister after their father, Jonathan Hill, deserted the family when Hill was three. Until age seven, his mother educated him at home, but when the family moved to nearby Weston-super-Mare, Hill was placed in a preparatory school of modest size. In 1899, the family moved to Tiverton, Devonshire, where Hill received the training he would need to enter college. At Blundell's School, he demonstrated exceptional abilities in mathematics, joined the debating team, and ran long-distance. Hill's sister Muriel later became a biochemist.

In 1905, Hill received a scholarship to study mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. There he completed a three-year course in two years, but found that even though he performed well in his chosen subject, he lacked sufficient interest or motivation to develop further as a mathematician. His tutor, Walter Morley Fletcher (1873-1933), who was a physiologist, had been working with Frederick Gowland Hopkins researching the chemistry of frog muscle physiology. Fletcher and Hopkins had discovered the importance of lactic acid in muscle contraction. Fletcher advised Hill to change from mathematics to physiology, even though Hill had finished third in his class in mathematics. Fletcher correctly believed that Hill's scientific curiosity was stronger than his urge to become a mathematician.

Hill graduated from Trinity College with a medical degree in 1907 but remained there for the next seven years doing research until war broke out in 1914. In 1909, he completed his examinations in natural science with honors and began research at the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory. The director of the laboratory, J. N. Langley, suggested that Hill expand the work of Fletcher and Hopkins on the chemistry of muscle contraction by the production of heat in the process of muscle contraction. Using a thermocouple recorder, which is a measuring device that records minute changes in heat temperatures, Hill was able to establish the basic procedures in this early work for his later discoveries which were to eventually earn him a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

In 1911, after receiving a fellowship from Trinity College the year before, Hill visited Germany where his techniques for measuring heat changes in muscles produced by contraction were significantly improved. Two German scientists, Karl Burker and Friedrich Paschen, showed him how to improve his use of the thermocouple and galvanometer, instruments that allowed him to measure minute changes in electric current with greater degrees of accuracy.

In the three years following his trip to Germany, Hill continued at Cambridge, observing heat quantities produced by muscular contractions and recording those chemical changes taking place in the muscle, enabling it to do mechanical work. By 1913, Hill was able to demonstrate that when the muscle starts to contract, a small amount of heat is produced, while after the initial phase of the contraction, more heat develops, though at a slower rate and in much greater measure. He also showed at this time that molecular oxygen is used after the contraction takes place rather than at the time of the contraction itself.

The discovery that molecular oxygen is not required in the initial phase was demonstrated by placing muscle fibers in an atmosphere that excluded oxygen and instead used pure nitrogen. The production of heat at the onset--despite the absence of oxygen--indicated that oxygen was not necessary for the initiation of the contraction. However, the recovery phase did not take place, suggesting an energy exchange as a critical factor in heat being generated during the post contraction phase.

Hill's discoveries of how heat production and oxygen function in muscle tissue opened the way for a clearer understanding of the earlier work of Fletcher's and Hopkin's experiments. They had shown the formation of lactic acid in frog muscle during the contraction process, and observed its elimination when oxygen was present. Hill believed that the initial heat he noted was produced by a lactic acid formation from a precursor substance. The heat generated in the recovery phase signified the removal of lactic acid through oxidation.

Hill's muscle research was interrupted by World War I. He served first as a captain, then became a major in the Cambridgeshire Regiment. He was also commissioned by the government to develop a program for the improvement of anti-aircraft ordinance. After the war, Hill returned to Cambridge to continue his work on muscle physiology. In 1920, he accepted an appointment to the Brackenbury Chair of Physiology at Manchester University. There he challenged the accepted view of heat production in one phase only, or at the time of contraction, establishing the two phases of heat production in muscle contraction from his work with frogs' thigh muscles.

In order to develop further his findings relating to oxidation and muscle contraction, Hill did research with Otto Meyerhof, a German-American biochemist. Meyerhof had been studying the physiology of muscle contraction through chemical rather than mechanical dynamics and had been able to identify glycogen as the precursor of lactic acid. Hill theorized that since the heat produced by the two phases of muscular contraction was not enough to eliminate all the lactic acid, it probably changed back to its precursor. Meyerhof demonstrated that the energy levels created by the oxidation of the lactic acid were enough to reconvert it back to glycogen. The agreement of their work thus assured the validity of their research.

For their cooperative work in muscle physiology, Hill and Meyerhof shared the 1922 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. In his Nobel speech, Hill emphasized the need for continuing research in the area of muscle physiology. He reminded the audience of the complexity of the subject, of the different approaches to experimentation, and of the need for improved instruments with which to perform meaningful study and research.

In 1923, Hill received an appointment to University College, London, and became Foulerton Research Professor of the Royal Society. He continued his work in muscle physiology, but this time he turned his attention to the role of lactic acid build-up in human muscles. He found that with moderate exercise there is enough oxygen to remove the excess lactic acid, but with heavy exercise there is an excess amount of lactic acid build-up due to what he called an oxygen debt. This debt can be made up by deep breathing or allowing enough time at rest to allow for the absorption of the lactic acid surplus.

In the thirties, with the rise of Hitler in Germany, Hill voiced his protest against the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis against Jewish scientists, as well as anti-Nazi scientists. He helped form groups to assist researchers escaping Nazi oppression. In World War II, Hill again performed vital services on behalf of his country's military objectives, as he had done in World War I. Two major accomplishments of this period include his coordination of efforts to gain military cooperation with Canada and the United States, and a report he composed as a visitor to India recommending the restructuring and reorganization of the country's scientific and industrial resources. At the war's close, Hill reorganized his laboratory and recruited a staff for research at University College. He retired in 1952, but continued his scientific investigations in the area of muscle physiology.

Hill married Margaret Neville Keynes in 1913. She was a social worker and the sister of John Maynard Keynes, a well-known English economist. The couple eventually had two sons and two daughters. Hill died of a viral infection followed by complications at age 90.