Joseph Erlanger

About

Co-recepient, with Herbert Spencer Gasser, of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for their research into nerve conduction. He helped identify several varieties of nerve fiber and did important work into the relationship between action potential velocity and fiber diameter.

Before Fame

He was the first Professor of Physiology at the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, where Gasser was one of his students.

Trivia

He was studying the circulatory system before turning his research to the nervous system, and in 1922 he and Gasser adapted an oscillograph to study how nerves conduct signals.

Family Life

He was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Herman and Sarah Erlanger.

Associated With

After a lack of funding forced him to move from Wisconsin to Washington University in St. Louis, Herbert Gasser followed him there to start their breakthrough research.