Lawrence J. Henderson (English)

By Rudolf Windeln

Content

1. Introduction

2. Physiologist

3. Biologist and philosopher

4. Sociologist

5. Conclusion

6. Selected bibliography of Henderson

1. Introduction

In retrospect we may say, L. J. Henderson (photographs) was a physiologist, chemist, biologist, philosopher and sociologist. Born in Lynn, Massachussetts, USA, in 1878, the year when the great French physiologist Claude Bernard died, Henderson became himself also one of the leading physiologists of the first decades of the 20th century - the time of the development from physiological chemistry to the new discipline biochemistry, and the rise to a leading role of American physiology, biochemistry, and clinical chemisty. The biomedical breakthrough of the physical chemistry involved Henderson as one of the leading personalities (Astrup).

He graduated from Harvard College in 1898 and from Harvard Medical School in 1902, receiving the M. D. (Medical Doctor) degree cum laude. Then followed two years in chemical research at the University of Strasbourg (then Germany) with advanced scientific training in Franz Hofmeister's physiological laboratory. Henderson became professor of biological chemistry, and later professor of chemistry, in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was also introduced into philosophy and sociology by faculty members of Harvard University. He established some instituts in Harvard, especially the Fatigue Laboratory for physiological and sociological research on fatigue with the support of the Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Medical School, and he became the director. After the Great Depression of the economy (1929-1939) followed World War II, and then Henderson died in 1942 after the USA had just entered the war.

2. Physiologist

Most important is his work as a physiologist leading to his classical book Blood (1928) with French (1931) and German (1932) edition. Firstly Henderson investigated the regulation of the constancy of hydrogen ion concentration of blood; the acid-base regulation, and the disturbance of acid-base balance (1906-1920). He found that acid-base balance is regulated by buffer systems of the blood in complex coordination with respiration, the lung, red blood cells, and with the kidneys. Especially, he described two buffer systems, that of carbonic acid and bicarbonate, and that of phosphates. In general for chemistry, he explained how buffer systems work and described it by the general form of his Henderson equation, or today’s logarithmic notation by Henderson-Hasselbalch equation (Parascandola). Secondly Henderson described blood gas transport and the general physiology of blood as physico-chemical system (1920-1932). The respiratory function of the blood involves the transport of oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and that of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. Whereas oxygen is carried almost entirely in the form of oxyhemoglobin in the red cells, carbon dioxide is distributed, largely in the form of bicarbonate, between cells and blood plasma. However, there are very complex inter-relationships within the body.

It became evident to Henderson that acid-base regulation, respiration, renal excretion, the circulatory mechanism, and the electrolyte distribution in the body so affect another that they must be considered simultaneously if their roles in the physiology of the organism as a whole were to be visualized (Van Slyke). To show this he invented and constructed new charts—nomograms—with the help of P. Maurice d'Ocagne (Hankins). The nomograms show graphically how six or more factors of the blood are interrelated simultaneously. The consequental inter-relations of the various factors were shown in Blood in more than one hundred nomograms (Barcroft). Donald D. Van Slyke, who became the dominat Figure in clinical chemistry, wrote in 1926, "it has become clear, chiefly through the work of L. J. Henderson, that salts, water, gases, and proteins are so intemately related in the blood that a change in any one of them affects all the others." (Van Slyke) Henderson introduced nomograms into physiology and biology as well. Thirdly Blood showed a syntheses of the complex "general physiology" of the blood. By 1930 the fundamental picture of blood as a highly organized system for transport of the gases involved in respiration was largely complete (Edsall). In Blood we find "the most comprehensive picture of blood as a physico-chemical system, as it was envisaged in the 1920's" concluded J. T. Edsall in his historical analysis, and the central picture there of blood as a functioning system "still stands in its main outlines as a definite achievement." (Edsall). Especially, Blood described blood as a “milieu intérieur” (internal environment), an idea of Claude Bernard. Henderson was impressed by Bernard's work and he became called the “champion of Bernard in America” (Olmstedt), and the first translation of a book of the great French pioneer followed in 1927. According to Joseph Barcroft Henderson's description of blood as a physico-chemical system was his greatest contribution (Barcroft). Henderson and Walter B. Cannon gave a new direction to physiological work, and by analogy, to other areas of biology, providing a way in which the whole organism could be studied by experimental, quantitative, and mathematical methods (Allen).

Some details to Henderson's pioneer work on acid-base regulation? He recognized that blood hydrogen ion concentration is stabilized chiefly by carbonic acid and bicarbonate of blood—Henderson equation—and that blood bicarbonate (or hydrogen carbonate) is an alkali reserve (base reserve) of blood. In addition, he described the role of haemoglobin of red blood cells for stabilising blood hydrogen ion concentration. Later, Karl Albert Hasselbalch gave the Henderson equation today’s logarithmic form—Henderson-Hasselbalch equation—to calculate pH instead of hydrogen ion concentration (Astrup). Henderson recognized that titratable acidity of the urine is a form of acid excretion, and that together with ammonia excretion this represents the total acid excretion by the kidneys (Pitts).

He saw how the body regulates acid-base balance; blood bicarbonate binds (buffers) excess hydrogen ions of blood to form free carbonic acid, and the body stimulates respiration (ventilation) to excrete the excess of free carbonic acid via lung. He described the role of haemoglobin for the blood transport of carbonic acid in cooperation with oxygen transport. He concluded correctly that the body can restore blood bicarbonate later only by increasing renal acid excretion; the kidneys restore to the blood that alkali which has served as the carrier of acid (Pitts). Together with Walter W. Palmer, Henderson investigated acid-base disturbances (metabolic acidosis) in patients with different diseases especially in nephritis; he recognized that the bicarbonate concentration of blood must decrease in metabolic acidosis to stabilize blood pH, and that this feature must be more striking than a decrease of blood pH. In 1916 he introduced the modern concept of (metabolic) acidosis at the "Symposium on Acidosis" of the 31^st Annual Meeting of the Association of American Physicians (Woodyatt).

In part, Henderson's theory on acid-base regulation was confirmed soon in clinical investigations of the blood, especially by Van Slyke who improved blood gas analysis. However, the part of the theory on renal acid-base regulation was not confirmed by intrarenal measurements in Henderson's lifetime, because those measurements within the kidney were too difficult. There was no intrarenal confirmation until the clinical studies by Robert F. Pitts in the 1940's, thus ca. three decades after Henderson's theory (Pitts, Rector).

3. Biologist and philosopher

In his classical book The Fitness of the Environment (1913) we find "an inquiry into the biological significance of the properties of matter" (Henderson). Lawrence Henderson realized that the prevailing conception of the relationship between inorganic matter and life was deficient, for it disregarded the contribution of the physico-chemical properties of the internal and external milieu of the organism to biological fitness (Fry). Based on extensive data gathered in fields as diverse as geophysics, astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, physiology, and inorganic and organic chemistry, he developed a theory of the fitness of the environment for life. He tried to answere the fundamental question: How relevant are the properties of the material universe to biological evolution (Fry), and especially; to what extent are the properties of the inorganic environment favorable to the existens of organisms (Parascandola)? Especially, Henderson discussed the physical-chemical properties of the environment, and applied the new discipline physical chemistry consequently to biology. It was the first research to carry out an extensive comparative analysis of the physical and chemical properties of water, and carbon compounds, especially carbon dioxide, from a biological point of view (Fry).
Chemical compounds containing the elements found in water and carbon dioxide—carbon, hydrogen and oxygen display unique properties, in that they are formed in vast numbers and varieties and complexities, with many kinds of relations and reactions, heats of reactions and instability, so that they become sources of matter and energy for bodily metabolism, sources of complex bodily structure, and means of performing complex functions (Cannon). According to Henderson, no other compounds show more than a few of the qualities of fitness of water and carbonic acid; no other elements show those of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and the fitness of the environment is therefore both real and unique (Cannon).

The Darwinian fitness of the species, as descibed by Charles Darwin, is compounded of a mutual relationship between the organism and the environment. "Of this", Henderson concluded, "the fitness of environment is quite as essential a component as the fitness which arises in the process of organic evolution." (Henderson) E. g., Henderson compared the composition of salts of sea water with the blood of the highest animals and found that they are similar—especially the constancy of the hydrogen ion concentration. He suggested that life has begun in the ocean and that this marine milieu of an earlier epoch is maintained in blood of higher animals by the organism. Henderson concluded that the continuous interchange between organism and environment of matter, energy, water, carbonic acid, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon displays an extraordenary fitness. Henderson concluded:

"The properties of matter and the course of cosmic evolution are now seen to be intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities; they become, therefore, far more important in biology than has been previously suspected. For the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe in its very essence as biocentric." (Henderson)

The book was widely read and discussed by philosophers and scientists (Parascandola). When the book appeared biologists and others received it with varied response. On the one hand, many saw a new and stimulating idea. Many "empirical" theologians cited Henderson's work as evidence for a cosmic teleology (Barrow & Tipler). On the other hand, Henderson has been accused of both mysticism and over-indulged materialism (Blum). An analysis of current investigations of the evolution of matter and life underscores Henderson's contribution to evolutionary theory: his emphasis on the essential role of the "environment" in determining and channeling the emergence and development of life (Fry). "Henderson's empirical evaluations are compatible with current trends in the relevant sciences", concluded I. Fry, "The major, essential role played by water and carbon in the evolution of life in the universe is regarded as evident by most researchers in the field." (Fry) Recently, M. J. Denton wrote that Henderson's book “must rate as one of the most important and influential books in the biological sciences in the first decades of the (20th) century.” (Denton) The book has been reprinted many times after Henderson's death and there was a German edition in 1914.

In his classical book The Order of Nature (1917) Henderson analysed and discussed principle aspects of the history of natural philosophy, especially teleology, from the point of view of a natural scientist. Henderson's philosophical explorations came forward as he recounted the ideas of natural organization and teleology in a wide array of earlier authors from Aristotle through Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Goethe, Bernard, Driesch, Haldane, and Bosanquet. In the light of new biochemical discoveries he saw no need for a neo-vitalistic concept, and therefore he created a materialistic (mechanistic) concept of the order of nature arguing from a biochemical point of view.

However, the laws of natural science seemed to him teleological. According to Henderson, the "teleological appearence of the world" is "something that is real"; the solar system, the meteorological cycle and the organic cycle give an "impression of harmony which corresponds to an order in nature." (Cannon). He used the word "teleological" to denote order or harmonious unity and not design or purpose. There were no final causes, no entelechy. According to Henderson the “teleological principle” was inherent in matter and energy, these substances have original principles “essentially not by chance.” (Mendelsohn) Henderson concluded that there must have been a kind of "preparation" before evolution. As a natural scientist and as an agnostic he refused any theological consideration on this issue.

Do the original laws of nature direct the basic phenomena, and can they regarded as a fundamental legislation through which an intelligence governs nature? Henderson's view we learn from a discussion following his lecture in Paris. "I do not see how it will be possible to know it", he answered to this question, "I stop at that observation" (Fry). I. Fry concluded "that Henderson has no clear idea wether our notion of teleology reflects a trait of the world or the limitation of our reason of knowledge." (Fry) But, Henderson says, he believes "very strongly that the universe has always possessed a structure and was never chaotic" (Fry).

Henderson was among the drafters of the mechanistic declaration issued by the 1918 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, devoted to the subject of mechanism versus vitalism (Fry). In his attitude to the problem of the scientific evaluation of organization, Henderson differed from the mechanists, "who leave organization out" as a nessessary biological category (Fry). His concept of the order of nature has been called a "mechanistic teleology" (Fry), and a "completely mechanistic doctrine with teleological implication" (Driesch). The Order of Nature has been reprinted twice after Henderson's death and there was a French edition in 1924.

And what role played Henderson's biocentric interpretation of the universe? Henderson's teleology was a philosophical approach, and it was interesting for philosophers or theologians rather than biologists or other scientists. So, in mainstream biology there has been little debate or interest in the question of the fitness of the cosmos for life since the Darwinian revolution (Denton). But also many biologists and other scientists were influenced, according to Needham, in 1929, The Fitness of the Environment made “unquestionably, the most important contribution to the philosophy of biology” (Denton).

Advances in natural sciences, including Henderson's fitness theory, has lead many scientists to the anthropic principle especially at the end of the 20th century (Barrow & Tipler). The term "anthropic" designates the connection between some initial, fundamental physical characteristics of the universe, and the existance of life, in particular intelligent life (Fry). The ideas behind this new principle have deep historical roots. The anthropic principle has begun to reemerge in various fields of science, most notably in physics and cosmology, and according to J. D. Barrow and F. J. Tipler, Henderson's work "still comprises the foundation of the Anthropic Principle as applied to biochemical systems." (Barrow & Tipler) In 2003 there has been an interdisciplinary, exploratory research project at Harvard: "The Fitness of the Cosmos for Life - Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning" commemorating the 90th anniversary of Henderson's The Fitness of the Environment. There the historian E. Mendelsohn located Henderson and his fitness theory (Mendelsohn).

4. Sociologist

The time of the Great Depression, caused by fundamental economic problems, provoked a permanent social instability for a decade with a "culture of crisis". In this crisis, Henderson became a sociologist (1932-1942) (Cross & Albury). He was introduced into the sociology of Pareto some years before the sociology department at Harvard was founded in 1930, which opend the doors in 1931. There exist not only biochemical systems, Henderson concluded, but also social systems that tend to an equilibrium. He concluded concerning the environment: "As a rule, we all have the strongest feelings about its sociological properties and the least intellectual awareness of them." (Henderson) He applied the functionalism of physiological regulation to the phenomena of social behavior basing on his concept of social systems (Bloom).
He described social systems with the help of the sociology of Vilfredo Pareto leading to his book Pareto´s General Sociology (1935). Henderson felt that Pareto's concept of the generalized social system applied to concrete social systems of all kinds and sizes. "A social system", he said, " may consist of two or more persons. . . . For many purposes a family may be considered as a social system, for others a town, for others a state; and it is not impossible to make some progress with the consideration of the whole world as a single social system." (Barber) It is clear that Henderson meant the concept of social systems to apply to all disciplines that study the meanings communicated in interactions between two or more persons acting in roles or role-sets (Barber). As social systems he described the society (nation), the relationship between physican and patient, and informal groups of industrial workers.

Henderson influenced many Harvard sociologists by his seminar on Pareto, by his "Pareto circle" (Heyl), and by his lecture on "concrete sociology". Especially, he influenced Talcott Parsons, George C. Homans, Robert K. Merton, and Elton Mayo who all became pioneers in sociology and who became well known internationally. Especially his young collegue Parsons and his student Merton developed his functionalistic theory of social systems further as structural-functionalism (Bloom). "Henderson may have given greater impetus to diffusion of equilibrium concepts among American social scientists than any other single individual", concluded C. E. Russett in her historical analysis of concepts of equilibrium in American social thought (Russett).

Since the early 1920's, Wallace B. Donham, Dean of the Harvard Business School, supported Henderson's work (Cannon). In 1927, Henderson established the Fatigue Laboratory to study physical and mental stress, and he became the first director. The laboratory was at the Harvard Business School and sponsored both physiological and social research. As a physiologist, he took an interest in and influenced the physiological work of David B. Dill; as a social scientist he took an interest in and influenced the social research of Elton Mayo, Fritz J. Roethlisberger, and T. North Whitehead, especially their now famous work at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company (Barber). The research on industrial psychology has been conducted by Mayo, Henderson's colleague and close friend (Trahair).

The fundamental results of the social research were the classical Hawthorne experiments, revealing a critical role of social action and informal social rules of workers and their organization by informal groups. The experiments confirmed Henderson's view that a society consists of social systems. He considered informal groups as social systems that managers should not ignore (Barber). Thus, he supported Mayo's view of the worker as a "social man", and they published together on this issue. Henderson headed the Committee on Work in Industry of the National Research Council from 1937-1941 (Gillespie).

"L. J. Henderson played a more significant role than Mayo in pursuing the relevance of the Hawthorne experiments to sociology . . . devoting nearly all of his energies to propagandizing for his particular conception of social science", concluded R. Gillespie in his historical analysis of the experiments (Gillespie). The Hawthorne experiments served as a major example of Henderson's conception of the social sciences - at once practical, based on close observation, eschewing unnecessarily complex statistics, and framed by a general theory of social systems (Gillespie). The Hawthorne experiments lead to the development of a new view of man in industrial psychology and business administration then: the result was the development from the "economic man" to the "social man" (Ulich).

"The association between Henderson, Donham, and Mayo influenced the direction of research at Harvard for the next 20 years. In the eyes of this triumvirate, the multidisciplinary combination of biology, physics, biochemistry, psychology, and sociology provided the ideal conditions for studying industrial society", concluded E. Yogev in her historical analysis of the Harvard Business School (Yogev).

The publication of a further sociological book by Henderson in cooperation with others was prevented by World War II and Henderson's death (Barber). Decades later, most of Henderson's sociological articles, including his sociological lecture, was edited as a book with the title On the Social System (1970) by B. Barber.

5. Conclusion

Henderson's investigations had their inception and consummation in the philosopher's chair (Talbott). In spite of his diversity of interests, Henderson's work exhibits in retrospect a fundamental unity; his career was largely devoted to the study of the organization of the organism, the universe, and society (Parascandola).

6. Selected bibliography of Henderson:

a) Books

- The Fitness of the Environment (1913, 1924, 1927, 1958, 1966, 1970, 1987). 1^st ed. Macmillan, New York,

- Die Umwelt des Lebens (1914). Translated by R. Bernstein. J. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden (Germany),

- The Order of Nature (1917, 1925, 1971, 1977). 1^st ed. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London,

- L’ordre de la nature (1924). Translated by E. Renoir. F. Alcan, Paris,

- Blood. A Study in General Physiology (1928). Yale University Press, New Haven and Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, London,

- Le sang, système physico-chimique (1931). Translated by C. van Caulaert and A. Roche. Presses universitaires de France, Paris,

- Blut. Seine Pathologie und Physiologie (1932). Translated by Michael Tennenbaum. Theodor Steinkopff, Dresden and Leipzig (Germany),

- Pareto´s General Sociology (1935, 1937, 1967). 1^st ed. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,

- On the Social System (1970). Ed. by Bernard Barber, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London.