Tributes 



Barcroft carried out work on the dissociation curve in connection 

 with his investigations of respiration at high altitudes, at Teneriffe, at 

 Monte Rosa and in the Andes. His work at sea level had shown that 

 exercise caused a change of position of the dissociation curve, and this 

 effect was found to be more pronounced at high altitudes. 



The small and simple apparatus Barcroft had designed was, of course, 

 a great convenience for work at the high altitudes, and his pioneer 

 investigations in this field are of especial interest. 



Barcroft was associated with the work published by Roughton and 

 his colleagues on the influence of temperature on the dissociation curve. 

 Then, as part of a very extensive contribution to foetal physiology, he 

 organized a comparative investigation of the dissociation curves of 

 foetal and maternal bloods and haemoglobins of a number of animals. 



In this account I have dealt chiefly with the pioneer work of Bar- 

 croft. This represents only a part of his contributions to work on the 

 dissociation curve. Through the work of his pupils carried out partly 

 in his laboratory and continued in many different parts of the world, 

 he was responsible for a very large part of modem knowledge of this 

 subject. 



Professor F. J. W. Roughton 



I am the last and youngest contributor to these tributes and therefore 

 can hardly be expected to have known Joseph Barcroft as long as Sir 

 Henry Dale. My own intimate friendship with J. B. goes back only 

 as far as 1920, and thus covers little more than the last third of his life. 

 But, as has been previously said, J. B. changed but little during his 

 life, so that my briefer contact with him is not such a disadvantage as 

 it would be in the case of some other men. I do, however, have one 

 advantage which is not shared by any of his other friends, old or young. 

 It was given to me to spend most of the last morning of his life with him 

 in this very laboratory. Never have I known him in better form, fuller 

 of interest in the past, present and future, fuller indeed of good fun, 

 than he was on that memorable first day of Spring, 1947. 



First, however, let us go back to 1919 and 1920. Those of us who 

 were beginning to specialize in physiology at that time had many 

 advantages. For me, among the most outstanding were those two great 

 books — Bayliss' Principles of General Physiology and Barcroft's 

 Respiratory Function of the Blood. Both had been published some five 



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