GASSER, HERBERT SPENCER

GASSER, HERBERT SPENCER (1888–1963), U.S. neurophysiologist and Nobel Prize winner. Gasser was born in Platteville, Wisconsin. He collaborated with joseph erlanger in investigating the electrical properties of nerve fibers. Utilizing a cathode-ray oscilloscope and a sensitive amplification system they recorded the electrical impulses passing over isolated nerve fibers. The measurements of the potential cycles of different nerve fibers revealed three distinct patterns indicating that there were three major types of fibers. It was also shown that the rate of conduction varied directly with the thickness of the fiber. These studies were the foundation of the modern knowledge of action currents in nerves and were of great importance toward an understanding of the complexities of nerve impulse transmission. As a result of this work Gasser and Erlanger shared the 1944 Nobel Prize for medicine.. Working with Erlanger and others, Gasser also contributed much to the understanding of the differences between sensory and motor nerves. He also dealt with problems involving the perception of pain and the contraction of muscle as well as the coagulation of blood. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L.G. Stevenson, Nobel Prize Winners in Medicine and Physiology, 1901–1950 (1935), 223–8; Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 10 (1964), 75–82. (Norman Levin)