The history of hormones is the subject of the centenary exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians, which opened this week and runs to 20 September.
Ernest Henry Starling (pictured) introduced the term hormone 100 years ago, in his Croonian lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in June 1905. Previously Claude Bernard (1813-78) and Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817-94) had introduced the idea of internal secretions, but neither had thought of them as specific chemical messengers.
In 1902 William Maddock Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling showed that acid instilled into the duodenum stimulated secretion by the pancreas—the first time scientists had shown that one part of the body could influence the function of another part remote from it.
The exhibition looks at the first descriptions and classifications of the glands through to the modern day use of hormones, including insulin, human growth hormone, oestrogen, hormone replacement therapy, and anabolic steroids.
The exhibition can be visited at the college's headquarters in 11 St Andrew's Place, Regent's Park, London NW1, by appointment only. It is open Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm. Appointments can be made at info@rcplondon.ac.uk or by phoning 020 7935 1174 extension 312.
There is also an open day on Saturday 9 July when the exhibition can be visited without an appointment.