Modlin I M, Kidd M, Marks I N, Tang L H
Department of Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine, P.O. Box 208062, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8062, USA.
World J Surg. 1997 Feb;21(2):226-34. doi: 10.1007/s002689900221.
John Sydney Edkins was born in London in 1863. After gaining two open scholarships, he attended Caius College, Cambridge and studied physiology under the tutelage of J.N. Langley and M. Foster. During this period he published on the chemical nature of pepsinogen with Langley. After qualifying as a medical doctor, he worked in Manchester before returning to London, where he succeeded E. Klein as Head of Physiology at St. Bartholomew's. For financial reasons he also worked part time at Bedford College for Women. In 1902 Bayliss and Starling overturned Pavlov's doctrine of the nervous regulation of gastrointestinal function by discovering the pancreatic secretagogue secretin-the first identifiable chemical messenger. Edkins applied a similar rationale to the stomach and in a classic series of experiments noted that injection of a pyloric mucous membrane extract resulted in gastric acid and pepsin secretion in anesthetized cats. In 1905 he named this putative active agent "gastrin." Although his ideas were initially accepted, the discovery of histamine in 1910 and the identification that extracts from other tissues had a similar physiologic effect raised serious questions regarding the validity of the existence of gastrin. Somewhat discouraged, Edkins pursued the teaching and training of women physiologists at Bedford College, where he later became Chairman of Physiology. Outside of science he successfully pursued other interests and became President of the British Croquet Association. The demonstration that gastrin was a unique antral stimulant of acid secretion by Komarov in 1938 was followed by the purification and elucidation of its chemical structure by Gregory and Tracy in 1964. Their work allowed final validation of Edkins' original hypothesis. Edkins died in London in 1940, not only fated to predecease the vindication of his hypothesis but unable to witness the evolution of his discovery into a paradigm for the hormonal regulation of secretory and proliferative cellular activity.
约翰·悉尼·埃金斯于1863年出生在伦敦。获得两项公开奖学金后，他进入剑桥大学凯斯学院，在J.N. 兰利和M. 福斯特的指导下学习生理学。在此期间，他与兰利共同发表了关于胃蛋白酶原化学性质的论文。获得医学博士资格后，他先在曼彻斯特工作，之后回到伦敦，在那里他接替E. 克莱因成为圣巴塞洛缪医院的生理学主任。由于经济原因，他还在贝德福德女子学院兼职工作。1902年，贝利斯和斯塔林发现了促胰液素——第一种可识别的化学信使，从而推翻了巴甫洛夫关于胃肠功能神经调节的学说。埃金斯将类似的原理应用于胃部，在一系列经典实验中他指出，向麻醉的猫注射幽门黏膜提取物会导致胃酸和胃蛋白酶分泌。1905年，他将这种假定的活性剂命名为“胃泌素”。尽管他的观点最初被接受，但1910年组胺的发现以及其他组织提取物具有类似生理作用的鉴定，引发了关于胃泌素存在有效性的严重质疑。埃金斯有些气馁，于是在贝德福德学院从事女生理学家的教学和培训工作，后来他成为该学院的生理学系主任。在科学领域之外，他成功地追求了其他兴趣爱好，并成为英国槌球协会主席。1938年科马罗夫证明胃泌素是胃酸分泌的独特窦部刺激物，随后1964年格雷戈里和特雷西对其化学结构进行了纯化和阐明。他们的工作最终证实了埃金斯最初的假设。埃金斯于1940年在伦敦去世，他不仅注定在其假设得到证实之前就已离世，而且无法目睹他的发现演变成分泌和增殖细胞活动激素调节的范例。
