Editing Ernest Starling (section)

==Rising to prominence==

Ernest Starling became a medical student at [[Guy's Hospital]], London, in 1882 (when he was 16). He had a brilliant career there and set his sights on becoming a [[Harley Street]] physician. But the science behind medicine{{mdash}}physiology{{mdash}}attracted him much more; he spent a long vacation in [[Wilhelm Kühne|Wilhelm Kühne's]] laboratory in [[Heidelberg]], studying the mechanisms of [[lymph]] formation and convinced himself that he could become a [[physiology|physiologist]]. At that time such a job description did not exist in Britain.

Guy's had no physiological laboratories, but Starling's enthusiasm changed all this, and he published nine papers on [[lymph]] and [[capillary]] function between 1893 and 1897. He showed that there are opposing forces across the capillary wall{{mdash}}an outward movement of water due to hydrostatic pressure (derived from the heart's contraction) and an inward movement, secondary to the osmotic pressure of the [[Blood proteins|plasma proteins]] within the capillary.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Starling|first1=E. H.|title=On the absorption of fluid from the connective tissue spaces|journal=J. Physiol.|date=1896|volume=19|issue=4|pages=312–326|doi=10.1113/jphysiol.1896.sp000596|pmc=1512609|pmid=16992325}}</ref> Without awareness of these forces, the physician cannot begin to understand such conditions as [[edema]]. The inward and outward forces are often referred to as "Starling forces". They established him as a serious contributor.

He was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1899.