Sir John Carew Eccles (1903-1997)

Awarded the Prize “for the discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane.”

Australian physiologist. Eccles was born in Melbourne, Australia on January 27, 1903. He graduated from Melbourne University in 1925 took his Ph.D. at Oxford in 1929. In 1937 he became Director of Medical Research Unit in Sydney, then as Professor of at the University of Otago, New Zeal. From 1952 until 1966 he was Professor of the Australian National University. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, London President of Australian Academy of Science. Eccles died on May 2, 1997 at Contra, Switzerl.