David Keynes Hill. 23 July 1915 – 18 August 2002 Elected FRS 1972

Abstract

David Hill followed his father, A.V. Hill FRS, into the study of muscular contraction. Using a wide range of experimental techniques, he made several important advances of which the most important was the discovery of the ‘short-range elastic component’ a phenomenon which implied that even in the resting state there was an interaction between the thick (myosin) and thin (actin) filaments. He also studied physical changes in nerve when stimulated.