He was cited in 1995 at election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as the world’s leading authority on the regulation of salt and water metabolism and relevant endocrine control mechanisms.
[4] In 1949, he, and Dr Victor Wynn who had joined him in study of a second case, were supported by Professor R. D. Wright and Sir MacFarlane Burnet to set up the Ionic Research Unit of the NHMRC in the Physiology Department at Melbourne University.
[5] Rapid measurement of sodium and potassium in blood and urine helped originate intensive care, and they published a monograph in Acta Medica Scandinavica.
[6] Denton and Wynn’s approach, particularly flame photometry with rapid assessment of biochemical disorder, eventually resulted in saving of tens of thousands of lives in Australia as well as in other countries by chemically accurate intervention.
Some years later he was visited by Professor Francis Moore of Harvard who incorporated the Melbourne classification of distortion of body fluid status viz subtraction acidemia e.g. pancreatic fistula; addition acidemia e.g. diabetic coma; subtraction alkalemia e.g. vomiting gastric juice; and addition alkalemia (excess alkali ingestion) into his textbook ‘Metabolic Aspects of Surgery” Denton, in Melbourne, directed his efforts to basic physiological processes involved in regulation of body fluids.
Many animal preparations made also embodied his novel idea of adrenal autotransplant into arterio-venous skin loops constructed in the neck, as executed by Wright and Goding.
[9] Following the discovery of the salt retaining hormone aldosterone by the Taits in 1953, with major medical implications, the hunt for the mode of control of it was internationally intense.
Their historic evidence of severe sodium depletion in native and introduced species of wild animals in the Alps in Australia was ratified by direct measurement of peripheral blood aldosterone with a double isotope dilution method set up by Dr John Coghlan of the Ionic Unit following his study with Professor Ralph Peterson in New York.
The discovery of severe Na depletion of animals in the Alps of Australia was confirmed in camels in the desert in Africa by Knut Schmidit-Nielsen, and in moose in Canada by Jordan and Botkin.
[6] With regard to the HCO3 ion, Denton recognised early that data showing that alligators, with their swallowing of whole large prey and having plasma HCO3 rise from 40 to 100 mmol/litre, and Cl decrease from 100 to 40 mmol/litre with blood pH near 7.8 reflected a basic mechanism in the pathway of evolution of the constrictors and big reptiles.
[6] Denton suggested also that the endocannibalism recognized by Alfred Russel Wallace in the vast Na depleted regions of the Amazon Basin reflected conservation by the tribes of very scarce minerals of critical importance.
[12] The months following graduation (1947), and the responsibility for the patient with a pancreatic fistula, led to study sojourns with Frank Fenner and Macfarlane Burnet in Melbourne, and Verney in Cambridge, UK in 1952.
On return from the UK, Denton’s discoveries starting from the two fistula patients, and several sheep in cages progressively revealed novel renal, endocrine and instinctive behavioural mechanisms of notable medical, integrative physiological, and evolutionary survival importance.
The work attracted large financial support from private benefactors in Australia (Kenneth and Baillieu Myer, and Sir Ian Potter) and overseas, the Australian Government and Reserve Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (US).
In 2005 and 2006, he received a Companion of the Order of Australia, and Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa) University of Melbourne, and in 2014 the World Hypertension League Award for Excellence in Dietary Salt Reduction.
At election to the Academy of Science of the Institute of France, the same attribution of world leadership, that the Academy of Science of the US made was reiterated and the Danish group, Paul Astrup, Peter Bie and Hans Enzell in their book “Salt and Water in Culture and Medicine” (1993) stated “Australian Derek Ashworth Denton has contributed more than anyone in explaining the adrenal production of hormones and their importance in the regulation of salt metabolism”.
[15] Denton synthesised a sweep of this work in his book “The Hunger for Salt: An Anthropological, Physiological and Medical Analysis” (Springer Verlag 1982) which was reviewed by Lewis Thomas, President of the Sloan Kettering Institute, nominated by Time to be ….…..”the best essayist on science now working anywhere in the world.” Thomas wrote ……..”few researchers have the intellectual flexibility or the sheer courage to take on a really big subject and cover the whole.
Derek Denton has done this in “Hunger for Salt”, and the result is something astonishing among contemporary scientific letters – a single author book that covers everything – This grand book”, and by Harold Schmeck, lead Science Writer of the New York Times, as …………….”may be the most comprehensive treatment of the subject ever completed”, Dr. John Pappenheimer, the Emeritus Professor of Physiology at Harvard, characterized it as …….”the best example of integrative physiology to come of the second half of the 20th century”.
Denton located a population of chimpanzees at the Institute of Primate Research at Franceville, Gabon, approximately 100 km further up the Ouguie river than Dr Schweitzer’s Hospital at Lamborene in Equatorial Africa.
He was notified later that the Salt Institute had withdrawn a Citizens Petition to the FDA proposing cessation of designation of sodium content of foods in the USA which probably would have influenced many other countries.
Investigations in collaboration with Professor Wolfgang Liedtke of Duke University, USA (2011) examined gene expression in the hypothalamus of mice associated with Na appetite,[17] and its abolition by rapid voluntary intake of salt solution before the time of significant absorption from the gut.
This raised the question whether contemporary hedonic indulgence and addiction has utilized ancient neural pathways and receptors of instinct processes, which may explain the many difficulties in treatment.
William James in “Principles of Psychology” published a century ago said – “In speaking of instincts, it has been impossible to keep them separate from the emotional excitements which go with them.” As well as the central issue of genetically programmed behaviour, Denton has studied also higher cognitive function in chimpanzees – explicitly self-awareness.
The early concentration on the instincts subserving the vegetative systems e.g. thirst and hunger for air highlighted the imperious arousal compulsive of intention, which is apt for survival of the organism.
Latest discoveries, reported in PNAS with Pascal Saker as lead author have included the identification of a mechanism inhibiting swallowing in the situation of complicit over-drinking of water by subjects following immediate earlier adequate volitional satiation of thirst.
The complicit over-drinking evokes an unpleasant aversive subjective sensation and probably reflects evolutionary emergence of protection against surfeit, and its hyponatraemic dangers.
[24] In 1995, on election to the National Academy of Sciences, he was cited as "the world's leading authority on the regulation of salt and water metabolism and relevant endocrine control mechanisms".
[citation needed] In 1987 he was awarded the Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture by the Australian Academy of Science for his lifetime's work[25] and in 1999 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.