He is best known for demonstrating that cardiac muscle declines in efficiency as it fails, and for pioneering the use of isotopes to study electrolyte absorption in the small intestine.
[1] He attended Holland's Hope College, graduating in 1922, then studied physiology at the University of Minnesota where he earned a Ph.D. in 1925.
He joined the faculty of University of Southern California, where he was associate professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology from 1929 to 1931.
[1] His doctoral students at the University of Minnesota included Gordon Moe and Earl Wood.
[2][6][7] He also served as a co-founder and president of the National Society for Medical Research,[4] as secretary general of the International Union of Physiological Sciences,[3] and as founding chairman of the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.
[2] As a board member of the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) during World War II, he organized and headed the "Nutrition Mission", a collaborative mission between the USC and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.