Herbert S. Gasser was born in Platteville, Wisconsin, in 1888. His father was a doctor there and he too decided upon a medical career. He attended the State Normal School at Platteville and the University of Wisconsin and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1915 with his medical degree. After graduation he taught pharmacology at Wisconsin and physiology at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. During World War I, he served as a pharmacologist with the Chemical Warfare Service; then returned to Washington University, this time to teach pharmacology. In 1931, he accepted a professorship of physiology at Cornell University Medical College where he remained until 1935. From 1935 to 1953, he directed the activities of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York City.
Among the honors awarded to Dr. Gasser was the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine of 1944, shared with Dr. Joseph Erlanger for their research concerning the reaction of nerve fibers to electric impulses. Gasser held honorary degrees from several universities and held membership in many scientific societies in America and abroad. After formal retirement in 1953, Gasser continued his physiological research at the Rockefeller Institute until incapacitated by illness. He died in 1963.
