Windle, William Frederick, 1898-

Neuroanatomist and physiologist; born in Huntington Ind., 10 Oct. 1898; protégé of Stephen Walter Ranson, from whom he received his Ph. D. in 1926, and later his successor as director (1942-1946) of the Institute of Neurology, Northwestern University; Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroanatomical Sciences (1954-1960) at the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Blindness and its Laboratory of Perinatal Physiology in Bethesda, Md. and San Juan, Puerto Rico (1961-1963); founding editor of the journal Experimental Neurology (1959-1975); Director of Research, Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University (1964-1971); research professor at Denison University (1971-1985) in Granville, Ohio, where he died 20 Feb. 1985.

From the description of Papers, 1898-1986. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 39180293

Biographical Note

William Frederick Windle, Ph.D., D.Sc. (1898-1985), born and educated in the U.S. Midwest, became an eminent neuroscientist working on both coasts and welcomed internationally. Dr. Windle did his undergraduate studies at Denison University in Ohio. His plans for a medical career were turned aside after two years in medical school by his long and fruitful collaboration with Stephen Walter Ranson of the Institute of Neurology, Northwestern University. That collaboration started in 1921, led to Windle's Ph.D. degree in anatomy from Northwestern and, some twenty years later, to the directorship of that same Institute of Neurology.

In 1946 Dr. Windle left Northwestern to become founding chair of the Department of Anatomy in the new medical school of the University of Washington, from which he moved 17 months later to head the oldest American department of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. After two years of successful research and teaching there he assumed the position of scientific director of the Baxter Laboratories in Morton Grove, Illinois, 1951-1954.

The years from 1954 to 1963 were spent at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (NINDB), successively as Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroanatomical Sciences; Assistant Director, NINDB; and Chief, Laboratory of Perinatal Physiology, NINDB, Bethesda, Maryland and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

After his retirement from the NINDB in 1964, Dr. Windle moved to the New York University Medical Center as Research Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Director of Research, Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Seven years later he retired again and returned to his midwestern homeland, assuming the position of research professor at Denison University in Granville, OH. For a number of years Dr. Windle and his wife would escape the rigors of the Ohio winter by spending that time in Southern California, where Dr. Windle served as visiting professor at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Windle died at his home in Granville in 1985.M

As an assistant professor at Northwestern University Dr. Windle began a series of studies on the functional and structural changes in the developing central nervous system. Continuations and outgrowths of these studies defined his research interests for the rest of his long career. Specifically, experiments on the initiation of respiration in the fetus, carried out while a visiting scientist at Cambridge University (1935-1936), started a long-running major program in fetal physiology, with examination of asphyxia neonatorum and its effect on the central nervous system. Much of the research carried on by Dr. Windle and many visiting scientists in Puerto Rico (ca. 1957-1966) followed the neurological and behavioral effects of neonatal asphyxiation in monkeys.

The second major research thread, sparked by a colleague's observation of intraspinal fiber regeneration after injections of bacterial pyrogens in animals, resulted in many years' work on spinal cord regeneration. Dr. Windle's enthusiasm for this problem and the energy he threw into organizing research symposia on the topic did much to raise awareness of and funding for this clinically important question.

Dr. Windle's research efforts in neonatal asphyxiation and spinal cord regeneration, with their clinical relevance for cerebral palsy and paralysis, were supported and lauded both by scientific and lay groups. Among the awards bestowed upon him were the Max Weinstein Award, United Cerebral Palsy Association, 1957; Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, 1968; Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease Award, 1971; William Thomson Wakeman Award, National Paraplegia Foundation, 1972; and Speedy Award, Paralyzed Veterans of America, 1972.

In addition to his high productivity and influence as a teacher, administrator and researcher, Dr. Windle also had great influence as an editor and author in neuroscience. In 1959, as the explosive growth in neuroscience research and knowledge was beginning, Dr. Windle realized the need for additional outlets for articles in experimental neuroscience. With his characteristic energy and enthusiasm, he planned and brought to eminence the journal Experimental Neurology. As editor-in-chief for almost twenty years (1959-1975), Dr. Windle did much to ensure this publication's high quality and importance as a major neuroscience title. He also authored successful textbooks on fetal physiology and on histology, and edited volumes on the spinal cord, CNS regeneration, and remembrances of Stephen Walter Ranson.

A fuller biography, curriculum vitae, and bibliography were published in Experimental Neurology, 90(1), Oct. 1985, following his death.

From the guide to the William F. Windle Papers, 1898-1986., (Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. History and Special Collections Division)