William H. Howell
Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
Marker Inscription
William H. Howell, Ph.D., discoverer of the anticoagulant heparin
Erected by Bolton Hill Historic District
The Story
The physiologist William H. Howell spent his career at Johns Hopkins studying how blood clots, and it was in his laboratory that heparin—a natural substance that prevents clotting—was identified. His work laid the groundwork for one of the most widely used anticoagulant drugs in medicine.
Why it matters
Howell's discovery of heparin became fundamental to modern surgery and the treatment of heart and blood-vessel disease worldwide.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William H. Howell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ernest Stebbins
Baltimore, MD
For four decades Ernest Stebbins led the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, training generations of specialists who carried public-health work around the globe. He helped found the American Board of Preventive Medicine and advised the young World Health Organization as it took shape after World War II.
Curt Richter and Garry Moore
Baltimore, MD
This plaque honors two very different Baltimore figures. Curt Richter, longtime head of the psychobiology laboratory at Johns Hopkins, did pioneering research on the body's internal "biological clock." Beside him is remembered Garry Moore, the genial host of 1950s and 1960s television variety shows.
Daniel Coit Gilman
Baltimore, MD
Daniel Coit Gilman was the first president of Johns Hopkins University and the first director of its hospital, positions from which he reinvented American higher education. Championing original research and graduate study, he built an institution modeled on the pursuit of new knowledge rather than rote instruction. His example reshaped universities across the country.
Jesse Lazear
Baltimore, MD
Jesse Lazear was a young physician who joined the U.S. effort to understand yellow fever, a disease that had terrorized American cities for generations. To test the theory that mosquitoes carried the illness, he allowed himself to be bitten by infected insects—and died of the fever, confirming how it spread. His sacrifice helped make possible the mosquito-control campaigns that later saved countless lives.