George Ralph Mines

{{short description|British electrophysiologist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = George Ralph Mines

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| birth_date = {{birth date|1886|5|13|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Bath, Great Britain

| death_date = {{death date|1914|11|7|mf=y}}

| death_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada

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| nationality = English

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| field = Cardiac electrophysiology

| work_institution = McGill University

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George Ralph Mines was a pioneering English cardiac electrophysiologist. He was educated at the University of Cambridge. After gaining his degree he taught at Newnham College. There he met Dorothy Dale with whom he collaborated and the two went on to publish several papers in the Journal of Physiology. Mines went on to make two important contributions to cardiac electrophysiology.{{cite journal

| doi = 10.1016/s0735-1097(97)00067-3

| author = DeSilva RA

| year = 1997

| title = George Ralph Mines, Ventricular Fibrillation and the Discovery of the Vulnerable Period.

| journal = Journal of the American College of Cardiology

| volume = 29

| issue = 6

| pages = 1397–1402

| pmid = 9137241

| doi-access = free

}} Initially, he proposed that an action potential wave front could propagate in a circle, repeatedly activating the tissue.{{cite journal

| doi = 10.1113/jphysiol.1913.sp001596

| author = Mines GR

| year = 1913

| title = On dynamic equilibrium in the heart.

| journal = Journal of Physiology

| volume = 46

| issue = 4–5

| pages = 349–383

| pmid = 16993210

| pmc = 1420430

}} Second, he discovered the vulnerable period of the heart: the time during the cardiac cycle when a single stimulus can induce ventricular fibrillation.{{cite journal

| author = Mines GR

| year = 1914

| title = On circulating excitations in heart muscle and their possible relation to tachycardia and fibrillation.

| journal = Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada

| volume = 8

| pages = 43–52

}}

On November 7, 1914, Mines was found unconscious in his laboratory, and died later that day. His death may have been caused by self-experimentation using electrical stimuli.{{cite journal

| doi = 10.1002/clc.4960240810

| author = Aciernom LJ, Worrell LT

| year = 2001

| title = George Ralph Mines: Victim of Self-Experimentation?

| journal = Clinical Cardiology

| volume = 24

| issue = 8

| pages = 571–572

| pmid = 11501611

| pmc = 6654889

}}

A special issue of the Journal of Physiology was published in September 2013 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Mines' most notable work and his death. The archives of physiologist Frank Campbell MacIntosh (1909-1992), held at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University, contain a dossier on Mines assembled by Dr. MacIntosh from 1982-1986 including publications, photographs, obituaries, and autopsy information on Mines, as well as correspondence regarding his death and a copy of "The short brilliant career and strange death of G.R. Mines," written by MacIntosh in 1985.{{Cite web|url=https://archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca/index.php/frank-campbell-macintosh-fonds|title=Frank Campbell MacIntosh Fonds|website=McGill Archival Collections Catalogue}}