Homer W.

Smith
Homer William Smith (January 2, 1895 – March 25,
1962) was an American physiologist and science writer Homer William Smith
known for his experiments on the kidney and
philosophical writings on natural history and the theory
of evolution.[1]

Biography
Smith was born in Denver, and three years later, his
family moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado, which was
included in both the Cripple Creek miners' strike of
1894 and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04. He
had a stutter from about the age of five, to which he
attributes his introspectiveness.[2] Smith's mother died
by the time he was seven; he had five older siblings at
the time, the oldest of which was 26.[3] Smith
describes his father as "of the generation that had one
foot still planted in religious tradition, the other planted Born January 2, 1895
in irreligious rationalism. ... For his mixed sentiment Denver, Colorado
and skepticism my father paid off his conscience by Died March 25, 1962
generous hospitality, and any minister of any gospel New York City
was welcome at his table."[4]
Occupation(s) Physiologist, science writer

At the age of eleven, while Smith had the measles, his Awards Albert Lasker Award for Basic
father built him a shed in which he could conduct Medical Research (1947)
scientific experiments;[5] these involved chemistry and
microbiology, as well as the use of a vacuum pump, telegraph, static machine, X-ray tube, and Tesla
coil.[6] He also dissected cats, which fueled his interest for biology and diminished his faith in
anthropocentrism.[7] As a result of the apathy he felt following the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April
15, 1912, he set out on a philosophical quest of reading and writing with a renewed focus towards
scholarship.[8]

Smith received his D.Sc in 1921 from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.
From 1928 until his retirement in 1961 he was the Professor of Physiology and Director of the
Physiological Laboratories at New York University School of Medicine.[9] Smith was a leader in the field
of renal physiology.[10] His elegant experiments on the kidney in the 1930s proved beyond any doubt that
it operated according to physical principles, both as a filter and a secretory organ, eliminating the last
vestige of vitalism in physiology.[11] He used inulin (at the same time as A. N. Richards) to measure how
much kidney filtrate is formed. His book The Kidney: Structure and Function in Health and Disease
(1951) was an authoritative summary of what was known at that time.
Komongo or, the Lungfish and the Padre (1932) takes place in the Suez Canal where a scientist returning
to the United States with a cargo of lungfish for kidney experiments delivers a monologue to an Anglican
Minister on how evolution shapes organisms. The book, after being personally rejected by Alfred A.
Knopf, was accepted by Viking Press. It became a Book of the Month, was included in The Woollcott
Reader (1935), and republished as a Pocket Overseas Edition for the troops during World War II, and then
made a monthly selection by the Natural History Book Club. For the latter republication, the book had to
be reset, as the original plates had been donated during the metal shortages of 1943–44. Smith desired to
make changes to the book, which the publisher gave him a week to make.[12][a]

The manuscript for Man and His Gods (1952), which Smith describes as "a simple story of man's
changing ideas about himself and his place in nature," was declined by several publishers and reduced
from about 275,000 to 250,000 words before it was accepted by Little, Brown and Company. The
publisher made further cuts for length, which Smith approved of.[12] It considers "man's ideas about the
supernatural in the perspective of the evolution of western theology and philosophy from the ancient
Egyptians to the nineteenth century",[14][11] culminating in Darwin's theory of evolution and the reaction
to it, including the thoughts of Thomas Henry Huxley and the relationship of modern thought to that of
pre-evolutionist philosophers John Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.[15][b] Albert Einstein says in
the foreword:

The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic
ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates the impact of these
phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal relationships by which they have come to be
crystallized into organized religion. This is a biologist speaking whose scientific training has
disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian.[17]

From Fish to Philosopher (1953) explains how evolutionary history accounts for the seemingly
bewildering mammalian kidney, in which water, salts, and small molecules are filtered from the blood
into kidney tubules and then much of the water and salt and many of the small molecules are pumped
back into the blood stream. He argues that vertebrates originated in fresh water, where water was drawn
into their bodies by the osmotic pressure of their body fluids; their kidneys excreted the extra water while
also retrieving their supply of small solutes.

Smith served on the board of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public,
from 1952–1955.[11]

As a memorial to Smith in 1963 the New York Heart Association created the Homer W. Smith Award in
Renal Physiology.[18] Additionally, the American Society of Nephrology established The Homer Smith
Award in 1964. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions
which fundamentally affect the science of nephrology, broadly defined, but not limited to, the
pathobiology, cellular and molecular mechanisms and genetic influences on the functions and diseases of
the kidney.
Homer Smith was married to Margaret Wilson, who was the daughter of Lily and James Robert Wilson
from Spring City, Tennessee. His son was Homer Wilson Smith.[11]

Views on religion
Smith attacked superstition and was critical of religious ideas.[19] He was agnostic[20][21] and an advocate
of the Christ myth theory.[22][23]

Publications
Kamongo, or The Lungfish and the Padre (1932)
The Kidney: Structure and Function in Health and Disease (1951)[24][25][26]
Man and His Gods (1952) [with foreword (https://web.archive.org/web/20171104222855/htt
p://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/man_and_his_gods.htm) by Albert
Einstein][27][28]
From Fish to Philosopher (1953)[29]

Quotes
"What engineer, wishing to regulate the composition of the internal environment of the body
on which the function of every bone, gland, muscle, and nerve depends, would devise a
scheme that operated by throwing the whole thing out 16 times a day and rely on grabbing
from it, as it fell to earth, only those precious elements which he wanted to keep?"[30]

References
Footnotes

a. The changes mainly involved less dialogue from Joel and a little bit more from the Padre
near the end of the book.[13]
b. While the body of the book lacks footnotes, a considerable bibliography is provided in the
afterword.[16]
Citations

1. Fishman, Alfred P. (November 1962). "Homer W. Smith (1895-1962)" (https://doi.org/10.116

1%2F01.CIR.26.5.984). Circulation. 26 (5): 984–985. doi:10.1161/01.CIR.26.5.984 (https://d
oi.org/10.1161%2F01.CIR.26.5.984). ISSN 0009-7322 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/000
9-7322). PMID 13945307 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13945307).
2. Smith 1952, p. 451.
3. Smith 1952, pp. 452–454.
4. Smith 1952, pp. 461, 469.
5. Smith 1952, pp. 452–455.
6. Smith 1952, pp. 456, 458–59, 474.
7. Smith 1952, pp. 459–60.
 8. Smith 1952, p. 474.
9. Bing, R. J. (1995). Homer W. Smith and His Contribution to Cardiovascular Medicine (http://
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/clc.4960180814/pdf). Clinical Cardiology 18 (8): 486–
487.
10. Giebisch, G. (2004). Homer W. Smith's Contribution to Renal Physiology (https://www.ncbi.n
lm.nih.gov/pubmed/15151273). J Nephrol 17: 159–165.
11. Bynum, W.F. (2000). Smith, Homer William. American National Biography Online.
12. Smith 1952, p. 447–449.
13. Smith 1952, p. 448.
14. Fishman, Alfred P. (November 1962). "Obituary. Homer W. Smith (1895–1962)" (https://doi.o
rg/10.1161%2F01.CIR.26.5.984). Circulation. 26: 984–985. doi:10.1161/01.CIR.26.5.984 (ht
tps://doi.org/10.1161%2F01.CIR.26.5.984). PMID 13945307 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go
v/13945307). S2CID 5469844 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5469844). (See p.
985.)
15. Smith 1952, pp. 408, 410.
16. Smith 1952, pp. 476–478, 481.
17. Smith 1952, p. ix.
18. Hrushka, K. A. (1991). American Journal of Physiology - Renal Physiology (http://ajprenal.ph
ysiology.org/content/260/2/F151) 260 (2): F151–F152.
19. Blau, Joseph L. (1953). Reviewed Works: The Scriptures of Mankind by Charles S. Braden;
Man and His Gods by Homer W. Smith; The Religions of Mankind by Edmund Davison
Soper; What Americans Believe and How They Worship by J. Paul Williams. Jewish Social
Studies 15 (1): 77–80.
20. Farber, Saul J. (1996). Homer W. Smith: The Humanist (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/825
35259.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20190310002845/https://core.ac.uk/downl
oad/pdf/82535259.pdf) 2019-03-10 at the Wayback Machine. Kidney International 49: 1528-
1529.
21. Evans, David. (2015). Marine Physiology Down East: The Story of the Mt. Desert Island
Biological Laboratory. Springer. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4939-2959-7
22. Graubard, Mark. (1953). Reviewed Work: Man and His Gods by Homer W. Smith (https://ww
w.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/348211). Isis 44 (1/2): 88–89.
23. Zadunaisky, José A. (1989). Dedication of the Homer W. Smith Laboratory at the Mount
Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Salsbury Cove, Maine: Friday, July 28, 1989. Mount
Desert Island Biological Laboratory. p. 31
24. Bankoff, Milton L. (1951). The Kidney: Structure and Function in Health and Disease (http://j
ournals.lww.com/academicmedicine/citation/1951/07000/the_kidney__structure_and_functio
n_in_health_and.19.aspx). Academic Medicine 26 (4): 334.
25. Corcoran, A. C. (1951). The Kidney: Structure and Function in Health and Disease (https://w
ww.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.114.2969.558.b). Science 23 (114): 558.
26. Howard, Evelyn. (1953). The Kidney: Structure and Function in Health and Disease (http://w
ww.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/399434). The Quarterly Review of Biology 28 (1):
88.
27. Nelson, Boris Erich. (1952). Reviewed Work: Man and His Gods by Homer W. Smith. The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 284: 211-212.
28. "Man and His Gods" (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/homer-smith/man-and-hi
s-gods/). Kirkus Reviews.
29. "From Fish to Philosopher" (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/homer-w-smith/fro
m-fish-to-philosopher/). Kirkus Reviews.
30. Brunton, Laurence (2011). Goodman & Gilman's: The Pharmacological Bases of
Therapeutics. China: The McGraw-Hill Companies. p. 671. ISBN 9780071624428.
Sources
Smith, Homer W. (1952). Man and His Gods (https://archive.org/details/manhisgods00smit).
New York: Grosset & Dunlap.

Further reading
Herbert Chasis, William Goldring. (1965). Homer William Smith: His Scientific and Literary
Achievements. New York University Press.
L. G. Navar. (2004). The Legacy of Homer W. Smith: Mechanistic Insights into Renal
Physiology (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC522263/). Journal of Clinical
Investigation 114 (8): 1048–1050.

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