On May 31,1882, Sydney Ringer rushed into his small laboratory in the Department of Physiology at University College London. He was likely coming from a busy morning of rounds at the hospital across the street, and would soon be headed out again to attend to his duties as a successful private doctor based out of his home in Cavendish Place, London. As usual, his lab assistant had prepared the materials for that day's experiments, including solutions of water with substances like sodium chloride and potassium chloride in various specific amounts. Under Ringer's watchful eye, each solution was held in a reservoir and, via a double tube, flowed in and out of a frog heart. In a nearly Rube Goldberg-esque set-up that connected a vat of oil, a flexible membrane, a stopper, a lever, and a slowly rotating drum, the beats of the frog's heart were charted; Ringer needed the graph to be even and consistent, showing a prolonged, regular beating.
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