James Mourilyan Tanner, (1 August 1920 – 11 August 2010) was a British paediatric endocrinologist who was best known for his development of the

Tanner scale The Tanner scale (also known as the Tanner stages or Sexual Maturity Rating (SMR)) is a scale of physical development in children, adolescents and adults. The scale defines physical measurements of development based on external primary and se ...

, which measures the stages of sexual development during

puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a bo ...

. He was a professor emeritus of the

Institute of Child Health The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) is an academic department of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1946 and together ...

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

Biography

Tanner was born on 1 August 1920 in Camberley, Surrey, United Kingdom and was educated at Marlborough College and

University College of the South West of England , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

. His family travelled widely while he was a youth because his father, a soldier in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

, was stationed in various locations. Tanner was a top-ranked

hurdler Hurdling is the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint. In the early 19th century, hurdlers ran at and jumped over each hurdle (sometimes known as 'burgles'), landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Today, ...

who might well have participated in the 1940 Summer Olympics which were to be held in London, but were cancelled after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He decided to become a doctor and not follow his father into the military after his brother was killed early in the war. He attended St Mary's Hospital, London, under a scholarship in which he instructed fellow students in physical education. He went to the United States to complete his medical studies as part of a group of British students funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. He met his first wife, fellow physician Bernice Alture, while at the

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine The Perelman School of Medicine, commonly known as Penn Med, is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1765, the Perelman School of Medicine is the oldest medi ...

and performed his

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...

.Weber, Bruce
"Dr. James M. Tanner, an Expert in How Children Grow, Is Dead at 90"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', 23 August 2010. Retrieved 24 August 2010. Tanner oversaw a study initiated by the British government at an orphanage in Harpenden starting in 1948. While the study had originally been planned to study the effects of malnutrition on children, Tanner charted and photographed the growth of the children in the study over a period of several years, developing the Tanner Scale, which measures sexual maturation in adolescents based on characteristics that can be objectively measured, including size of the genitals and the quantity of pubic hair. The data gathered led to the development of the modern

growth chart A growth chart is used by pediatricians and other health care providers to follow a child's growth over time. Growth charts have been constructed by observing the growth of large numbers of healthy children over time. The height, weight, and hea ...

, used by paediatricians around the world to monitor the pattern of growth in children through adolescence, with separate curves measuring the growth trajectory for boys and girls identified as maturing early, normal or late.Hall, Stephen S
"With His Bells and Curves, Human Growth Science Grew Up"
''

'', 1 March 2005. Retrieved 24 August 2010. Based on his research, Tanner noted that 90% of an individual child's adult height is based on genetic factors, but that the environment is the key factor when thousands of children are studied. By studying the growth characteristics of large populations, Tanner concluded that community-wide data on adult height was an indicator of how a society fosters its youths. Tanner did early research on the use of human growth hormone to address children whose growth was significantly delayed and was responsible for selecting the small handful of children in the UK who would be treated with the limited supply of HGH extracted from human cadavers. After a number of patients worldwide died in 1985 of

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), also known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder due to prion disease, is an invariably fatal degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms include memory problems, behavioral changes ...

linked to HGH treatments, Tanner immediately stopped the therapy, but had patients who insisted that they were willing to take the risk to address their child's delayed growth. Treatments resumed in the 1990s following the introduction of genetically engineered human growth hormone. Tanner died at age 90 on 11 August 2010 in

Wellington, Somerset Wellington is a market town in rural Somerset, a county in the west of England, situated south west of Taunton in the Somerset West and Taunton district, near the border with Devon, which runs along the Blackdown Hills to the south of the t ...

, due to a stroke and prostate cancer. He was survived by his second wife, Gunilla, as well as by a daughter, Helen Phillips, a stepdaughter, a stepson and three granddaughters.

Publications

Tanner authored and co-authored numerous publications and contributions to publications, some of which are listed below. *''Growth at Adolescence'', 2nd ed. (1962) Oxford: Blackwell Scientific. * * * * Transferred to digital printing 2002. * Transferred to digital printing 2003. * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanner, James Mourilyan 1920 births 2010 deaths Alumni of the University of Exeter Academics of the University of London British paediatric endocrinologists People from Camberley Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni People educated at Marlborough College Auxologists Recipients of the James Spence Medal British expatriates in the United States