Joseph Erlanger was an American physiologist whose pioneering work with his collaborator, Herbert Spencer Gasser, helped to advance the field of neurophysiology. For their work, Erlanger and Gasser shared the 1944 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. The prize committee cited their work on "the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibers." Although unstated, the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Erlanger and Gasser also recognized their roles in developing the most basic tool in modern neurophysiology, the amplifier with cathode-ray oscilloscope. The prize culminated for Erlanger a distinguished career in medical education and physiological research.

Erlanger was born in San Francisco, California. His father, Herman Erlanger, had immigrated to the United States in 1842 at the age of sixteen from his home in Würtemberg, in Southern Germany. After struggling as a peddler in the Mississippi Valley, he went to California during the Gold Rush. Unsuccessful at mining...