Starling discovered the functional significance of the serum proteins.

Magnus and Starling reported that pituitary extracts caused expansion of the kidney and a marked and often prolonged diuresis. This was the first indication that the neurohypophysis plays a part in the regulation of urine secretion.

Demonstration of the existence of secretin in the duodenal secretion. Preliminary note in Lancet, 1902, 1, 813.

Bayliss and Starling developed the theory of hormonal control of internal secretion.

Starling constructed a general scheme of the “hormones” as he named the internal secretions. This is the first appearance of the word, which was suggested by W. B. Hardy.

In their classic paper on the mammary gland, these workers attributed its changes during pregnancy to the fetus.

Starling put forward the idea that renal excretion of salt (and water) was conditioned by the volume of body fluids, particularly the blood volume. He suggested that the sum total of body fluids was arranged so that the blood supply to the brain was maintained at a point just equal to its need.

"Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927) has probably contributed more than any man to our understanding of heart failure....His work with Patterson and Piper on the mechanical factors involved in the response of the heart to changes in load have formed the basis for our understanding of how the heart's work as a pump is adjusted to the varying demands made upon it, and have incidentally provided the key to our understanding of heart failure as seen in man" ( Sir George Pickering, "Starling and the concept of heart failure," Circulation, 21 (1960) 323-331).

Starling’s “law of the heart”.

Demonstration that the anti-diuretic action of vasopressin is exerted directly on the kidney, and that tubules of the kidney reabsorb water.