Priestly was born in
Bingley, Yorkshire to Ann Ford and Charles Henry. He was educated at
Eton and Christ Church,
Oxford and qualified in medicine at
St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He spent some time working with
Wilhelm Falta in Vienna before returning to join as a director of the chemical pathology laboratory at St. Bartholomew's. Affected by tuberculosis in 1912 he moved to Oxford and served in the
Royal Army Medical Corps during
World War I. He then returned to teach clinical physiology at Oxford. It was here that he worked with
John Scott Haldane on respiration and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the inspired air. He also examined the functioning of kidneys in water excretion. Priestly also compiled and edited the
Physiological Abstracts and produced an index to the first sixty volumes of the
Journal of Physiology. == References ==