Frank Stanley Cotton was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n lecturer in physiology

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

, specialising in the study of the effects of physical strain on the human body.

Early life

Frank Stanley Cotton was born on 30 April 1890 at Camperdown

Camperdown, New South Wales

Camperdown is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Camperdown is located 4 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Inner West region...

, Sydney, New South Wales. He was the son of Australian politician Francis Cotton (1857-1942), and brother of Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

 expeditioner and geology professor, Leo Arthur Cotton (1883-1963). Pioneer art photographer Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton was a pioneering Australian modernist female photographer of the 1930s and 40s working in Sydney. As a female photographer in Australia of that era, she was overlooked and her work at the Dupain studio was considered "art" rather than commercial. Cotton only became a national "name"...

 was his niece.

Inventions

• Anti-Gravity Suit

In 1940, whilst at the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

, Professor Cotton invented the "Cotton aerodynamic anti-G flying suit" (G-suit

G-suit

A G-suit, or the more accurately named anti-G suit, is worn by aviators and astronauts who are subject to high levels of acceleration force . It is designed to prevent a black-out and G-LOC caused by the blood pooling in the lower part of the body when under acceleration, thus depriving the...

), which prevented pilots from blacking out when making high speed turns or pulling out of a dive. This was used extensively by pilots in the Allied air forces during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

• Ergometer

Cotton was also responsible for the ergometer

Exercise machine

An exercise machine is any machine used for physical exercise. These range from simple spring-like devices to computerized electromechanical rides to recirculating-stream swimming pools...

, a machine to test the athletic potential of sportsmen and women. Cotton claimed through this machine to have discovered the swimmers Jon Henricks

Jon Henricks

John Malcolm Henricks started his swimming career as a distance swimmer, scoring his first real successes in 1952 when he came in 3rd in the Australian 1500 meters, 2nd in the 800, and won the 400 meters. The distance work proved too arduous, perhaps due to a prolonged ear infection that kept...

 and Judy-Joy Davies

Judy-Joy Davies

Judy-Joy Davies was an Australian backstroke swimmer of the 1940s and 1950s, who won a bronze medal in the 100m backstroke at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. At national level, she won 17 Australian Championships in freestyle, backstroke and medley swimming...

. The Australian swimming coach, Forbes Carlile

Forbes Carlile

Forbes Carlile MBE was Australia's first post-World War II Olympics swimming coach and later Australia's first competitor in the modern pentathlon at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He remains the only person to have coached and later competed at the Olympic Games.Born in Armadale, Victoria,...

, began his career as an assistant to Cotton.