Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (in Russian: ИванПетровичПавлов) (Riazan, September 14th 1849 - Saint-Pétersbourg, February 27th 1936) is a doctor and a Russian physiologist , Nobel Prize of physiology or medicine 1904 and prize winner of the Médaille Copley in 1915.

Its life and its work

Its summarized career

Born in one from these Russian families where one was Pope of wire father, it was initially raises with the seminar, but it was impassioned already for the natural science and the reading of one little book of the professor Setchenov, Réflexes of the encéphale, made it be registered with the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Saint-Pétersbourg after a short passage in Faculty of Law; it specialized then in animal Physiologie which it studied with the Academy of surgery and medicine. Intrigues had then drawn aside Setchenov, sent in disgrace to Odessa, but it could profit from the courses of another large Master, his successor Élie de Cyon, who made of him a virtuoso of the technique. It obtained its diploma in 1879 and supported its thesis of doctorate in 1883. In 1890, it was named titular pulpit of pharmacology of the military Academy of medicine of Saint-Pétersbourg. He became directing professor of physiology then of the Institute of experimental medicine of Saint-Pétersbourg in 1895 until his death in 1936.

Its work

During Years 1890, Pavlov carried out a Expérience on the gastric function of the Chien by collecting thanks to a dent secretions of a salivary Glande to measure and to analyze the Salive produced under various conditions in answer to the Aliment S. having noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before really coming into contact with food, it decided investiguer in detail more this “psychic secretion”. It proved that this phenomenon was more interesting than the simple chemistry of saliva, and this led it to modify its objectives: in long series of experiments, it varied the stimuli occurring before the presentation of food. Thus he discovered the fundamental laws of acquisition and the loss of the “conditional reflexes” - i.e., the answers reflexes, like salivation, which occurred only in a conditional way under specific experimental conditions in the animal. These experiments, realized during the Années 1890 and 1900, were known Western scientists only by isolated translations and it is only in 1927 that they all were translated into English.

Pavlov was a skilful and methodical experimenter until in his work hours and his practices. Thus he sat down to lunch (to dine) at 12 noon exactly, he was going to lie down each evening at the same time, he always nourished his dogs per same hour each night and each year it did not fail to leave Leningrad for the Estonia where it spent his holidays the same day. This control changed when his/her Victor son was killed with the service of the White Army - after this mourning it was victim of insomnia.

In 1904 he was the first Russian to receive the Nobel Prize and exposed in Russian its work. The use of a Langue little known caused a famous misinterpretation; thus one still speaks about “conditioned reflexes” whereas “conditional reflexes” would be more exact.

Its life after the Revolution of October

The Russian Révolution was for him one painful moment, particularly the years 1919-1920 when he lived in misery, without money either for its laboratory. He however refused an offer of the Swedish Academy of Science which invited it to settle with Stockholm where one would build for him an institute according to his directives: he declared that he would not leave Russie.
With the difference of much of scientists who had begun their career before the Revolution, Pavlov was appreciated Soviet government and it had the possibility of continuing its research until a very advanced age. Itself was not favorable to the Marxism, but as prize winner of the Nobel Prize one looked it like a political capital of great importance. After its first visit in the United States in 1923 (the second took place in 1929), it denounced publicly the Communisme, informant that the Marxisme rested on false bases, adding even: “For the kind of social experiment which you made, I would not sacrifice the back legs of a frog! ”.
In 1924, when the sons of priests were expelled of the Military Medical Academy (old Imperial Medical Academy) of Leningrad it resigned of its pulpit of physiology by declaring, “Me also, I am wire of priest and if you expel the others I will go from there too! ” After the assassination of Sergueï Kirov in 1934, it wrote with Molotov several letters where it condemned persecutions of mass which had followed and required that one reconsider the case of several people whom it personally knew.

It is buried with the Cimetière Volkovo with Saint-Pétersbourg.

Its heritage

An interesting point, it is that the expression of Pavlov “conditional Réflexe” (“условныйрефлекс”) was badly translated from Russian into “conditioned reflex”, and other scientists by reading its work concluded that, as such reflexes were conditioned, they were to be produced by a process called Conditionnement. As the work of Pavlov was especially known in the West in the writings of John B. Watson, the idea of “Conditionnement” as an automatic form of Apprentissage became a key concept in the comparative psychology which developed and the general approach of the Psychologie which underlay it: the Behaviorism. Bertrand Russell was an impassioned lawyer of the importance of the work of Pavlov for the Philosophie of the spirit.

Work of Pavlov on the conditional reflexes had a great influence not only on science, but also on the Popular culture. One often uses the expression “Chien of Pavlov” to rather describe somebody who reacts in way Instinctive to a situation, than to use his critical spirit. Pavlovian conditioning was an important topic in the novel dystopic of Aldous Huxley, Brave New World .

It is generally believed that Pavlov always stated that the food was going to arrive while pressing on a bell. However, its writings testify that it used a broad variety of Stimulus, including whistles, metronomes, forks which it made resound, in addition to the usual visual stimuli. When, during the years 1990, it became easier for the Western scientists to visit the laboratory of Pavlov, they did not discover the least trace of bell there.

Pavlov, thanks to his innovative research on the Conditioning, and more specifically on the traditional Conditioning, is regarded as one of the founders of the modern Psychologie Soviet.

References

  • Boakes, R.A. (1984). From Darwin to behaviourism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Near.
  • Firkin, B.G. & Whitworth, J.A. (1987). Dictionary off Medical Eponyms . Parthenon Publishing. ISBN 1-85070-333-7
  • Pavlov, I.P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  • Todes, D.P. (1997). " Pavlov' S Physiological Factory, " Isis. Vol. 88. The History off Society Science, p. 205-246.

See too

External bonds

  • PBS article
  • official Biography of the Nobel Prize
  • an article of the Institute of Experimental Medicine devoted to Pavlov
  • All the courses of Pavlov in integral version

Random links:Streptomyces | Mustard of Bénichon | Gattinara (wine) | Zoe Carbonopsina | Fulmer (England)