Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (September 27, 1849, Ryazan — February 27, 1936, Leningrad) — physiologist, creator of the science of higher nervous activity and ideas about the processes of digestion regulation; founder of the largest Russian physiological school; recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1904 «for his work on the physiology of digestion.»

Biography

Ivan Petrovich was born on September 27 (14), 1849 in the city of Ryazan. Pavlov’s ancestors on the paternal and maternal lines were ministers of the church. Father Pyotr Dmitrievich Pavlov (1823–1899), mother Varvara Ivanovna (née Uspenskaya) (1826–1890).

After graduating from the Ryazan Theological School in 1864, Pavlov entered the Ryazan Theological Seminary, which he later recalled with great warmth. In the last year of the seminary, he read a short book «Reflexes of the Brain» by Professor I. M. Sechenov, which turned his whole life upside down. In 1870 he entered the Faculty of Law (seminarians were limited in their choice of university specialties), but 17 days after admission, he moved to the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University (he specialized in animal physiology under I. F. Zion and F. V. Ovsyannikov) .

Pavlov, as a follower of Sechenov, dealt a lot with nervous regulation. Sechenov, because of intrigues, had to move from St. Petersburg to Odessa, where he worked for some time at the university. His chair at the Medico-Surgical Academy was occupied by Ilya Faddeevich Zion, and Pavlov took over the virtuoso operational technique from Zion. Pavlov devoted more than 10 years to getting a fistula (hole) of the gastrointestinal tract. It was extremely difficult to perform such an operation, since the juice flowing from the intestines digested the intestines and the abdominal wall. I.P. Pavlov stitched the skin and mucous membranes in such a way, inserted metal tubes and closed them with stoppers that there were no erosions, and he could receive pure digestive juice throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract — from the salivary gland to the large intestine, which was made by him on hundreds of experimental animals. Conducted experiments with imaginary feeding (cutting the esophagus so that food does not enter the stomach) and imaginary defecation (intestinal looping by stitching the end of the colon with the beginning of the duodenum), thus making a number of discoveries in the field of reflexes of the secretion of gastric and intestinal juices. For 10 years, Pavlov, in essence, re-created the modern physiology of digestion. In 1903, 54-year-old Pavlov made a presentation at the International Physiological Congress in Madrid. And in the next year, 1904, the Nobel Prize for the study of the functions of the main digestive glands was awarded to I.P. Pavlov — he became the first Russian Nobel laureate.

In the Madrid report, made in Russian, IP Pavlov for the first time formulated the principles of the physiology of higher nervous activity, to which he devoted the next 35 years of his life. Such concepts as reinforcement (reinforcement), unconditioned and conditioned reflexes (not quite well translated into English as unconditioned and conditioned reflexes, instead of conditional) became the main concepts of behavioral science.

In 1919-1920, during the period of devastation, Pavlov, suffering poverty, lack of funding for scientific research, refused the invitation of the Swedish Academy of Sciences to move to Sweden, where he was promised to create the most favorable conditions for life and scientific research, and in the vicinity of Stockholm it was planned to build Pavlov’s desire is such an institution as he wants. Pavlov replied that he would not leave Russia anywhere. Then a corresponding decree of the Soviet government followed, and a magnificent institute was built for Pavlov in Koltushi, near Leningrad, where he worked until 1936. I.P. Pavlov brought up a whole galaxy of outstanding scientists: B.P. Babkin, A. I. Smirnov and others.

After his death, Pavlov was turned into an idol of Soviet science. Under the slogan of “defending the Pavlovian heritage”, the so-called “Pavlovian session” of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR was held in 1950 (organized by K. M. Bykov, A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky), where the leading physiologists of the country were persecuted. Such a policy, however, was in sharp contradiction with Pavlov’s own views, see, for example, his quotes …:

• “We have lived and are living under an unrelenting regime of terror and violence <...>. I see most of all the similarities of our life with the life of the ancient Asian despotisms <...>. Spare the homeland and us ”(cited by: Artamonov V.I. Psychology in the first person. 14 conversations with Russian scientists. M .: Academy, 2003, p. 24).
• “We live in a society where the state is everything, and the person is nothing, and such a society has no future, despite any Volkhovstroy and Dneproges” (speech at the 1st Medical Institute in Leningrad on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of I. M. Sechenova, cited in: Artamonov V. I. Psychology in the first person, 14 conversations with Russian scientists, M.: Akademiya, 2003, p. 25)

Stages of life

In 1875, Pavlov entered the 3rd year of the Medical-Surgical Academy (now the Military Medical Academy), at the same time (1876-78) he worked in the physiological laboratory of K. N. Ustimovich; after graduating from the Military Medical Academy (1879), he was left the head of the physiological laboratory at the Botkin clinic.

• 1883 — Pavlov defended his doctoral dissertation «On the centrifugal nerves of the heart.»
• 1884-86 — was sent to improve knowledge abroad in Breslau and Leipzig, where he worked in the laboratories of R. Heidenhain and K. Ludwig.
• 1890 — was elected professor and head of the department of pharmacology of the Military Medical Academy, and in 1896 — head of the department of physiology, which he led until 1924. At the same time (since 1890) Pavlov was head of the physiological laboratory at the then organized Institute of Experimental Medicine.
• 1901 — Pavlov was elected a corresponding member, and in 1907 a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
• 1904 — Pavlov is awarded the Nobel Prize for many years of research into the mechanisms of digestion
• 1925 — Until the end of his life, Pavlov headed the Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
• 1936 — February 27 Pavlov dies of pneumonia. He was buried at the Literary Bridges of the Volkov cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Named after Pavlov:

• St. Petersburg State Medical University
• The village of Pavlovo in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region
• Institute of Physiology in St. Petersburg
• Academician Pavlov Street in Moscow
• Metro station in Prague