Pavlov's Physiology Factory

Pavlov's Physiology Factory
Author: Daniel P. Todes
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2002
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780801866906

Russian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov is most famous for his development of the concept of the conditioned reflex and the classic experiment in which he trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. In this study, Daniel P. Todes explores Pavlov's early work in digestive physiology through the structures and practices of his landmark laboratory - the physiology department of the Imperial Institute for Experimental Medicine.

Pavlov's Physiology Factory

Pavlov's Physiology Factory
Author: Daniel P. Todes
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2003-04-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0801873746

Russian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov is most famous for his development of the concept of the conditional reflex and the classic experiment in which he trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. In Pavlov's Physiology Factory: Experiment, Interpretation, Laboratory Enterprise, Daniel P. Todes explores Pavlov's early work in digestive physiology through the structures and practices of his landmark laboratory—the physiology department of the Imperial Institute for Experimental Medicine. In Lectures on the Work of the Main Digestive Glands, for which Pavlov won the Nobel Prize in 1904, the scientist frequently referred to the experiments of his coworkers and stated that his conclusions reflected "the deed of the entire laboratory." This novel claim caused the prize committee some consternation. Was he alone deserving of the prize? Examining the fascinating content of Pavlov's scientific notes and correspondence, unpublished memoirs, and laboratory publications, Pavlov's Physiology Factory explores the importance of Pavlov's directorship of what the author calls a "physiology factory" and illuminates its relationship to Pavlov's Nobel Prize-winning work and the research on conditional reflexes that followed it. Todes looks at Pavlov's performance in his various roles as laboratory manager, experimentalist, entrepreneur, and scientific visionary. He discusses changes wrought by government and commercial interests in science and sheds light on the pathways of scientific development in Russia—making clear Pavlov's personal achievements while also examining his style of laboratory management. Pavlov's Physiology Factory thus addresses issues of importance to historians of science and scientists today: "big" versus "small" science, the dynamics of experiment and interpretation, and the development of research cultures.

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov
Author: Daniel Philip Todes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199925194

This is a definitive, deeply researched biography of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and is the first scholarly biography to be published in any language. The book is Todes's magnum opus, which he has been working on for some twenty years. Todes makes use of a wealth of archival material to portray Pavlov's personality, life, times, and scientific work. Combining personal documents with a close reading of scientific texts, Todes fundamentally reinterprets Pavlov's famous research on conditional reflexes. Contrary to legend, Pavlov was not a behaviorist (a misimpression captured in the false iconic image of his "training a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell"); rather, he sought to explain not simply external behaviors, but the emotional and intellectual life of animals and humans. This iconic "objectivist" was actually a profoundly anthropomorphic thinker whose science was suffused with his own experiences, values, and subjective interpretations. This book is also a traditional "life and times" biography that weaves Pavlov into some 100 years of Russian history-particularly that of its intelligentsia--from the emancipation of the serfs to Stalin's time. Pavlov was born to a family of priests in provincial Ryazan before the serfs were emancipated, made his home and professional success in the glittering capital of St. Petersburg in late imperial Russia, suffered the cataclysmic destruction of his world during the Bolshevik seizure of power and civil war of 1917- 1921, rebuilt his life in his 70s as a "prosperous dissident" during the Leninist 1920s, and flourished professionally as never before in 1929-1936 during the industrialization, revolution, and terror of Stalin. Todes's story of this powerful personality and extraordinary man is based upon interviews with surviving coworkers and family members (along with never-before-analyzed taped interviews from the 1960s and 1970s), examination of hundreds of scientific works

Appetite and Its Discontents

Appetite and Its Discontents
Author: Elizabeth A. Williams
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2020-03-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 022669304X

Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its Discontents, Elizabeth A. Williams explores contemporary worries about eating through the lens of science and medicine to show us how appetite—once a matter of personal inclination—became an object of science. Williams charts the history of inquiry into appetite between 1750 and 1950, as scientific and medical concepts of appetite shifted alongside developments in physiology, natural history, psychology, and ethology. She shows how, in the eighteenth century, trust in appetite was undermined when researchers who investigated ingestion and digestion began claiming that science alone could say which ways of eating were healthy and which were not. She goes on to trace nineteenth- and twentieth-century conflicts over the nature of appetite between mechanists and vitalists, experimentalists and bedside physicians, and localists and holists, illuminating struggles that have never been resolved. By exploring the core disciplines in investigations in appetite and eating, Williams reframes the way we think about food, nutrition, and the nature of health itself..

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
Author: George Johnson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2009-03-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 140003423X

A dazzling, irresistible collection of the ten most groundbreaking and beautiful experiments in scientific history. With the attention to detail of a historian and the storytelling ability of a novelist, New York Times science writer George Johnson celebrates these groundbreaking experiments and re-creates a time when the world seemed filled with mysterious forces and scientists were in awe of light, electricity, and the human body. Here, we see Galileo staring down gravity, Newton breaking apart light, and Pavlov studying his now famous dogs. This is science in its most creative, hands-on form, when ingenuity of the mind is the most useful tool in the lab and the rewards of a well-considered experiment are on exquisite display.

Media, Culture, and Mediality

Media, Culture, and Mediality
Author: Ludwig Jäger
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2014-03-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3839413761

Current culturally oriented media studies have significantly advanced central concepts such like »mediality«, »media culture«, »media discourse« and »procedures of media«. Focused on this newly defined terminological field, this volume presents landmark contributions for media studies providing new insights into the current state of research on media theory and media culture, simultaneously developing an agenda for future research.

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov
Author: Daniel Todes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2000-06-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0195105141

Hailed as the "Prince of World Physiology," Ivan Pavlov continues to influence scientists today. His pioneering research on digestion, the brain, and behavior still provides important insights into the minds of animals--including humans--and is an inspiring example of imaginative experimental technique. Pavlov graduated from the theological seminary in his native Ryazan, Russia, in 1869 but almost immediately switched to medicine and enrolled at St. Petersburg University. He became interested in the physiology of circulation and digestion, which led him to the study of conditional and unconditional reflexes. He conducted thousands of experiments with dogs, developing a way to use a dogs salivary glands as a window through which to observe the workings of its brain.Pavlov lived through the Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed it. Lenin himself recognized his genius and provided financial backing for his research; the new Soviet government built a research complex dedicated exclusively to his experiments. Pavlov was honored for his contributions to science with the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1904.Oxford Portraits in Science is an ongoing series of scientific biographies for young adults. Written by top scholars and writers, each biography examines the personality of its subject as well as the thought process leading to his or her discoveries. These illustrated biographies combine accessible technical information with compelling personal stories to portray the scientists whose work has shaped our understanding of the natural world.

Diversification and Professionalization in Psychology

Diversification and Professionalization in Psychology
Author: Csaba Pléh
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2023-12-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1003822967

Diversification and Professionalization in Psychology offers readers a multicentric perspective on the history of social science and compares the developments in psychology in relation to the developments made in the other social and natural sciences. This is the second volume about the formation of modern psychology and provides a comprehensive look into the origins and developments of modern psychology. With a large geographical coverage, European developments are put into their own context in their own time. In doing this, the book explores different early schools, from social reductionists like Durkheim, Charles Blondel, and Maurice Halbwachs, to the social debates about relativism in Lévy-Bruhl, early Piaget, the beginnings of ethology, and the semiotic approach of Karl Bühler. These thinkers are placed in relation to the recent upsurge of different social and biological theories of the mind. Throughout, the author develops a detailed presentation of the thematic development of psychology and links the history of psychology to an outline of contemporary psychology. This is an invaluable introductory text for undergraduate students of the history of psychology and will also appeal to postgraduates, academics, and anyone interested in psychology or the history of science. It will also be of interest to graduate students of psychology, biology, sociology, and anthropology with a theoretical interest in the history of the field.

From Newspeak to Cyberspeak

From Newspeak to Cyberspeak
Author: Slava Gerovitch
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2004-09-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780262572255

In this book, Slava Gerovitch argues that Soviet cybernetics was not just an intellectual trend but a social movement for radical reform in science and society as a whole. Followers of cybernetics viewed computer simulation as a universal method of problem solving and the language of cybernetics as a language of objectivity and truth. With this new objectivity, they challenged the existing order of things in economics and politics as well as in science. The history of Soviet cybernetics followed a curious arc. In the 1950s it was labeled a reactionary pseudoscience and a weapon of imperialist ideology. With the arrival of Khrushchev's political "thaw," however, it was seen as an innocent victim of political oppression, and it evolved into a movement for radical reform of the Stalinist system of science. In the early 1960s it was hailed as "science in the service of communism," but by the end of the decade it had turned into a shallow fashionable trend. Using extensive new archival materials, Gerovitch argues that these fluctuating attitudes reflected profound changes in scientific language and research methodology across disciplines, in power relations within the scientific community, and in the political role of scientists and engineers in Soviet society. His detailed analysis of scientific discourse shows how the Newspeak of the late Stalinist period and the Cyberspeak that challenged it eventually blended into "CyberNewspeak."