PAVLOV, Ivan Petrovich (1849-1936)

The first translation of Pavlov’s Russian original (St. Petersburg 1897), the one in which his work became known to the world outside Russia. Pavlov’s investigations on the secretions of gastric juice led to his epoch-making contributions to the study of conditioned reflexes and induced automatic responses to stimuli. This copy with faint underlinings in pencil is the copy of the Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine, who awarded Pavlov the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on the physiology of digestion. Pavlov’s ”interest in the secretory nerves of the pancreas and the study of the physiology of the digestive glands led to his important contributions in conditioned reflexes and induced automatic responses to stimuli. These have become of ever-growing importance in political practices and sociological sciences. Using living dogs in his experiments, Pavlov determined the effect of stimuli on the generation of body secretions, digestive juices and saliva thru brilliant operative techniques. Completely mechanistic, he concluded that even such concepts as ‘freedom’, ‘curiosity’ and ‘religion’ were conditioned reflexes of the brain” (Dibner). "Pavlov’s results are, indeed, clearly complementary to those of Freud and many regard them as of more fundamental significance. Like Freud’s, this was the work of one man and a completely new departure. ” (Printing and the Mind of Man). Pavlov summarized his experiments in a series of lectures given in 1896 and published in Russian in the following year. In the interim, he had noted that his dogs (”Pavlov’s dogs”) learned the daily routine of the laboratory and would respond with secretion at the approach of the experimenter himself or in response to some other remote stimulus. This led him to formulate the concept of "conditioned reflex,” which he announced for the first time in 1903 and discussed in his Nobel Prize lecture, "Physiology of Digestion,” delivered on 12 December 1904 (H.F. Norman).

Collation: Pp. xii, 199, (1). Figures in the text.

Binding: Contemporary brown half calf, marbled boards. With the original printed front wrapper bound in. Gilt ruled spine with gilt title and at foot Nob.Med.- Kom.

Provenance: The Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine.

References: The Russian original in: Garrison-Morton 1022 (St Petersburg, 1897); Horblit, One Hundred Books Famous in Science 83; Printing and the Mind of Man 385; Grolier, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine 85; Norman 1664; Dibner, Heralds of Science 134; Babkin, B.P. Pavlov: A Biography (1974), pp 261.269; Fulton, History of Physiology, pp 192-193; Lilly Library, Notable Medical Books, p 241; DSB, X, pp 431-436. 7257