Is it true that I.P. Pavlov, dying, told his students about his feelings? and got the best answer
Reply from User deleted[guru]
Not quite like that, Natasha. He, as a scientist, a doctor who knew the symptoms of edema of the cerebral cortex, made the correct diagnosis.
The brilliant naturalist was 87 years old when his life was interrupted. Pavlov's death came as a complete surprise to everyone. in October 1935, a few months after contracting the flu with complications, Pavlov wrote: “Damn flu! It has knocked down my confidence in living to be a hundred years old. There is still a tail left from it, although I still do not allow changes in distribution and size my studies."
According to Serafima Vasilievna, the scientist, starting in 1925, after another illness with pneumonia, stopped wearing a winter coat and wore an autumn coat all winter. And, indeed, after this the colds stopped for a long time. In 1935 he caught a cold again and contracted pneumonia.
On February 22, 1936, during another trip to the scientific town of Koltushi, the beloved “capital of conditioned reflexes,” Ivan Petrovich again caught a cold and contracted pneumonia. With modern effective medicines - antibiotics and sulfa drugs, it would probably be possible to cure the scientist. The then means of combating pneumonia, which were not applied immediately after the onset of the disease, turned out to be powerless to save the life of I. P. Pavlov, so dear to all mankind. On February 27 it went out forever.
“Ivan Petrovich himself,” recalled Serafima Vasilievna, “did not expect such a quick end. All these days he joked with his granddaughters and talked cheerfully with those around him.” Pavlov dreamed, and sometimes told his employees, that he would live at least a hundred years, and only in the last years of his life would he leave the laboratory to write memoirs about what he had seen on his long life path.
Shortly before his death, Ivan Petrovich began to worry that he sometimes forgot the right words and said others, and made some movements involuntarily. The insightful mind of the brilliant researcher flashed for the last time: “Excuse me, but this is the bark, this is the bark, this is swelling of the bark!” he said excitedly. The autopsy confirmed the correctness of this, alas, last guess of the scientist about the brain - the presence of edema of the cortex of his own powerful brain. By the way, it also turned out that the vessels of Pavlov’s brain were almost not affected by sclerosis.
Life
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 26, 1849 in Ryazan. His paternal and maternal ancestors were church ministers.
The young man initially followed in the footsteps of his parents and in 1864 entered the Ryazan Theological Seminary, which he later recalled with great warmth. But in his last year at the seminary, he read a short book by Professor Sechenov, “Reflexes of the Brain,” which changed his life. In 1870, Ivan Petrovich entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, where he specialized in animal physiology.
As a follower of Sechenov, Pavlov worked a lot on nervous regulation. In the town of Koltushi, near St. Petersburg, he created the only laboratory in the world for the study of higher nervous activity. Its center was the “Tower of Silence” - a special room that made it possible to place the experimental animal in complete isolation from the outside world. He devoted more than 10 years to getting a fistula (hole) in the gastrointestinal tract. It was extremely difficult to perform such an operation, since the juice pouring out of the intestines digested the intestines and the abdominal wall. Pavlov learned how to stitch the skin and mucous membranes together, insert metal tubes and close them with plugs, so that there were no erosions, and he could receive pure digestive juice throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract.
The scientist’s attitude to live cuttings is reminiscent of the inscription on one of the bas-reliefs of the Dog monument installed in the park of the Institute of Experimental Medicine: “Let the dog, man’s helper and friend since prehistoric times, be sacrificed to science, but our dignity obliges us to ensure that this happens without fail and always without unnecessary torment. I. P. Pavlov."
After hundreds of operations on experimental animals, the scientist made a number of discoveries in the field of reflexes for the secretion of gastric and intestinal juices, essentially creating the modern physiology of digestion.
“Any phenomenon in the external world can be turned into a temporary signal of an object, stimulating the salivary glands,- wrote Pavlov, - if the stimulation of the oral mucosa by this object is repeatedly associated ... with the influence of a certain external phenomenon on other sensitive surfaces of the body.”
In 1903, 54-year-old Pavlov made a report at the XIV International Medical Congress in Madrid, for the first time formulating the principles of the physiology of higher nervous activity and introducing the concepts of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes. The following year, 1904, he was awarded the Nobel Prize - he became the first Russian Nobel laureate.
The works of I.P. Pavlov received recognition from scientists all over the world. In 1935, at the 15th International Congress of Physiologists, Ivan Petrovich was crowned with the honorary title of “elder of physiologists of the world.” No other biologist has received such an honor.
During the years of revolution and devastation, in conditions of complete poverty and lack of funding for scientific research, Pavlov 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 such a whatever institute he wants. Pavlov replied that he would not leave Russia anywhere. Then a corresponding decree of the Soviet government followed, and Pavlov was built a magnificent institute in Koltushi, where he worked until his death in 1936.
Worldview
After his death, Pavlov was turned into a symbol of Soviet science. Indeed, Pavlov’s work in the field of higher nervous activity produced a real revolution in science. But the first Russian Nobel Prize laureate was extremely skeptical about political revolutions, moreover, with undisguised disgust. And although Soviet propaganda at one time tried to make him an inveterate materialist, almost a militant atheist, in reality everything was exactly the opposite. Ivan Petrovich met the Bolshevik revolution, in his own words, with unpleasant surprise.
Pavlov did not know how and did not want to shield himself from the outside world with science. When the new government destroyed churches and monasteries in Leningrad, only the intervention and authority of Ivan Petrovich saved a number of churches from destruction. Pavlov emphasized his rejection of the new order by appearing at Soviet official receptions with a full “iconostasis” of royal awards and orders, and on holidays of the church calendar, on the doors of his laboratory there was a note “Closed, on the occasion of St. Easter.”
Whether Pavlov himself believed in God is still debated. In any case, until the end of his days he maintained a respectful attitude towards religion, which he considered the most important cultural heritage of humanity. In 1932, addressing the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Molotov, the scientist publicly announced his credo: “In my deep conviction, our government’s persecution of religion and patronage of militant atheism is a big and harmful state mistake... Religion is the most important protective instinct, formed when an animal turned into a person, conscious of himself and the surrounding creatures.” He never tired of reminding that every second pre-revolutionary doctor in Russia came from the clergy.
He wrote something even worse to the Soviet leaders: “You are in vain to believe in the world proletarian revolution. I cannot look at the posters without smiling: “Long live the world socialist revolution, long live the world October.” You are not spreading revolution throughout the cultural world, but fascism with great success. Before your revolution, there was no fascism was. After all, only our political babies of the Provisional Government were not satisfied with even two of your rehearsals before your October triumph. All other governments do not at all want to see in themselves what we had and have and, of course, they realize in time to use what they can to prevent this. you have used and are still using— terror and violence. Isn’t this visible to anyone who can see? How many times have your newspapers written about other countries: “the hour has come, the hour has struck,” but things always ended only in new fascism here and there. Yes, under your indirect influence, fascism will gradually embrace the entire cultural world, excluding the mighty Anglo-Saxon department (England, probably, the American United States, probably), which will bring to life the core of socialism: the slogan is work as the first duty and glorious dignity of man and as the basis of human relations, ensuring the appropriate existence of everyone - and will achieve this while preserving all the expensive acquisitions of cultural humanity that cost great sacrifices and a lot of time."
At the same time, he wrote to one of his long-time ill-wishers, Nikolai Bukharin: “My God, how difficult it is now for any decent person to live in your socialist paradise...”
Pavlov was the last person in the Stalinist state who openly declared to the unbridled executioners of his own people: “It is hardly possible for those who viciously sentence masses of their own kind to death and carry this out with satisfaction, to remain beings and thinking humanely... Spare the homeland and us.”
This tradition of telling the hard truth to power after the death of the great scientist was picked up by his spiritual disciples - academicians Kapitsa, Landau, Sakharov.
Eccentricities
Pavlov was an extraordinary person; his detachment from everyday life sometimes took the form of eccentricity. Pavlov met his future wife, 18-year-old Serafima Vasilievna Karchevskaya, a student at the Higher Women's Courses, while a student at the Medical-Surgical Academy. The young people fell in love with each other and decided to get married, but Serafima Vasilievna, having completed her courses, went to the village to teach for a year. She came to St. Petersburg for the Christmas holidays. Talking about life in the village, she complained that she was very cold. Pavlov immediately took out the money, and together they went to buy warm boots for Serafima Vasilievna. The happy holidays flew by quickly, Karchevskaya returned to the village again. Unpacking her suitcase and remembering her courteous fiancé, Seraphima suddenly unexpectedly discovered that she had brought only one boot. In frustration, she rummaged through all her things, but the second boot seemed to fall through the ground! The groom's letter shed light on his mysterious disappearance. It turns out that Pavlov, in love, kept the boot for himself, as a memory of his bride!
Pavlov was in good health and never got sick. In his opinion, the human body is designed for a very long life. “Do not upset your heart with grief, do not poison yourself with tobacco potion, and you will live as long as Titian.”“, said the academician (the great Venetian artist, according to some biographical data, lived 99 years, according to others - about 88). Pavlov generally proposed that the death of a person under 150 years of age be considered “violent.”
The story of Pavlov's death has become a legend. It is reminiscent of the death of Socrates. As you know, the great philosopher was sentenced to death, after which he took hemlock poison and, while waiting for death, calmly talked with friends.
Pavlov did the same. Feeling the approach of death, he called his students and began to dictate his feelings to them, believing that this would be useful for science.
At this time a certain visitor came, who, however, was not received. “Academician Pavlov is busy,” came the answer. - He is dying".
Pavlov's self-diagnosis - edema of the cerebral cortex - was confirmed at autopsy.
Not a single Russian scientist received such fame and international recognition in the second half of the 19th century as Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. He became an honorary member of 130 academies and scientific societies around the world and the first Russian Nobel laureate in history. In 1904, Pavlov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology “for his work on the physiology of digestion.”
Life is only bright for those who strive for a goal that is constantly achieved, but never achieved.” (I. P. Pavlov)
Choosing a life path
Ivan Pavlov was born on September 26, 1849 in Ryazan, in the family of the parish priest Pyotr Dmitrievich Pavlov and his wife, Varvara Ivanovna, who also came from a family of clergy. It is not surprising that the parents dreamed that their son would devote his life to the church - young Vanya studied at the local theological school, graduating from which in 1864, he entered the Ryazan Theological Seminary. However, after five years of successful training, he left her. Impressed by the work of Professor I.M. Sechenov, “Reflexes of the Brain,” which he had read at that time, which had a huge influence on his worldview, Ivan decides to forever connect his life with serving science.
Becoming a scientist
In 1870, Pavlov entered St. Petersburg University in the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In his third year, under the influence of the famous physiologist I. F. Tsion, he also decided to specialize in the field of physiology. In 1875, having graduated from the university with a candidate of natural sciences degree, Pavlov decided to also receive a medical education and entered the third year of the Medical-Surgical Academy. He received his medical degree in 1879. At the same time, at the invitation of the outstanding surgeon S.P. Botkin, he began working in the physiological laboratory at his clinic. In 1883, I. P. Pavlov defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In 1890 he became a professor at the Military Medical Academy. He worked within the walls of this institute for 45 years and carried out major research on the physiology of digestion there. An important event in Pavlov’s life and scientific activity was his work at the Institute of Experimental Medicine. In 1891, the patron of this newly established institute, the Prince of Oldenburg, invited Ivan Petrovich to organize a department of physiology in it, which the scientist headed until the end of his life. Here, Pavlov's classical work on the physiology of the digestive glands was mainly carried out, as well as a significant part of the work on conditioned reflexes.
And in sorrow and in joy
In 1881, a 32-year-old scientist falls in love with a student of the St. Petersburg pedagogical courses, the young beauty Seraphim, and, against the wishes of his parents, marries her. Despite the fact that the first decade of their life together was full of everyday problems and financial difficulties, this marriage turned out to be extremely happy. “I was looking for only a good person for a life partner,” wrote I. P. Pavlov, “and found him in my wife Sara Vasilievna, née Karchevskaya, who patiently endured the hardships of our pre-professor life, always protected my scientific aspirations and turned out to be equally devoted throughout my life.” our family as I am the laboratory.”
Scientific method
Before Pavlov, research was carried out using the so-called acute experiment, the essence of which was that the organ of interest to the scientist was exposed by incisions on the body of an anesthetized or immobilized animal. The method was unsuitable for studying the normal course of life processes, since it disrupted the natural connection between the organs and systems of the body. Pavlov was the first physiologist to use the “chronic method,” in which an experiment is carried out on a practically healthy animal, which made it possible to study physiological processes in an undistorted form. The “chronic experiment” method allowed the scientist to discover many laws of the functioning of the digestive glands and the digestive process in general. Before Pavlov, there were only some very vague and fragmentary ideas about this, and the physiology of digestion was one of the most backward sections of physiology.
Physiology of blood circulation
One of Pavlov's first scientific studies was devoted to studying the role of the nervous system in the regulation of blood circulation. His doctoral dissertation was on the study of the centrifugal nerves of the heart. In it, for the first time in the heart of a warm-blooded animal, he showed the existence of special nerve fibers that enhance and weaken its activity. The scientist proved the presence of “triple nerve control” on the heart: functional nerves that cause or interrupt the activity of the organ; vascular nerves, which regulate the delivery of chemical material to the organ, and trophic nerves, which determine the exact size of the final utilization of this material by each organ and thereby regulate the vitality of the tissue. The scientist assumed the same triple control in other organs.
In 1935, on Pavlov’s initiative, sculptor I. F. Bespalov created the “Monument to the Dog”,
which was installed on the territory of the park of the Institute of Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg.
Physiology of digestion
Pavlov's first research in this area was devoted to studying the functioning of the salivary glands. The scientist established a relationship between the composition and amount of saliva secreted and the chemical composition of food. Research concerning the physiology of the stomach is Pavlov's most significant achievement in explaining the processes of digestion. He proved the presence of nervous regulation of the activity of the gastric glands. The result of these studies was the work “Lectures on the work of the main digestive glands,” published in 1897.
“Human happiness is somewhere between freedom and discipline.
One freedom without strict discipline and rules without a sense of freedom
cannot create a full-fledged human personality.” (I. P. Pavlov)
Physiology of higher nervous activity
Pavlov moved on to the study of the physiology of higher nervous activity, trying to explain the phenomenon of mental salivation. The study of this phenomenon led him to the concept of a conditioned reflex. A conditioned reflex, unlike an unconditioned one, is not innate, but is acquired as a result of the accumulation of individual life experience and is an adaptive reaction of the body to living conditions. Pavlov called the process of formation of conditioned reflexes higher nervous activity. The scientist identified four types of higher nervous activity in humans, which are based on ideas about the relationship between the processes of excitation and inhibition. Thus, he laid a physiological foundation for the teachings of Hippocrates on temperaments. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov also developed the doctrine of two signal systems. A specific feature of a person is that, in addition to the first signal system, common with animals (sensory stimuli coming from the outside world), he also has a second signal system - speech and writing.
Scientist and power
Pavlov's attitude towards Soviet power was very critical. On December 21, 1934, in a letter to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, Molotov, he directly expressed his convictions: “You are in vain to believe in the world revolution. You are spreading not revolution across the cultural world, but fascism with enormous success. There was no fascism before your revolution.”
“Science requires great effort and great passion from a person.
Be passionate in your work and in your quest!”
The genius of the great scientist
The life of Ivan Pavlov was cut short on February 27, 1936, when the scientist was 86 years old. His death came as a complete surprise to everyone. Despite his advanced age, Ivan Petrovich was physically very strong, burned with ebullient energy and enthusiastically made plans for further work. On February 22, having caught a cold, he fell ill with pneumonia, and the doctors were powerless to save the life of the great scientist. “Ivan Petrovich himself,” recalled his wife Serafima Vasilievna, “did not expect such a quick end. All these days he joked with his granddaughters and talked cheerfully with those around him.” Pavlov dreamed that he would live at least 100 years. There is a legend about the last moments of the life of the great scientist. Pavlov called his students and in a weakening voice dictated to them the sensations of his dying body - this is so important for science. The unknown visitor who arrived at that moment was not accepted. “Academician Pavlov is busy,” he was told. - He is dying". The name of I.P. Pavlov throughout the world has become a symbol not only of the great genius of a true scientist, but also of a devoted, passionate love for scientific creativity.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was the first to establish and prove the connection between mental activity and physiological processes in the cerebral cortex.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was the first Russian scientist to receive a Nobel Prize for scientific work on the study of blood circulation and the functioning of the digestive tract. While carrying out this work, he experimented with the famous “Pavlov’s dogs”, and at the same time discovered a “conditioned reflex”. Later he began studying psychophysiology and higher nervous activity. Experimentation in this area caused a real shock among all famous scientists in this field. It seemed to them that Pavlov was invading the “God zone” with a scalpel and instruments.
Being the greatest scientist, Pavlov was not an ordinary person. The revolution of 1917 found him already seventy years old. During searches conducted by the Cheka, six gold scientific medals were confiscated from him. The Nobel Prize, which was in one of the Russian banks, was nationalized. The apartment was "densified". When the English science fiction writer Herbert Wells, who had come to Petrograd, came to visit the academician, he was horrified. In the corner of the Nobel Prize winner's office lay a dirty pile of potatoes and turnips, stored for the winter. Pavlov himself raised it with his students to feed himself. However, the Bolsheviks were in no hurry to help the scientist, much less let him go abroad. Only when a request came to Moscow from the International Red Cross, which asked to release Pavlov in order to save the great scientist, did the communists become worried. Lenin personally gave the order to provide Pavlov with enhanced academic special rations and to create normal living conditions. The authorities understood that in the eyes of the world community, the fate of this great scientist in the USSR was the personification of the attitude of the Soviet government towards science in general. When the academician was fed and he calmed down a little, he was even released abroad. He visited Finland, the USA, France and England. However, he still did not stay abroad. I didn’t want to leave my laboratory in Koltushi near Petrograd. At one time, Pavlov personally wrote down the Bishop of Canterbury in the questionnaire in response to the question: “Do you believe in God?” - "No I do not believe! " Now, to spite the Bolsheviks, he begins to regularly and demonstratively attend church. Not only that, he demonstratively crosses himself in a church on the streets, which shocked passersby of that time. The jokers laughed, saying it was his “conditioned reflex.”
Pavlov never reconciled with Soviet power. Not only did he openly discuss his disagreement with her, which in itself was extremely dangerous. He also wrote a letter to Molotov in the Council of People's Commissars. “You are in vain to believe in the world proletarian revolution. I cannot look at the posters without smiling: “Long live the world socialist revolution, long live the world October.” You are spreading not revolution across the cultural world, but fascism with enormous success. There was no fascism before your revolution. After all, even two of your rehearsals before your October celebration were not enough for our political babies of the Provisional Government. All other governments do not at all want to see in themselves what we had and have and, of course, in time they realize to use to prevent this what you used and are using - terror and violence” - here is an excerpt from this letter. And although the leadership of the USSR, of course, did not like these speeches, and Zinoviev so directly promised: “To hurt him,” the Soviet government did not dare to openly attack Pavlov.
Pavlov was in good health and never got sick. He generally proposed that the death of a person under 150 years of age be considered “violent.” However, he himself died at the age of 87, and a very mysterious death. One day he felt unwell, which he considered “flu-like,” and did not attach any importance to the illness. However, succumbing to the persuasion of his relatives, he nevertheless invited a doctor, and he gave him some kind of injection. After some time, Pavlov realized that he was dying. By the way, he was treated by Dr. D. Pletnev, who was executed in 1941 for the “incorrect” treatment of Gorky.
The story of Pavlov's death has already become a legend. Pavlov called his students and began to dictate his feelings to them. Listening to his quiet, monotonous speech, the students did not even notice how the scientist died. At that moment a certain visitor arrived and was not received. “Academician Pavlov is busy,” came the answer. - He is dying".
The unexpected death of an old, but still quite strong academician, caused a wave of rumors that his death could be “accelerated.” Note that this happened in 1936, on the eve of the Great Purge. Even then, the former pharmacist Yagoda created the famous “laboratory of poisons” to eliminate political opponents.
Outwardly, Pavlov’s death strongly resembles the same strange death of another great Petersburger, Academician Bekhterev, who discovered Stalin’s paranoia. He, too, was quite strong and healthy, although old, but he died just as quickly after being visited by “Kremlin” doctors. The historian of physiology Yaroshevsky wrote: “It is quite possible that the NKVD organs “eased” Pavlov’s suffering.”
Old-timers said that after the death of the academician, passers-by for a long time met the “ghost of the academician” who wandered near the Znamenskaya Church, which stood on the site of the current Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station until it was destroyed. One day, after Pavlov’s death, his son’s wife went into the Church of the Sign and, to her surprise, saw Pavlov’s double descending from the choir with a large church book in his hands. The resemblance was striking; even the beard was trimmed in the same way as the academician’s. The double differed from Pavlov only in that he had an even gait, while the academician, after a broken leg, had a severe limp.
After this, the legend about the “ghost of Academician Pavlov” wandering around Leningrad probably appeared. Nevertheless, even today some old-timers, passing by the place where the Church of the Sign stood, sign the sign of the cross just in case.
A desperate anti-Soviet who took and extracted special rations from the Bolsheviks for all scientists in Petrograd. A man of great health, who could not survive pneumonia, but in the last minutes of his life he was close to the scientists - the entrance to the rooms was closed to outside visitors: “Academician Pavlov is busy - he is dying.” The discoverer of conditioned reflexes, the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky... On December 10, 1904, Ivan Petrovich became the first Russian Nobel Prize laureate. By the way, here too he easily changed the rules of the game - he forced Nobel to rewrite the “statutes”. Not by force, but by unique research.
It is difficult to imagine a more controversial figure. Just as it is impossible to find a more integral scientist recognized throughout the world. A completely clear fate was “written” for him. The son of a priest from a large family, Pavlov was preparing to continue his father’s work. He studied at the seminary, but became interested in science. The greatest impression on him was made by Ivan Sechenov’s book “Reflexes of the Brain.” Pavlov literally learned it from cover to cover, he was preparing to enter the university, but... Popovichs were not accepted for medical school. Then Ivan Petrovich went to study to become a lawyer, and then transferred to the natural sciences department of physics and mathematics. And only after graduating from St. Petersburg University, Pavlov came to the Medical-Surgical Academy, where he was lucky enough to work with Sechenov and another prominent physiologist Ilya Zion. But here, too, failure: both mentors left the academy, and Pavlov completed his studies in Germany. Did temporary difficulties stop him? Of course not. In the laboratory of Sergei Petrovich Botkin, our hero, left-handed from birth, trained so well that he could easily operate with both hands at once. In exactly the same way - against the flow - Pavlov built his entire life.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov is one of the most famous physiologists in the world, eclipsing his teachers, a bold experimenter, the first Russian Nobel Prize laureate, a possible prototype of Bulgakov's professor Preobrazhensky. Photo: globallookpress.com.
Discoverer and debater
Pavlov conducted his most famous experiments at the Military Medical Academy and the Institute of Experimental Medicine. The future academician was engaged in the so-called imaginary feeding of dogs: the esophagus of the experimental subjects was cut so that food did not enter the stomach, but the secretion of gastric juice was recorded. Pavlov experimentally found out that the function is controlled by higher nervous activity. In other words, the food has not yet “fallen”, but digestion has already begun. The signal is given by the brain, having caught the information received - through vision and smell. Then Pavlov studied the entire system of conditioned reflexes, drawing reactions of adaptation to external stimuli. He proved that the dog's brain is capable of complex associations. The most famous example: if a bell rang at the same time as the meat appeared, after some time the dog’s gastric juice was released at the mere sound. The research was also translated into the human body. As a result, Pavlov established that mental reflexes regulate eating behavior in people. This is how doctors received the key to treating many diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
Ivan Petrovich was saddened by the fate of his dogs all his life. Of course, many animals died during the experiments.
“When I begin the experience associated at the end with the death of an animal, I experience a heavy feeling of regret that I am interrupting a jubilant life ...,” he wrote.
The scientist saw the thought of working for the benefit of humanity as a consolation for himself. And he argued desperately with those who proposed banning humanistic experiments. He asked: why don’t you care about killing animals and birds for pleasure? Pavlov demanded better conditions for his dogs. Even during the difficult, hungry revolutionary years, the animals in the laboratory were fed well. And at the end of his life, the academician’s long-standing dream came true. A monument to the dog was erected at the Institute of Experimental Medicine.
The whole world was impressed by Pavlov's research. In 1903 he spoke in Madrid at the International Medical Congress. By the way, I gave the lecture in Russian. And in 1904, the scientist received another status of recognition. He was awarded the Nobel Prize. They say that for the sake of Pavlov, Nobel changed the rules of the game, intending his prize not only for doctors, but also for physiologists. True, the award was presented to Ivan Petrovich eight years after Nobel’s death, but Pavlov mentioned the founder of the award in his speech.
As it turned out, ten years earlier, Nobel sent Pavlov and his colleague Marcellius Nenetsky a large sum to support their laboratories.
“Alfred Nobel showed a keen interest in physiological experiments and offered us several very instructive experimental projects that touched upon the highest tasks of physiology, the issue of aging and dying of organisms,” Pavlov said in his speech.
Of course, Pavlov’s experiments concerned not only dogs: he found that mental reflexes regulate eating behavior in people. Photo: globallookpress.com.
With the advent of Soviet power, all the intransigence of Academician Pavlov appeared. Both character traits and family troubles played a role. Pavlov's youngest son, Vsevolod, joined the White Army during the Civil War, and then was forced to emigrate. Another son, Victor, dreamed of joining the whites, but died of typhus on the way. The Bolsheviks arrested Ivan Petrovich twice, but each time the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky stood up for him. By the way, he did everything to prevent the academician from being affected by the well-known “compaction” under the Soviets.
But none of the “privileges” forced Pavlov to abandon his beliefs. At every opportunity, he spoke out about the Bolshevik regime, “leading the country to savagery.” Did you recognize a famous literary character in our academician? If not, let’s not languish - this is Bulgakov’s Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky. By the way, during one of the disputes with the Soviet authorities, Pavlov-Preobrazhensky managed to obtain special rations not only for his family, but also for other scientists. In 1920, representatives of the Swedish Red Cross suggested that the Soviets exchange the academician for medicines for Petrograd hospitals. This happened after Pavlov’s own letters to the Council of People’s Commissars - about poor nutrition, forced work in the garden, taking away valuable time that could be used for science. Having added the first and second, Lenin ordered “to create all the conditions for work for the outstanding scientist I. Pavlov.” But... The Pavlovs refused “all conditions”: “My wife and I find it unacceptable for ourselves to be in a privileged position compared to our closest comrades.” After this, all scientists in Petrograd were provided with rations, although previously they were denied assistance as “unearned elements.”
By the way, Ivan Petrovich has been an honorary member of Moscow University since 1916. Photo: Chronicle of Moscow University/letopis.msu.ru.
They say that at the end of his life Pavlov “made friends” with the Soviet regime. As an example, they give a quote about science, which “occupies an exceptionally favorable position in my Fatherland...” However, the thesis ends in the spirit of an academician - frankly speaking, poignantly:
“My whole life consisted of experiments. Our government is also an experimenter, only of an incomparably higher category...”
Legend of Death
Until the end of his days, Ivan Petrovich maintained good health. They even said that he died as a result of the actions of the NKVD. However, apparently, the great scientist was struck down by pneumonia and nervous shock after the death of his son Vsevolod. The last hours of Academician Pavlov’s life have become a legend. They say that he ordered his colleagues to gather around him. As he grew weaker, he dictated his own feelings to them - he told them what happens to the body at death. Outside visitors were not allowed to see the scientist these days.
“Academician Pavlov is busy - he’s dying...” came quietly from the long corridor in response to another request to talk to the luminary.
On February 27, 1936, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov died. His funeral service was held in a small church in Koltushi. 11 years later, having survived the blockade, his wife Serafima Karchevskaya rested next to him on the “Literary Bridge” of Volkov Cemetery.
In 1925, the Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences was founded specifically “for Pavlov,” which he headed. Near Leningrad, in Koltushi, a biological station appeared - a real city of science - for which the government allocated 12 million rubles. Photo: globallookpress.com.
