Physiologists

Chatting English, French, German and Russian greetings to one another 1,500 physiologists from the ends of the earth (280 from the U. S.) streamed into Leningrad's glass-roofed Uritsky Palace last week to constitute the 18th International Physiological Congress. The showpiece of Russian science, 85-year-old Dr. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, mounted the Uritsky rostrum, rang a bell. Long ago Dr. Pavlov conducted an experiment wherein he would ring a bell just before feeding his dogs. Soon the dogs, expecting a meal, would start to water at the mouth at sound of the bell. Dr. Pavlov called this drooling a conditioned reflex. It proved that imagination has power over body, directs the basic cravings of living creatures. That proof earned Dr. Pavlov a Nobel Prize (1904), the gratitude of Christian Science, the devotion of physiologists, and the respect of Russian peasants and workers. Today he continues his researches in the fine big Institute for Experimental Medicine close to Leningrad, draws $10,000 a year salary, is privileged to ignore Soviet politics.

Last week when Dr. Pavlov rang his bell in Leningrad, 1,500 physiologists perked up their ears, demonstrating how bell-conditioned they were to expect a speech. Dr. Pavlov told them what he had told the neurologists in London fortnight before, that dogs have the choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholy temperaments which Hippocrates discerned among ancient Greeks.

After Dr. Pavlov, 450 physiologists read papers. Practically all of them were rehashes of familiar material.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.