Psychology

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
(1849 -1936)

While you are experimenting, do not remain content with the surface of things
-Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Psychiology or Medicine in 1904 for his scientific achievements on Conditioned Reflexes. One of the clinical application of his study is through systematic desensitization, which is widely used as a  treatment for patients with phobias. In systematic desensitization, the patients are taught techniques on relaxation, then are encourage to  imagine their phobias while trying to suppress the fear through relaxation. (Fredholm  2001)

Parentage, Childhood, and Education
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, born in September 26, 1849 was the eldest among the 11 offspring of Petr Dmitrievich Pavlov and Varvara Ivanovna Pavlova. Petr Dmitrievich was a clergyman in the Nikolo-Vysokovskaia church in Ryazan, Russia, being a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church who gets no salary, Petr Dmitrievich earns a living from his fruit and berry garden and by renting a part of their home to students of the local seminary. While Varvara Ivanovna Pavlova, was a daughter of a priest and suffered from physical disability which was accounted for her continuous child bearing. There were documented records saying that Varvara suffered from psychological problems after losing six of her children because of infectious diseases.
 
As a child Ivan Pavlov was described as  small, frail, sickly, and scrawny, with an exceptional memory and an explosive temper.  He spend most his childhood outdoors and by helping his father on his gardening and collecting berries. He never shown any interest in reading books and education on his early years, but when he was 8 years old Ivan Pavlov hurt himself badly when he fell from a high fence onto a brick floor. He was unable to recover even after months have passed since his accident. His godfather a Father Superior from a monastery took custody of him in hopes to cure him. In the monastery, Ivan Pavlov spend his days playing and helping the monks on their gardening and during the nights the Father Superior locked him in a room with books, this started his interest in reading books and education. When he was well enough to go home to his family, his interest in reading was supplemented by the teachings of his two uncles (both named Ivan) who also served as priest like his father but were removed from the clergy because of alcholism. (Todez 2000)
 
When he was 11 years old he was enrolled in the Ryazan Theological School where he was praised as among the best in that school, he graduated when he was 15, and was accepted in the Ryazan Theological Seminary were he also shown great potential. His father had high hopes that Ivan Pavlov would continue the legacy of his fore fathers in serving the church.
 
In 1870, before his completion of his seminary course Pavlov had enrolled in the Faculty of Natural Science in the University of St. Petersburg. Here he meet Ilya Cycon a professor of physiology who had greatly influence Pavlov to pursue a career as a physiologist. Pavlov graduated in 1875 and decided to pursue a degree in medicine in the Military-Medical Academy. To support his studies, he worked as an assistant in the Physiological Laboratory in the Veterinary Institute. Here Pavlov conducted several studies on the physiology of blood circulation and digestion. He graduated from the university with honors on December 19, 1879. (Babkin  2007)
   
Ivan Pavlov was married to Seraphima Vasilevna Karchevskaya, a teacher, on May 1, 1881. They had four children, with three sons, Vladimir, Victor and Vsevolod and one daughter, Vera.
(The Nobel Foundation 1904)

Works and Contributions
In April 24, 1890 Pavlov was appointed as the head of pharmacology in the Military-Medical Academy. A year later he was appointed as the director of the Physiological Department of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, here Pavlov had made advancement on his studies on the digestive glands and on conditioned reflexes.
     
Pavlov had used aseptic surgical methods on his studies on the physiological and digestive tracts functions of animals. In aseptic operations the test subject is allowed to survive the experiment and is given utmost care to recover to be used on other experiments, compared to the conventional method of acute experiment where the test subject is destroyed after the experiment. With his used of aseptic methods on his research he was able to prove that the nervous system directly influence the digestive process of animals, this discovery had led him on the creation of conditioned reflexes science.

Conditioned Reflexes
Ivan Pavlov devoted thirty four years of his life on the study of the conditioned reflexes, his studies were focused on the influence of the nervous system on the reflex actions of animals with intellectual capacities. Pavlov categorized reflexes as unconditioned and conditioned. Unconditioned reflexes are genetically hereditary traits passed on animals, these are inborn reflex reactions of animals. Conditioned reflexes, are reactions based on the experiences acquired by the animal on the course of its life.
 
According to Pavlov, the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain which is believe to control the psychic abilities of animals, is also responsible for its reflex reactions. Thus his studies on the central nervous system were refined to the psychological methods of conditioned reflexes by influencing the functions of the cerebral cortex. This theory became Pavlovs greatest scientific achievement which earn him the Nobel Prize in 1904.
   
Ivan Pavlov became interested in the psychical stimulation of the salivary glands, on the book Twenty Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity (Behavior) of Animals, Pavlov related the basis of his theories
   
More that twenty years ago I independently began these experiments, passing to them my former physiological work. I entered this field under influence of a powerful laboratory impression. For many years previous, I had been working on the digestive gland. I had studied carefully and in details all the conditions of their activity. Naturally I could not leave then without considering the so-called psychical stimulation of the salivary glands, i.e. the flow of saliva in the hungry animal or person at the sight of food or during talk about it or even at the thought of it. Furthermore, I had demonstrated myself a psychical excitation of the gastric glands 
   
These theories were used on his experiments on conditioned reflexes of dogs. The subjects were exposed with different subjective stimulation during their feeding. On one of his experiment, he used  a bell during the animals are fed until the animals started to associate the sound of the bell with food. On the progress of the experiment, the sound of the bell was enough to stimulate the salivary glands of the animals to produce a flow of saliva even without the presence of food. (Babkin  2007)