Walter Bradford Cannon
Encyclopedia
Walter Bradford Cannon, M.D. (October 19, 1871 – October 1, 1945) was an American
physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School
. He coined the term fight or flight response, and he expanded on Claude Bernard
's concept of homeostasis
. He popularized his theories in his book The Wisdom of the Body, first published in 1932.
on October 19, 1871.
In his autobiography The Way of an Investigator, Cannon counts himself among the descendents of Jacques de Noyon
. His Calvinist family was intellectually active, including readings from James Martineau
, John Fiske (philosopher), and James Freeman Clarke
. Cannon's curiosity also lead him to Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall
, George Henry Lewes
, and William Kingdon Clifford
. A high school teacher, Mary Jeannette Newson, became his mentor
. "Miss May" Newson motivated and helped him take his academic skills to Harvard University
.
In 1896, his first year at Harvard, he started working in Bowditch's Lab
, and in 1900 he received his medical degree.
After graduation, Cannon was hired by Harvard to instruct in the Department of Physiology. He was a close friend of the physicist G. W. Pierce
; they founded the Wicht Club with other young instructors for social and professional purposes. In 1906 Cannon became Higginson Professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School
, a position he held until 1942. From 1914 to 1916 he was also President of the American Physiological Society
.
He was married to Cornelia James Cannon, a best-selling author. The couple had five children. One son was Dr. Bradford Cannon
, a military plastic surgeon and radiation researcher. The daughters are Wilma Cannon Fairbank, Linda Cannon Burgess, Helen Cannon Bond and Marian Cannon Schlesinger, a painter and author living in Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
Walter Cannon died on October 1, 1945 in Franklin, New Hampshire
.
, who had worked with Claude Bernard
, directed the laboratory in physiology at Harvard. Here Cannon began his research: he used the newly discovered X rays to study the mechanism of swallowing and the motility
of the stomach
. He demonstrated deglutition in a goose at the APS meeting in December 1896 and published his first paper on this research in the first issue of the American Journal of Physiology in January 1898.
In 1945 Cannon summarized his career in physiology by describing his focus at different ages:
Fight or flight
Homeostasis
Cannon-Bard theory
Dry mouth
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
. He coined the term fight or flight response, and he expanded on Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
's concept of homeostasis
Homeostasis
Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
. He popularized his theories in his book The Wisdom of the Body, first published in 1932.
Biography
Cannon was born in Prairie du Chien, WisconsinPrairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census. Its Zip Code is 53821....
on October 19, 1871.
In his autobiography The Way of an Investigator, Cannon counts himself among the descendents of Jacques de Noyon
Jacques de Noyon
Jacques de Noyon was a French Canadian explorer and coureur des bois. He is the first known European to visit the Boundary Waters region west of Lake Superior.Jacques de Noyon was born on February 12, 1668, in Trois-Rivières, New France...
. His Calvinist family was intellectually active, including readings from James Martineau
James Martineau
James Martineau was an English religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism. For 45 years he was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Manchester New College, the principal training college for British Unitarianism.-Early life:He was born in Norwich,...
, John Fiske (philosopher), and James Freeman Clarke
James Freeman Clarke
James Freeman Clarke , an American theologian and author.-Biography:Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, James Freeman Clarke attended the Boston Latin School, graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833...
. Cannon's curiosity also lead him to Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
, George Henry Lewes
George Henry Lewes
George Henry Lewes was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He became part of the mid-Victorian ferment of ideas which encouraged discussion of Darwinism, positivism, and religious scepticism...
, and William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour, with interesting applications in contemporary mathematical physics...
. A high school teacher, Mary Jeannette Newson, became his mentor
Mentorship
Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
. "Miss May" Newson motivated and helped him take his academic skills to Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
.
In 1896, his first year at Harvard, he started working in Bowditch's Lab
Henry Pickering Bowditch
Henry Pickering Bowditch was the dean of the Harvard Medical Faculty from 1883 to 1893. Following his teacher Carl Ludwig, he promoted the training of medical practitioners in a context of physiological research. His teaching career at Harvard spanned 35 years.-Early life:Henry P. Bowditch was the...
, and in 1900 he received his medical degree.
After graduation, Cannon was hired by Harvard to instruct in the Department of Physiology. He was a close friend of the physicist G. W. Pierce
G. W. Pierce
George Washington Pierce was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at Harvard University and inventor in the development of electronic telecommunications....
; they founded the Wicht Club with other young instructors for social and professional purposes. In 1906 Cannon became Higginson Professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, a position he held until 1942. From 1914 to 1916 he was also President of the American Physiological Society
American Physiological Society
The American Physiological Society was founded in 1887 with 28 members. Of them, 21 were graduates of medical schools, but only 12 had studied in schools that had a professor of physiology. Today, the APS has 10,500 members, most of whom hold doctoral degrees in medicine, physiology or other...
.
He was married to Cornelia James Cannon, a best-selling author. The couple had five children. One son was Dr. Bradford Cannon
Bradford Cannon
Bradford Cannon , the son of Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon, was a pioneer in the field of reconstructive surgery, specialising in burn victims...
, a military plastic surgeon and radiation researcher. The daughters are Wilma Cannon Fairbank, Linda Cannon Burgess, Helen Cannon Bond and Marian Cannon Schlesinger, a painter and author living in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
Walter Cannon died on October 1, 1945 in Franklin, New Hampshire
Franklin, New Hampshire
The median income for a household in the city was $34,613, and the median income for a family was $41,698. Males had a median income of $32,318 versus $25,062 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,155...
.
Work
Walter Cannon began his career in science as a Harvard undergraduate in the year 1896. Henry Pickering BowditchHenry Pickering Bowditch
Henry Pickering Bowditch was the dean of the Harvard Medical Faculty from 1883 to 1893. Following his teacher Carl Ludwig, he promoted the training of medical practitioners in a context of physiological research. His teaching career at Harvard spanned 35 years.-Early life:Henry P. Bowditch was the...
, who had worked with Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
, directed the laboratory in physiology at Harvard. Here Cannon began his research: he used the newly discovered X rays to study the mechanism of swallowing and the motility
Motility
Motility is a biological term which refers to the ability to move spontaneously and actively, consuming energy in the process. Most animals are motile but the term applies to single-celled and simple multicellular organisms, as well as to some mechanisms of fluid flow in multicellular organs, in...
of the stomach
Stomach
The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the alimentary canal which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract in some animals, including vertebrates, echinoderms, insects , and molluscs. It is involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication .The stomach is...
. He demonstrated deglutition in a goose at the APS meeting in December 1896 and published his first paper on this research in the first issue of the American Journal of Physiology in January 1898.
In 1945 Cannon summarized his career in physiology by describing his focus at different ages:
- Age 26 - 40: digestion and the bismuthBismuthBismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
meal - Age 40 - 46: bodily effects of emotional excitement
- Age 46 - 51: wound shock investigations
- Age 51 - 59: stable states of the organism
- Age 59 - 68: chemical mediation of nerve impulses (collaboration with Arturo RosenbluethArturo RosenbluethArturo Rosenblueth Stearns was a Mexican researcher, physician and physiologist, who is known as one of the pioneers of cybernetics.- Biography:...
) - Age 68 + : chemical sensitivity of nerve-isolated organs
Scientific contributions
Use of salts of heavy metals in X-Rays- He was one of the first researchers to mix saltSaltIn chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
s of heavy metalsHeavy metalsA heavy metal is a member of a loosely-defined subset of elements that exhibit metallic properties. It mainly includes the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and actinides. Many different definitions have been proposed—some based on density, some on atomic number or atomic weight,...
(including bismuthBismuthBismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
subnitrate, bismuth oxychloride, and bariumBariumBarium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in Group 2, a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. Barium is never found in nature in its pure form due to its reactivity with air. Its oxide is historically known as baryta but it reacts with...
sulfate) into foodstuffs in order to improve the contrast of X-rayX-rayX-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
images of the digestive tract. The barium mealBarium mealA barium meal, also known as an upper gastrointestinal series is a procedure in which radiographs of the esophagus, stomach and duodenum are taken after barium sulfate is ingested by a patient...
is a modern derivative of this research.
Fight or flight
- In 1915, he coined the term fight or flightFight or FlightFight or Flight may refer to:* Fight-or-flight response, the biological response of animals to acute stress* "Fight or Flight!" , a song off the album Aneurythm by the American hard rock band Living Syndication...
to describe an animal's response to threats in Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement.
Homeostasis
- He developed the concept of homeostasisHomeostasisHomeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
from the earlier idea of Claude BernardClaude BernardClaude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
of milieu interieurMilieu interieurMilieu intérieur or interior milieu, from the French, milieu intérieur, is a term coined by Claude Bernard to refer to the extra-cellular fluid environment, and its physiological capacity to ensure protective stability for the tissues and organs of multicellular living organisms.-Origin:Claude...
, and popularized it in his book The Wisdom of the Body,1932. Cannon presented four tentative propositions to describe the general features of homeostasis:- Constancy in an open system, such as our bodies represent, requires mechanisms that act to maintain this constancy. Cannon based this proposition on insights into the ways by which steady states such as glucose concentrations, body temperature and acid-base balance were regulated.
- Steady-state conditions require that any tendency toward change automatically meets with factors that resist change. An increase in blood sugarBlood sugarThe blood sugar concentration or blood glucose level is the amount of glucose present in the blood of a human or animal. Normally in mammals, the body maintains the blood glucose level at a reference range between about 3.6 and 5.8 mM , or 64.8 and 104.4 mg/dL...
results in thirst as the body attempts to dilute the concentration of sugar in the extracellular fluid. - The regulating system that determines the homeostatic state consists of a number of cooperating mechanisms acting simultaneously or successively. Blood sugar is regulated by insulin, glucagons, and other hormones that control its release from the liver or its uptake by the tissues.
- Homeostasis does not occur by chance, but is the result of organized self-government.
Cannon-Bard theory
- Cannon developed the Cannon-Bard theoryCannon-Bard theoryThe Cannon-Bard theory, also known as the thalami theory, is a theory of emotion developed by physiologists Walter Cannon and Philip Bard, suggesting that individuals experience emotions and physiologically react simultaneously. These actions include changes in muscular tension, perspiration, etc...
with physiologist Philip Bard to try to explain why people feel emotions first and then act upon them.
Dry mouth
- He put forward the Dry Mouth Hypothesis, stating that people get thirsty because their mouth gets dry. He did an experiment on two dogs. He cut their throats and inserted a small tube. Any water swallowed would go through their mouths and out by the tube, never reaching the stomach. He found out that these dogs would lap up the same amount of water as control dogs.
Publication
Cannon wrote several books and articles.- 1910, A Laboratory Course in Physiology
- 1911, The Mechanical Factors of Digestion
- 1915, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage
- 1923, Traumatic Shock
- 1932, The Wisdom of the Body
- 1936, Digestion and Health
- 1937, Autonomic Neuro-effector Systems, with Arturo RosenbluethArturo RosenbluethArturo Rosenblueth Stearns was a Mexican researcher, physician and physiologist, who is known as one of the pioneers of cybernetics.- Biography:...
- 1942, "Voodoo" Death
- 1945, The Way of an Investigator
Further reading
- Saul Benison, A. Clifford Barger, Elin L. Wolfe (1987) Walter B. Cannon: the Life and Times of a Young Scientist, [ISBN 0674945808].
- Elin L. Wolfe, A. Clifford Barger, Saul Benison (2000) Walter B. Cannon, Science and Society, [ISBN 0674002512].
- Walter Bradford Cannon: Reflections on the Man and His Contributions, International Journal of Stress Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1994
- Marian Cannon Schlesinger, Snatched from Oblivion: A Cambridge Memoir, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979
External links
- 6th APS President at the American Physiological Society
- Walter Bradford Cannon: Experimental Physiologist, a biographical article by Edric Lescouflair, dated 2003
- Chapter 9 of Explorers of the body, by Steven Lehrer (contains information about X ray experiments)
- The Walter Bradford Cannon papers can be found at The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.