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Ivan Pavlov Essay

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Born in 1849, Ivan Pavlov’s name became known worldwide due to several reasons. First, Pavlov won the Nobel Peace Prize in his physiological work with collecting a dogs’ gastric juice. His original work then led to the psychological point of view of looking at a dog’s drool, which opened a strictly objective way to analyze how dogs learn, namely classical or Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlov’s work led to many contributions in the medical field and objective studies that are still used today, however, without the use of unethical experimentation on dogs. Pavlovian conditioning is well known, yet there are many misconceptions about the experiment and an individual’s view on Pavlov himself. The first misunderstanding that many people have is …show more content…

The dogs were subjected to sham feeding in which an opening was created in the animal’s throat (called a fistula) so that the food could never make it to the stomach despite how much the dog ate. The fistulas were also created along the digestive tract that allowed the collection of secretions to be collected and analyzed in detail. Pavlov considered the dogs in his labs as machines that needed to be kept alive for meaningful results and if one productive dog died they waited for another to arrive. His actions towards the treatments of dogs could be also represented in his unpleasant personality towards many people he knew. Pavlov was represented as an unpleasant person in all stages in life and despite the many changes in Russian regime he continued to voice his own opinion in light of the repercussions that could have come along with that. Surprisingly, he was well liked between political members due to his contributions in psychology and physiology; they could not afford to lose a valued scientist. Despite Pavlov’s unlikeable personality, his contributions are well known throughout the world and used today to help treat specific disorders. Pavlov’s work, although unethical and would not be conducted today, provided the foundation of learning and integrated studies of physiology and

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