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Primary sourceBook1897 (published 1902)

The Work of the Digestive Glands

Ivan Pavlov · 1897 (published 1902)

Pavlov's 1897 lectures describing his chronic fistula experiments on dogs, the research that won him the 1904 Nobel Prize.

This is Pavlov's own published lecture series summarizing the research that won him the Nobel Prize.

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Plain dark green cloth book cover with a subtle woven texture and a darker vertical spine edge along the left side. No title or text is visible.
Ivan Pavlov, The Work of the Digestive Glands, London: Charles Griffin & Company, 1902 (lectures from 1897).

About this source

What it is

This is a published collection of lectures by Ivan Pavlov, delivered in 1897 and printed in English translation in 1902. It presents the results of years of laboratory work on the digestive system, carried out with his team at his institute in Russia.

The edition shown is a plain green cloth-bound volume, with no title visible on its cover.

Why it matters

These lectures summed up the research that earned Pavlov the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1904, making him the first Russian Nobel laureate. The work showed how the stomach and pancreas actually behave, correcting ideas found in older textbooks, and it grew out of the same experimental methods that later led Pavlov to his famous studies of conditioned reflexes.

Look closer

  • Why might Pavlov have felt it necessary to correct what textbooks said about digestion?
  • What does the opening paragraph tell you about how Pavlov saw his own life's work?
  • Why is a scientist's own published lecture considered a more direct source than a later summary of his ideas?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ivan Pavlov on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Line drawing of Pavlov's experimental apparatus for conditioned reflex research. A dog is harnessed in a frame on the right, with a tube running to a food dish and a measuring device. On the left is a box with a screen-like panel and a rubber bulb apparatus on a stand. Labeled Fig. 3 at the bottom.Artifact

Secondary source

Diagram of Pavlov's Conditioned Reflex Apparatus

Yerkes, R. M., & Morgulis, S.

Black and white portrait photograph of an older man with white hair, a large white mustache and beard, wearing a dark jacket, white collar and dark tie, looking toward the camera.Photograph

Primary source

Nobel Prize Portrait of Ivan Pavlov

Unknown · 1904

Scanned page of a Soviet government resolution in Russian, headed Postanovlenie Soveta Narodnykh Komissarov, dated 24 January 1921 in Moscow, Kremlin, with a signature at lower right. It recognizes academician I. P. Pavlov's scientific merits, sets up a commission, and grants supplies, a rations package, and housing.Document

Primary source

Sovnarkom Decree on Academician Pavlov

Vladimir Lenin · 24 January 1921

Painting of an elderly bearded man with white hair and glasses seated at a table by a window, hands clasped on a sheet of paper. Green-roofed houses and a red-roofed building are visible outside. A vase of white flowers sits on the table.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Ivan Pavlov by Mikhail Nesterov

Mikhail Nesterov · 1935

Black-and-white photograph of an operating room with four men in white coats around a white table where a dog lies draped. Left, a bald man with a mustache; a boy stands behind him; an older bearded man in the center works over the dog; a man with glasses at right holds an instrument. Tiled floor and wall, hanging lamp and fixtures.Photograph

Primary source

Pavlov and Colleagues Operating on a Dog

Unknown

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