2023-06-25 16:51:49
By Soline Roy
Posted 1 minute ago, Updated 1 minute ago
Walter Bradford Cannon sought to understand how emotions could interfere with digestion. Science History Images / Alamy / Abaca
MEDICINE STORIES – It all started with Walter Bradford Cannon, future professor of physiology at Harvard Medical School, wanting to conduct experiments to better understand how digestion works.
For Walter Bradford Cannon, it all started with disgruntled cats. At the very end of the 1890s, the young American student, future professor of physiology at Harvard Medical School, conducted experiments to better understand how digestion works. Its objective: to observe this process live thanks to X-rays, just discovered by the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Cannon creates an ingenious device to keep cats still, without putting them to sleep. Ingenious, but hardly pleasant for the animal “tied with the back down, the front legs in slip knots on each side, and the hind legs stretched and tied to the support so as to allow the body to be turned slightly to the right side”described the young researcher in 1898 in L’American Journal of Physiology .
Not all tomcats appreciate the adventure: the males, in particular the youngest ones, show their disagreement loudly. And in the course of his experiences, Cannon notes…
This article is for subscribers only. You have 81% left to discover.
Flash Sale -70%
Offer available until June 29. Without engagement.
Already subscribed? Login
#Tied #xrayed #cats #shed #light #physiology #stress