Biography

Ivan Pavlov was born in Russia, in 1849. His father was a priest and he was sent to a religous school . But, in 1870 he decied to go to the University of St. Petersburg to study chemistry and physiology. He got an MD from the Imperial Medical Academy in 1876. He then studied under Carl Ludwig, a cardiovascular physiologist and Rudolf Heidenhain, a gastrointestinal physiologist. His first independent project was on the circulatory system, dealing cardiac physiology and blood pressure. He was married in 1881 to a pedagogical student. He then became a professor at the Imperial Medical Acadamy and worked there until 1924. He also changed his main area of resarch after digestion and blood pressure to experiments in what would later be called the conditioned reflex, which is what he is probably best known for. He died in Leningrad at 86, with a student of his by his deathbed.