Walter Bradford Cannon
Walter Bradford Cannon was a prominent American physiologist known for his significant contributions to the field of physiology, particularly in understanding the body's response to stress. He earned multiple degrees from Harvard University, eventually becoming a professor and chair of the physiology department from 1906 to 1942. Cannon is best known for his pioneering use of X-ray technology to study digestion and for identifying the concept of "homeostasis," which describes the body's ability to maintain a stable internal environment amid external changes. His research focused on the physiological responses of the heart, nervous system, and adrenal glands during stressful situations, unraveling how the body reacts to danger and trauma.
Cannon's work built on the ideas of earlier scientists, such as Claude Bernard, who emphasized the importance of internal equilibrium for health. Despite facing personal health challenges later in life due to cancer, likely related to his early X-ray work, Cannon remained active in scientific research and contributed to efforts in treating shock and blood loss during World War II. His legacy continues to influence the fields of psychobiology and stress response research. He passed away in 1945, leaving behind a rich scientific heritage.
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Subject Terms
Walter Bradford Cannon
- Born: October 19, 1871
- Birthplace: Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
- Died: October 19, 1945
- Place of death: Franklin, New Hampshire
Identity: American physiologist
Type of psychology: Biological basis of behavior
Field of study: Experimental methodologies
Cannon was an American physiologist, known for a series of experimental investigations into the process of digestion, the nervous system, and the body’s self-regulating mechanisms.
Life
Walter Bradford Cannon earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and medical degrees from Harvard University, where he became a professor of physiology. Cannon served as chair of Harvard’s physiology department from 1906 to 1942.
Cannon began his investigations in 1896, one year after German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X rays. Cannon used X rays to observe the process of digestion in laboratory animals. Using an instrument called a fluoroscope, he watched the progress of food and waste through the body. During these experiments, he noticed that when an animal was under stress, its digestive processes halted. This led him to wonder about the body’s response to danger, fear, and trauma.
Using mainly surgical and chemical means, Cannon investigated the response of the heart, the sympathetic nervous system, and the adrenal gland to unnatural circumstances. He also studied the body’s self-regulating mechanisms, and especially the work of nineteenth century French physiologist Claude Bernard, who investigated carbohydrate metabolism in humans as well as the function of the autonomic nervous system. The basis of health, according to Bernard, is the organism’s success in maintaining a dynamic internal equilibrium. Cannon named this dynamic state “homeostasis ” and showed that the body could adjust to meet serious external danger through such processes of the human body as internal regulation of body heat and alkalinity of the blood and preparation of the body for defense by the secretion of epinephrine (also called adrenaline) in the adrenal gland.
Beginning in 1931, Cannon suffered from cancer associated with the X-ray exposures that he underwent early in his career. He remained active in national scientific circles, however, overseeing the organization of research for the effective treatment of shock and blood loss during World War II. He died in 1945.
Bibliography
Benison, Saul, Elin L. Wolfe, and A. Clifford Barger. Walter B. Cannon: The Life and Times of a Young Scientist. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1987. The first volume of a biography of Cannon, covering his childhood, training, and early years as a scientist.
Wolfe, Elin L., Saul Benison, and A. Clifford Barger. Walter B. Cannon: Science and Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. The second volume of Cannon’s biography, taking up the story from World War I through the end of his life.