Walter Bradford Cannon became a member of what organization or association in 1939?
Walter Bradford Cannon Walter Bradford Cannon ( October 19 , 1871 – October 1 , 1945 ) was an American physiologist , professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School . He coined the term fight or flight response , and he developed the theory of homeostasis . He popularized his theories in his book The Wisdom of the Body , first published in 1932 . Life and career . Cannon was born on October 19 , 1871 , in Prairie du Chien , Wisconsin , the son of Colbert Hanchett Cannon and his wife Wilma Denio . His sister Ida Maud Cannon ( 1877-1960 ) became a noted hospital social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital . In his autobiography The Way of an Investigator , Cannon counts himself among the descendants of Jacques de Noyon , a French Canadian explorer and coureur des bois . His Calvinist family was intellectually active , including readings from James Martineau , John Fiske ( philosopher ) , and James Freeman Clarke . Cannons curiosity also led him to Thomas Henry Huxley , John Tyndall , George Henry Lewes , and William Kingdon Clifford . A high school teacher , Mary Jeannette Newson , became his mentor . Miss May Newson motivated him and helped him take his academic skills into Harvard University in 1892 . Upon finishing his undergraduate studies in 1896 , he entered Harvard Medical School . He started using x-rays to study the physiology of digestion while working with Henry P . Bowditch . In 1900 he received his medical degree . After graduation , Cannon was hired by William Townsend Porter at Harvard as an instructor in the Department of Physiology while continuing his study of digestion . Cannon was promoted to an assistant professor of physiology in 1902 . He was a close friend of the physicist , G . W . Pierce , and together they founded the Wicht Club with other young instructors for social and professional purposes . In 1906 , Cannon had succeeded Bowditch as the Higginson Professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School until 1942 . From 1914 to 1916 , Cannon was also President of the American Physiological Society . He was married to Cornelia James Cannon , a best-selling author and feminist reformer . On July 19,1901 , during their honeymoon in Montana , they were the first people to reach the summit of the unclimbed southwest peak ( 2657 m or 8716 ft ) of Goat Mountain , between Lake McDonald and Logan Pass . That area is now Glacier National Park . The peak was subsequently named , Mount Cannon , by the United States Geological Survey The couple had five children ; A son , Dr . Bradford Cannon , a military plastic surgeon and radiation researcher . The daughters were Wilma Cannon Fairbank ( Mrs . John K . Fairbank ) , Linda Cannon Burgess , Helen Cannon Bond and Marian Cannon Schlesinger , a painter and author living in Cambridge , Massachusetts . His philosophy of life may be inferred by his actions and his statements . Born into a Calvinistic family , he broke away from religious authoritarianism and achieved an independence from his prior dogma . Later in life he states that naturally occurring events are what makes for a useful end . He took on the role of a naturalist where believed that the body and mind are inseparable as an organismic unit . The explanations of his work should enable man to live more wisely , happily , and intelligently without the interjection of supernatural interference . E . Digby Baltzell said that Dr . Cannon was once offered a job at the Mayo Clinic for twice his Harvard salary . Cannon declined , saying I dont need twice as much money . All I need is fifty cents for a haircut once a month , and fifty cents a day to get lunch . Cannon supported animal experimentation and opposed the arguments of anti-vivisectionists . In 1911 , he authored a booklet for the American Medical Association criticizing the arguments of anti-vivisectionists . Walter Cannon died on October 1 , 1945 in Franklin , New Hampshire . Work . Walter Cannon began his career in science as a Harvard undergraduate in the year 1892 . Henry Pickering Bowditch , who had worked with Claude Bernard , directed the laboratory in physiology at Harvard . Here Cannon began his research : he used the newly discovered x-rays to study the mechanism of swallowing and the motility of the stomach . Within his first experiments he was able to watch the course of a button down a dogs esophagus . He says in his autobiography , The Way of an Investigator , “The whole purpose of my effort was to see the peristaltic waves to learn their effects . Only after some time did I note that the absence of activity was accompanied by signs of perturbation , and when serenity was restored the waves promptly reappeared.” He demonstrated deglutition in a goose at the APS meeting in December 1896 and published his first paper on this research in the first issue of the American Journal of Physiology in January 1898 . In 1945 Cannon summarized his career in physiology by describing his focus at different ages : - Age 26 – 40 : digestion and the bismuth meal - Age 40 – 46 : bodily effects of emotional excitement - Age 46 – 51 : wound shock investigations - Age 51 – 59 : stable states of the organism - Age 59 – 68 : chemical mediation of nerve impulses ( collaboration with Arturo Rosenblueth ) - Age 68 + : chemical sensitivity of nerve-isolated organs Scientific contributions . - Use of salts of heavy metals in X-Rays - Fight or flight As per Cannon , adrenaline exerts several important effects in different body organs , all of which maintain homeostasis in fight-or-flight situations . For example , in the skeletal muscle of the limbs , adrenaline relaxes blood vessels which increases local blood flow . Adrenaline constricts blood vessels in the skin and minimizes blood loss from physical trauma . Adrenaline also releases the key metabolic fuel , glucose , from the liver into the bloodstream . However , the fact that aggressive attack and fearful escape both involve adrenaline release into the bloodstream does not imply an equivalence of “fight” with “flight” from a physiological or biochemical point of view . - Wound shock - Homeostasis - The Sympathoadrenal System Cannon proposed the existence and functional unity of the sympathoadrenal ( or “sympathoadrenomedullary” or “sympathico-adrenal” ) system . He theorized that the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal gland work together as a unit to maintain homeostasis in emergencies . To identify and quantify adrenaline release during stress , beginning in about 1919 Cannon exploited an ingenious experimental setup . He would surgically excise the nerves by supplying the heart of a laboratory animal such as a dog or cat . Then he would subject the animal to a stressor and record the heart rate response . With the nerves to the heart removed , he could deduce that if the heart rate increased in response to the perturbation , then the increase in heart rate must have resulted from the actions of a hormone . Finally , he would compare the results of an animal with intact adrenal glands with those in an animal from which he had removed the adrenal glands . From the difference in the heart rate between the two animals , he could further infer that the hormone responsible for the increase in heart rate came from the adrenal glands . Moreover , the amount of increase in the heart rate provided a measure of the amount of hormone released . Cannon became so convinced that the sympathetic nervous system and adrenal gland functioned as a unit that in the 1930s that he formally proposed that the sympathetic nervous system uses the same chemical messenger—adrenaline—as does the adrenal gland . Cannon’s notion of a unitary sympathoadrenal system persists to this day . Researchers in the area have come to question the validity of the notion of a unitary sympathoadrenal system , although clinicians often continue to lump together the two components . - Cannon-Bard theory - Dry mouth Publication . Cannon wrote several books and articles . - 1910 , A Laboratory Course in Physiology , Harvard University Press 6th ed . 1927 . - 1910 , - 1911 , Some Characteristics of Antivivisection Literature - 1911 , - 1915 , - 1920 , - 1923 , - 1926 , Physiological Regulation of Normal States - 1932 , The Wisdom of the Body - 1933 , - 1937 , - 1937 , Autonomic Neuro-effector Systems , with Arturo Rosenblueth - 1942 , Voodoo Death - 1945 , Further reading . - Benison , Saul A. , Clifford Barger , Elin L . Wolfe ( 1987 ) Walter B . Cannon : The Life and Times of a Young Scientist . - Cannon , Bradford . Walter Bradford Cannon : Reflections on the Man and His Contributions . International Journal of Stress Management , vol . 1 , no . 2 , 1994 . - Kuznick , Peter . The Birth of Scientific Activism . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , December 1988 - Schlesinger , Marian Cannon . Snatched from Oblivion : A Cambridge Memoir . Boston : Little , Brown and Company , 1979 . - Wolfe , Elin L. , A . Clifford Barger , Saul Benison ( 2000 ) Walter B . Cannon , Science and Society . External links . - 6th APS President at the American Physiological Society - Walter Bradford Cannon : Experimental Physiologist : 1871-1945 - biography at Harvard Square Library - Chapter 9 of Explorers of the Body , by Steven Lehrer ( contains information about X ray experiments ) - The Walter Bradford Cannon papers can be found at The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library , Harvard Medical School . - Walter Bradford Cannon , Homeostasis ( 1932 )