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 The fight-or-flight or the fight-flight-or-freeze response (also called hyperarousal or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first des ...

", and developed the theory of

homeostasis In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and i ...

. 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 Jacques de Noyon (12 February 1668 – 12 May 1745) was a French Canadian explorer and coureur des bois. He is the first known European to visit the Boundary Waters region west of Lake Superior. Jacques de Noyon was born on 12 February 1668, in T ...

, a French Canadian explorer and

coureur des bois A coureur des bois (; ) or coureur de bois (; plural: coureurs de(s) bois) was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by e ...

. His

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...

family was intellectually active, including readings from James Martineau, John Fiske (philosopher), and James Freeman Clarke. Cannon's curiosity also led him to Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall, George Henry Lewes, and

William Kingdon Clifford William Kingdon Clifford (4 May 18453 March 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in hi ...

. A high school teacher, Mary Jeannette Newson, became his

mentor Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

. "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 The American Physiological Society is a non-profit professional society for physiologists. It has nearly 10,000 members, most of whom hold doctoral degrees in medicine, physiology or other health professions. Its mission is to support research an ...

. 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 Lake McDonald is the largest lake in Glacier National Park. It is located at in Flathead County in the U.S. state of Montana. Lake McDonald is approximately 10 miles (16 km) long, and over a mile (1.6 km) wide and 472 feet (130 m) ...

and

Logan Pass Logan Pass (elevation ) is located along the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is the highest point on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The pass is named after Major William R. Logan, the first superintenden ...

. 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 John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of Chi ...

), Linda Cannon Burgess, Helen Cannon Bond and

Marian Cannon Schlesinger Marian Cannon Schlesinger (September 13, 1912 – October 14, 2017) was an American artist and author. She published two volumes of her memoir, ''Snatched from Oblivion: A Cambridge Memoir'' and ''I Remember: A Life of Politics, Painting and Peo ...

, a painter and author living in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. 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 don't 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 The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's st ...

criticizing the arguments of anti-vivisectionists. Walter Cannon died on October 1, 1945 in

Franklin, New Hampshire Franklin is a city in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 8,741, the least of New Hampshire's 13 cities. Franklin includes the village of West Franklin. History Situated at the confluence of t ...

Work

Walter Cannon began his career in science as a Harvard undergraduate in the year 1892.

Henry Pickering Bowditch Henry Pickering Bowditch (April 4, 1840 – March 13, 1911) was an American soldier, physician, physiologist, and dean of the Harvard Medical School. Following his teacher Carl Ludwig, he promoted the training of medical practitioners in a conte ...

, who had worked with

Claude Bernard Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term '' milieu intérieur'', and the ...

, directed the laboratory in physiology at Harvard. Here Cannon began his research: he used the newly discovered

x-rays An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 ...

to study the mechanism of swallowing and the motility of the

stomach The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The stomach has a dilated structure and functions as a vital organ in the digestive system. The stomach i ...

. Within his first experiments he was able to watch the course of a button down a dog's 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 Bismuth is a chemical element with the symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs na ...

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 Arturo Rosenblueth Stearns (October 2, 1900 – September 20, 1970) was a Mexican researcher, physician and physiologist, who is known as one of the pioneers of cybernetics. Biography Rosenblueth was born in 1900 in Ciudad Guerrero, Chihuahua ...

) * Age 68 + : chemical sensitivity of nerve-isolated organs

Scientific contributions

;Use of salts of heavy metals in X-Rays :He was one of the first researchers to mix salts of

heavy metals upright=1.2, Crystals of osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">lead.html" ;"title="osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead Heavy metals are generally defined as ...

(including

subnitrate, bismuth oxychloride, and

barium Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. The ...

sulfate) into foodstuffs in order to improve the contrast of

x-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 ...

images of the digestive tract. The

barium meal An upper gastrointestinal series, also called a barium swallow, barium study, or barium meal, is a series of radiographs used to examine the gastrointestinal tract for abnormalities. A contrast medium, usually a radiocontrast agent such as bariu ...

is a modern derivative of this research. ;Fight or flight :In 1915, he coined the term '' fight or flight'' to describe an animal's response to threats in ''Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement''. He asserted tha
not only physical emergencies, such as blood loss from trauma, but also psychological emergencies
such as antagonistic encounters between members of the same species, evoke release of adrenaline into the bloodstream. 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 :As a military physician in World War I he discovered that the blood of shocked men was acidic. As a member of the British Medical Research Council's Special Committee on Shock and Allied Conditions, he advocated treating shocked wounded by infusing sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid. He and

William Bayliss Sir William Maddock Bayliss (2 May 1860 – 27 August 1924) was an English physiologist. Life He was born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire but shortly thereafter his father, a successful merchant of ornamental ironwork, moved his family to a ...

infused acid into an anesthetized cat, which died. However, a second trial done with Bayliss and Henry Dale failed to produce shock. Shock was successfully treated by infusing saline containing some larger molecules. ;Homeostasis :He developed the concept of

from the earlier idea of

milieu interieur The internal environment (or ''milieu intérieur'' in French) was a concept developed by Claude Bernard, a French physiologist in the 19th century, to describe the interstitial fluid and its physiological capacity to ensure protective stability ...

, and popularized it in his book ''The Wisdom of the Body''. Cannon presented four tentative propositions to describe the general features of homeostasis: :#Constancy in an open system that requires mechanisms that act to maintain this system, just like our bodies. Cannon based this proposition on insights of steady states such as glucose concentrations, body temperature and acid-base balance. :# Steady-state conditions require that any tendency toward change automatically meets with factors that resist change. An increase in

blood sugar Glycaemia, also known as blood sugar level, blood sugar concentration, or blood glucose level is the measure of glucose concentrated in the blood of humans or other animals. Approximately 4 grams of glucose, a simple sugar, is present in the bl ...

results in thirst as the body attempts to dilute the concentration of sugar in the extracellular fluid. :#The regulating system that determines the homeostatic state consists of many cooperating mechanisms acting simultaneously or successively. Blood sugar is regulated by insulin, glucagons, and other hormones that control its release from the liver or its uptake by the tissues. :#Homeostasis does not occur by chance, but is the result of organized self-government. ;The Sympathoadrenal System Cannon proposed the existence and functional unity of the sympathoadrenal (or “sympathoadrenomedullary” or “sympathico-adrenal”) system. He theorize
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 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 :Cannon developed the Cannon-Bard theory with physiologist Philip Bard to try to explain why people feel emotions first and then act upon them. ;Dry mouth :He put forward the Dry Mouth Hypothesis, stating that people get thirsty because their mouths get dry. He did an experiment on two dogs. He made incisions in their throats and inserted small tubes. Any water swallowed would go through their mouths and out by the tubes, never reaching their stomachs. He found out that these dogs would lap up the same amount of water as control dogs.

Publication

Cannon wrote several books and articles. * 1910
A Laboratory Course in Physiology
Harvard University Press 6th ed. 1927. * 1910, 'Medical Control of Vivisection' * 1911
''Some Characteristics of Antivivisection Literature''
* 1911, '' The Mechanical Factors of Digestion'' * 1915, '' Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage'' *1920, ''Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage'' (2 ed.) * 1923, '' Traumatic Shock'' * 1926, 'Physiological Regulation of Normal States' * 1932, ''The Wisdom of the Body *1933, '' Some modern extensions of Beaumont's studies on Alexis St. Martin'' * 1937, '' Digestion and Health'' * 1937, ''Autonomic Neuro-effector Systems'', with

* 1942,
"Voodoo" Death
* 1945, '' The Way of an Investigator: a scientist's experiences in medical research''

References

External links