The outstanding Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov is known not only in Russia. His doctrine of higher nervous activity played a decisive role in the development of physiology and psychology.
I. Pavlov's contribution to the development of science was appreciated by the world scientific community. In 1904, the researcher received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, and in 1912 the University of Cambridge, one of the oldest universities in the world, elected the Russian scientist an honorary doctor of sciences.
Student gift
The year 1912, when the University of Cambridge gave a high honor to I. Pavlov, was significant for the educational institution itself: 250 years ago, King Charles II of England signed a document that again authorized its activities.
The ceremony of honoring foreign scientists was distinguished by solemnity. Among other researchers who were awarded the honorary title, I. Pavlov entered the conference room of the University of Cambridge in a black velvet beret and a scarlet cloth robe decorated with a gold chain, as prescribed by the university tradition. Students were not allowed to the meeting, but no one forbade them to be present in the upper galleries of the hall, where they gathered in large numbers. It was the students' invention that made this ceremony unforgettable.
When the solemn speeches were heard, an honorary diploma was presented and the solemn procession headed by I. Pavlov headed towards the exit, the students on a rope lowered a soft toy from the gallery into the scientist's hands - a dog decorated with rubber and glass tubes. It was an allusion to fistula tubes that the researcher used in his experiments on dogs, studying the role of the conditioned reflex in the regulation of digestion.
I. Pavlov was very touched by such a gift, did not part with it until the end of his life, and after the death of the scientist, the toy was preserved in his museum-apartment in St. Petersburg.
Idea author
The addition to the ceremony in the form of a funny gift from students may seem original, but this was not the first time this happened in Cambridge.
In 1877, another scientist was awarded the title of Doctor of Science at the University of Cambridge, whose discovery, like the teachings of I. Pavlov, revolutionized biology. We are talking about the founder of the evolutionary theory of the origin of species - Charles Darwin. During the ceremony, students lowered a toy monkey and a ring entwined with a ribbon from the gallery, symbolizing the missing link in evolution between ape and man.
When I. Pavlov was honored in Cambridge, among the students was Charles Darwin's grandson, who, of course, knew this story from the life of his famous grandfather. It was he who proposed to present an unusual gift to the Russian scientist.
