Walter Bradford Cannon (Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, October 19, 1871 – Lincoln, Massachusetts, October 19, 1945) was an American physiologist. Sign seen in Prairie du Chien, WI on entering from Iowa. ... October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1871 (MDCCCLXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Lincoln is a town located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. ... October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Physiology (in Greek physis = nature and logos = word) is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. ...

Biography

Please help improve this article by expanding this section. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

He was President of the American Physiological Society from 1914 to 1916. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Family

He was married to Cornelia James Cannon, a best-selling author. Although not mountaineers, during their honeymoon the couple were the first, on July 19, 1901, to reach the summit of the unclimbed southwest peak (2657 m or 8716 ft) of Goat Mountain, between Lake McDonald and Logan Pass in what is now Glacier National Park. The peak was subsequently named Mount Cannon by the United States Geological Survey [1]. July 19 is the 200th day (201st in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 165 days remaining. ... 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ... Mount Reynolds at Logan Pass Logan Pass is located along the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, in the U.S. state of Montana. ... There is also a non-adjoining national park in Canada by the same name. ... The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. ...

The couple had five children. One son was Dr. Bradford Cannon, a military plastic surgeon and radiation researcher. The daughters are Wilma Cannon Fairbank and Marian Cannon Schlesinger, a painter and author living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bradford Cannon (December 2, 1907–December 20, 2005), the son of Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon was a pioneer in the field of reconstructive surgery, specialising in burn victims. ...   Settled: 1630 â€“ Incorporated: 1636 Zip Code(s): 02138, 02139, 02140, 02141, 02142 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ...

Research

Use of salts of heavy metals in X-Rays

He was one of the first researchers to mix salts of heavy metals (including bismuth subnitrate, bismuth oxychloride, and barium sulfate) into foodstuffs in order to improve the contrast of X-ray images of the digestive tract. The barium meal is a modern derivative of this research. A magnified crystal of a salt (halite/sodium chloride) Salt covering the floor of Bad Water in Death Valley, CA, the lowest point in the US. A salt, in chemistry, is any ionic compound composed of cations (positively charged ions) and anions (negative ions) so that the product is neutral... A heavy metal is any of a number of higher atomic weight elements, which has the properties of a metallic substance at room temperature. ... General Name, Symbol, Number bismuth, Bi, 83 Chemical series poor metals Group, Period, Block 15, 6, p Appearance lustrous reddish white Atomic mass 208. ... General Name, Symbol, Number barium, Ba, 56 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 6, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 137. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Preprepared Barium Sulfate suspension for oral consumption A barium meal is a procedure in which barium sulfate is ingested by a patient and, in conjunction with X-rays, images depicting the digestive system: the distal esophagus, stomach and duodenum, are obtained. ...

Fight or flight

In 1915, he coined the term fight or flight to describe an animal's response to threats (Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement, Appleton, New York, 1915). 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... This article or section should include material from Fight-or-flight The flight or fight response, also called the acute stress response, was first described by Walter Cannon in the 1920s as a theory that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system. ...

Homeostasis

He developed the concept of homeostasis, and popularized it in his book The Wisdom of the Body, published in 1932 by W. W. Norton, New York. It has been suggested that Reactive homeostasis be merged into this article or section. ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ...

Cannon presented four tentative propositions to describe the general features of homeostasis:

1. Constancy in an open system, such as our bodies represent, requires mechanisms that act to maintain this constancy. Cannon based this proposition on insights into the ways by which steady states such as glucose concentrations, body temperature and acid-base balance were regulated.
2. Steady-state conditions require that any tendency toward change automatically meets with factors that resist change. An increase in blood sugar results in thirst as the body attempts to dilute the concentration of sugar in the extracellular fluid.
3. The regulating system that determines the homeostatic state consists of a number of 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.
4. Homeostasis does not occur by chance, but is the result of organized self-government.

Dry mouth

He put forward the Dry Mouth Hypothesis, stating that people get thirsty because their mouth gets dry. He did an experiment on two dogs. He cut their throats and inserted a small tube. Any water swallowed would go through their mouths and out by the tube, never reaching the stomach. He found out that these dogs would lap up the same amount of water as control dogs.

Books

• The wisdom of the Body
• Traumatic Shock
• The Way Of An Investigator : A Scientist's Experiences In Medical Research
• Autonomic Neuro-Effector Systems
• An Account Of Recent Researches Into The Function Of Bodily Changes In Pain, Hunger, Fear, And Rage
• A Laboratory Course In Physiology

External links and references

• 6th APS President at the American Physiological Society
• Walter Bradford Cannon: Experimental Physiologist, a biographical article by Edric Lescouflair, dated 2003
• Chapter 9 of Explorers of the body, by Steven Lehrer (contains information about X ray experiments)
• Walter Bradford Cannon: Reflections on the Man and His Contributions, International Journal of Stress Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1994
• Marian Cannon Schlesinger, Snatched from oblivion: A Cambridge memoir, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979