PAVLOV IVAN: (1849-1936)

PAVLOV IVAN: (1849-1936) Russian physiologist, Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine, 1904. A slim 4to printed menu for a dinner held in honour of the XVth International Physiological Congress at the Hotel Astoria in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), 15th August 1935, signed ('I Pavlov') by Pavlov in dark fountain pen ink with his name alone to the verso, the menu also featuring over 30 other fountain pen ink signatures by various scientists and other delegates present at the congress, some of them also Nobel Laureates, including A. V. Hill (1886-1977) British physiologist, one of the founders of the diverse disciplines of biophysics and operations research, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, 1922; Edgar Adrian (1889-1977) English electrophysiologist, Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine, 1932; Herbert Spencer Gasser (1888-1963) American physiologist, Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine, 1944; Walter Bradford Cannon (1871-1945) American physiologist who coined the term 'fight or flight response'; Charles Best (1899-1978) American-Canadian medical scientist, one of the co-discoverers of insulin (also signed by his wife Margaret Mahon); Lina Stern (1878-1968) Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist whose medical discoveries saved thousands of lives at the fronts of World War II; Torsten Thunberg (1873-1952) Swedish physiologist and biochemist; Anton Julius Carlson (1875-1956) Swedish American physiologist; John Farquhar Fulton (1899-1960) American neurophysiologist; Detlev Bronk (1897-1975) American scientist, educator and administrator, credited with establishing biophysics as a recognised discipline; Christian Rakovsky (1873-1941) Bulgarian-born socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat and statesman, also noted as a physician, journalist and essayist and a lifelong collaborator of Leon Trotsky; Walter Duranty (1884-1957) Anglo-American propagandist who served as Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times from 1922-36 following the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War, Pulitzer Prize winner, 1932 etc. The majority of signatures appear to the front and back pages of the menu, and a few are slightly obscured by the printed circular logo of the congress. Autographs of Pavlov are rare in any form and the present example is enhanced by the other signatures of fellow Nobel Laureates, colleagues and contemporaries. Some age wear, folds and a couple of neat splits at the edges, G The 15th International Physiological Congress was held in the Uritzky Palace in Leningrad from 9th - 16th August 1935 and the elderly Pavlov, Russia's foremost physiologist, convened the meeting of around 1200 delegates from more than thirty countries, in what was the first major scientific congress ever to be held in the Soviet Union. Pavlov received a thunderous ovation and spoke with clarity and firmness that belied his age. He stressed the facilities given to the cause of science by the Soviet Government and declared it was the duty of scientists to strive not only for knowledge but for peace and mutual understanding between nations.