STOMACH, PAVLOV

A pouch fashioned surgically from part of the stomach (but isolated from the rest of the stomach) that opens via a fistula (canal) on to the abdominal wall. At different points along the dogs’ digestive tracts, the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1848-1936) surgically created pockets ("Pavlov pouches") from which he could obtain secretions, the aim being to study the physiology of the digestive tract. He did so from the salivary glands down to the stomach, liver and pancreas with considerable success and in 1904 (the 4th year it was awarded) he received the Nobel Prize for "his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged."