Carl Ludwig and Henry Pickering Browditch: The legacy that led to W. B. Cannon

Resumen

Abstract. This article analyzes the influences that Walter Bradford Cannon, one of the most important physiologists of the 20th century, received from two main figures from such discipline: Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig and Henry Pickering Bowditch. The first run the most important laboratory of physiology of the 19th century, the Leipzig Institute of Physiology. Bowditch, who spent some time working in the Leipzig Institute under the former, founded the first American laboratory of physiology at Harvard University. The Harvard Laboratory of Physiology is where Walter Cannon acquired his methodology and his passion for researching, being its director at the end. This article narrates the life and work of Ludwig and Bowditch in order to understand their legacy and their influence in Walter Cannon.

   The epistemological and methodological perspective of Bowditch and Ludwig is described. Their mechanistic stance in physiology passed from one to the other thanks to the institutionalization of physiology, that is, the creation, development and spread of physiological laboratories. These practices reached Cannon trough Bowditch. However, Cannon assumed the mechanistic physiology perspective as a method only, changing its epistemology into a holistic one. The innovative approach of this paper is focus on the roll that the institutionalization of physiology had in the legacy that led to Cannon. This is important if we want to understand that Cannon, one of the main figures of holistic physiology, first worked influenced by the mechanistic method and epistemology.

Key words. Walter Bradford Cannon, Henry Pickering Bowditch, Carl Ludwig, Harvard laboratory of physiology, Leipzig Institute of Physiology.