Is it the people or the place? The remarkable 30-year period of integrative physiology research in the Carlson Gymnasium at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Historically, programs of physical education and sport were housed in gymnasium buildings on academic campuses. As physical education evolved to the more scientifically focused successor departments of exercise science and kinesiology, faculty specialization developed in the physiology of exercise. With time, some faculty broadened their research to study the integrative physiology of other biological states and stressors. Through this series of events, a small group of integrative physiologists was formed in the Carlson Gymnasium at the University of Colorado Boulder during the 1990s with the goal of conducting novel biomedical research. The challenges were daunting: no contemporary core laboratory facilities, lack of temperature control, piercing external noise, pests, regular flooding, electrical power outages, and lack of funds for renovation. Despite these obstacles, the group established an innovative program of translational physiological research ranging from high-throughput molecular analyses to cell models to rodent studies to clinical trials in humans. These investigators supported their work with grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), American Heart Association, and private research foundations totaling ∼$80 M in direct costs from the late 1980s to 2020. Collectively, the faculty and their laboratory personnel published ∼950 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Over that period, 379 undergraduate students, 340 graduate students, 84 postdoctoral fellows, and dozens of junior research faculty received scientific training in Carlson, supported by >$21 M in extramural funding. What was accomplished by this handful of integrative physiologists speaks to the importance of the qualities of the investigators rather than their research facilities in determining scientific success.

Overlooked contributions of Ayurveda literature to the history of physiology of digestion and metabolism.

Ayurveda is a traditional system of healthcare that is native to India and has a rich documented literature of its own. Most of the historians agree that the documentation of core Ayurveda literature took place approximately in between 400 BCE and 200 CE, while acknowledging that the roots of its theoretical framework can be traced back to a much earlier period. For multiple reasons many significant contributions of Ayurveda literature to various streams of biological and medical sciences have remained under-recognized while recounting the historical milestones of development. This is true in the context of the physiology of digestion and metabolism too. In this communication we try to reconstruct a picture of the processes of digestion and metabolism as had been understood by ancient Ayurveda scholars. Though this understanding was primitive and insufficient in many ways, we argue that this deserves to be documented and acknowledged. To help with grasping the importance of these contributions, we juxtapose them with the corresponding insights pertaining to this subject reported by prominent western scientists. The major contributions of Ayurveda that have been recounted in this paper are those related to the description of three distinct phases of digestion (Avasthapaka), multiple sets of transformative entities acting at different levels of metabolism (Agni), and the roles ascribed to various internal and external factors in executing these physiological functions.

The changing face of hunger: from fasting to the concept of atherogenesis.

The history of hunger is a story about natural disasters and wars, but, on the other hand, also about the investigation of evolutionary defense mechanisms concerning quantitative food shortages. The article presents how fasting and the experimental starving oriented the development of physiology, and it is based on a comparative analysis of monographs and articles on starvation in the medical context from library collections and the PubMed database. Over the centuries, doctors have believed that fasting has a beneficial effect on health, and they recommended a restrictive diet during an illness. In the 19th century, the growth of modern physiology was determined by experimental fasting of human subjects and animals. Furthermore, undernourishment and chronic hunger in large populations were recognized as a threat to public health for the first time. During both world wars, depriving civilians of food became a strategy of combat and a method of genocide. The mass nature of war hunger motivated doctors to research the pathophysiology of starvation and refeeding of emaciated people, even in the ghetto or concentration camps. After the Second World War, the invention of the scanning electron microscope enabled systematic studies on the effects of starvation on the human body. As a result, the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and the cellular metabolism of cholesterol at the submolecular level were clarified. At the turn of the 21st century, the research on the metabolic response to starvation shed new light on atherogenesis and the link between lipid and carbohydrate metabolism.

The Physiology of Oxygen Transport by the Cardiovascular System: Evolution of Knowledge.

The heart, vascular system, and red blood cells play fundamental roles in O2 transport. The fascinating research history that led to the current understanding of the physiology of O2 transport began in ancient Egypt in 3000 BC, when it was postulated that the heart was a pump serving a system of distributing vessels. Over 4 millennia elapsed before William Harvey (1578-1657) made the revolutionary discovery of blood circulation, but it was not until the 20th century that a lucid and integrative picture of O2 transport finally emerged. This review describes major research achievements contributing to this evolution of knowledge. These achievements include the discovery of the systemic and pulmonary circulations, hemoglobin within red blood cells and its ability to bind O2, and diffusion of O2 from the capillary as the final step in its delivery to tissue. The authors also describe the classic studies that provided the initial description of the basic regulatory mechanisms governing heart function (Frank-Starling law) and the flow of blood through blood vessels (Poiseuille's law). The importance of technical advances, such as the pulmonary artery catheter, the blood gas analyzer and oximeter, and the radioactive microsphere technique to measure the regional blood flow in facilitating O2 transport-related research, is recognized. The authors describe how religious and cultural constraints, as well as superstition-based medical traditions, at times impeded experimentation and the acquisition of knowledge related to O2 transport.

[The Becoming and Development of the Scientific School of Physiology of Kidneys and Water-Salt Metabolism in Novosibirsk].

The article considers analysis of stages of becoming and development of scientific school of physiology of kidneys and water-salt metabolism in at the chair of normal physiology of the Novosibirsk State Medical Institute (University) being one of branches of prominent physiological school of I. P. Pavlov-L. A. Orbeli-A. G. Ginetsinsky and his disciples. An original periodization of its history (precondition, becoming, development and concluding periods) is proposed. The fundamental role of professor A.G. Ginetsinsky in becoming of the given physiological school and its further development under the guidance of professor Ya.D. Finkinshtein are established. The key directions of activities of this scientific school such as links of reflex mechanisms of osmoregulation; the ontogenic features of osmoregulatory mechanisms, role of hypothalamic-pituitary system hormones in maintenance of water-electrolyte homeostasis, osmoregulatory reflexes at various pathophysiological processes, regulation of micro-circulatory processes of formation of cerebro-spinal liquid, development of conceptions of reflex regulation of ionic homeostasis are established and analyzed. The study demonstrated that the given physiological school fully conforms to criteria of scientific school (availability of leader, intergenerational continuity, unity of problematics, duration of existence in time and space, recognition of input into science by disciplinary scientific community).

Walter B. Cannon's World War I experience: treatment of traumatic shock then and now.

Walter B. Cannon (1871-1945), perhaps America's preeminent physiologist, volunteered for service with the Army Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I. He initially served with Base Hospital No. 5, a unit made up of Harvard clinicians, before moving forward to the front lines to serve at a casualty clearing station run by the British. During his time there, he performed research on wounded soldiers to understand the nature and causes of traumatic shock. Subsequently, Cannon performed animal experimentation on the causes of traumatic shock in the London laboratory of Dr. William Bayliss before being assigned to the AEF Central Medical Laboratory in Dijon, France, where he continued his experimental studies. During this time, he also developed and taught a curriculum on resuscitation of wounded soldiers to medical providers. Although primarily a researcher and teacher, Cannon also performed clinical duties throughout the war, serving with distinction under fire. After the war, Cannon wrote a monograph entitled Traumatic Shock (New York: Appleton, 1923), which encapsulated the knowledge that had been gained during the war, both from direct observation of wounded soldiers, as well as laboratory experimentation on the causes and treatment of traumatic shock. In his monograph, Cannon elucidates a number of principles concerning hemorrhagic shock that were later forgotten, only to be "rediscovered" during the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper summarizes Cannon's wartime experiences and the knowledge gained concerning traumatic shock during World War I, with a comparison of current combat casualty care practices and knowledge to that which Cannon and his colleagues understood a century ago.

'A certain instability of mind': Herbert Mayo, 1796-1852, Surgeon and Physiologist.

Herbert Mayo was a significant physiologist and an important figure in the London medical world of the 1820s and 1830s. And yet, a combination of poor decision-making and dabbling in heterodox medicine damaged his reputation. The life of Herbert Mayo illustrates that during the critical period before the 1858 Medical Act the boundary between orthodox and alternative medicine was porous. It also gives important insights into the politics of medicine at this time, particularly the significance of character to becoming a successful medical practitioner.

Andreas Vesalius' understanding of pulmonary ventilation.

The historical evolution of understanding of the mechanical aspects of respiration is not well recorded. That the anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1515-1564) first recorded many of these mechanics in De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem has received little attention. We searched a digital copy of De Fabrica (1543) and its English translation as provided by Richardson and Carman (1998-2009) for references to aspects of pulmonary ventilation. We found that Vesalius grasped the essentials of tidal and forced respiration. He recognized that atmospheric pressure carried air into the lungs, approximately 100 years before Borelli did. He described an in vivo experiment of breathing, some 120 years before John Mayow produced his artificial model. He reported on positive pressure ventilation through a tracheotomy and on its life-saving effect, some 100 years before Robert Hook did. In publicly recording his insights over 450 years ago, Vesalius laid a firm basis for our understanding of the physiology of respiration and the management of its disorders.

Forgotten hardware: how to urinate in a spacesuit.

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to fly in space. Although National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had discounted the need for him to urinate, Shepard did, in his spacesuit, short circuiting his electronic biosensors. With the development of the pressure suit needed for high-altitude and space flight during the 1950s, technicians had developed the means for urine collection. However, cultural mores, combined with a lack of interagency communication, and the technical difficulties of spaceflight made human waste collection a difficult task. Despite the difficulties, technicians at NASA created a successful urine collection device that John Glenn wore on the first Mercury orbital flight on February 20, 1962. With minor modifications, male astronauts used this system to collect urine until the Space Shuttle program. John Glenn's urine collection device is at the National Air and Space Museum and has been on view to the public since 1976.

The only extant manuscript of Claude Bernard’s first course on experimental physiology in collège de france during the winter of 1847-1848 / El único manuscrito existente del primer curso sobre fisiología experimental dictado por Claude Bernard en el college de france, invierno 1847-1848 / O único manuscrito existente do primeiro curso sobre fisiologia experimental ditado por Claude Bernard no college de france, inverno 1847-1848

The only extant version of the first lecture course given by Claude Bernard on Experimental Physiology during the winter period of 1847-48 in Collège de France, substituting Magendie, is presented herein. The prominent Paris-graduated physician from Uruguay, Teodoro M. Vilardebó, attended the 46 lectures, wrote them down and transcribed them into a manuscript that he brought back to and kept in Montevideo in 1853. Mañé-Garzón uncovered it in 1987. These Bernard’s lectures review practically all physiology at the beginning of his career, while in later courses, he covered selected themes of experimental physiology and medicine and general scientific subjects at greater depth. Comparison of Bernard’s initial course with his later ones illustrates general physiology’s progress in the more than 35 years of his successful scientific life. The manuscript sheds new light into Bernard’s scientific activity and personality.

Se presenta la única versión existente del primer curso sobre Fisiología Experimental dictado, en sustitución de Magendie, por Claude Bernard en el invierno 1847-1848 en el Collège de France. El destacado médico uruguayo graduado en París, Teodoro M. Vilardebó, asistió a las 46 lecciones, tomó apuntes y los transcribió a un manuscrito que trajo de vuelta en 1853 y conservó en Montevideo. Mañé-Garzón lo descubrió en 1987. Estas lecciones de Bernard revelan prácticamente toda la fisiología de comienzos de su carrera, mientras en cursos posteriores cubrió en mayor profundidad tópicos selectos de la fisiología y la medicina experimentales, así como temas científicos generales. La comparación del curso inicial de Bernard con otros posteriores ilustra el progreso de la fisiología general durante los más de 35 años de su exitosa vida científica. El manuscrito vierte nueva luz acerca de la actividad científica y la personalidad de Bernard.

Apresenta-se a única versão existente do primeiro curso sobre Fisiología Experimental ditado, em sustituição de Magendie, por Claude Bernard no inverno 1847-1848 no Collège de France. O destacado médico uruguaio graduado em París, Teodoro M. Vilardebó, assistiu às 46 lições, anotou e os transcreveu a um manuscrito que trouxe de volta en 1853 e conservou em Montevideo. Mañé-Garzón o descobriu em 1987. Estas lições de Bernard revelam práticamente toda a fisiologia do princípio da sua carreira, enquanto que em cursos posteriores cubriu em maior profundidade tópicos seletos da fisiologia e a medicina experimentais, assim como temas científicos gerais. A comparação do curso inicial de Bernard com outros posteriores ilustra o progresso da fisiologia geral durante mais de 35 anos de sua exitosa vida científica. O manuscrito verte nova luz sobre da atividade científica e a personalidade de Bernard.

Development of the 'Respiration' Concept in the Western World / 의사학

Respiration has been well known as a basic phenomenon of life since the ancient times, but the explanation of which was varied. In most theories the respiration and the body heat of animal had been different phenomena until the early 19th century. After the Lavoisier's experiments in the late 18th century, combustion and respiration came to be considered as the same phenomenon. Through many discoveries and efforts of scientists in the field of chemistry, physics and biology, Justus Liebig, a German organic chemist, established the modern theory of the respiration of animal in the mid 19th century, where respiration was viewed as the origin of all energy of animal. The more detailed biochemical mechanisms were found in the 20th century.