Ivan Pavlov is the great Russian scientist, the founder of the most numerous physiological school in the world. One can distinguish 3 main stages of his scientific research:

• Physiology of circulation 

• Digestion physiology

• Physiology of higher nervous activity

46 years of his life are closely connected with the Institute of experimental medicine, where he was the head of the physiology department, later named after him.

Pavlov's works are world famous. In 1935 on the International congress of Physiology he was proclaimed "Princepes phisiologorum mundi".  At that time Pavlov was already an academician, honoured member and doctor "gonoris causa" of more than 120 scientific societies and universities.
His followers and pupils keep with care all the memorable places, connected with his creative activity. In the Institute of experimental medicine they are:

• Pavlov's study

• The tower of silence

• The monument to a dog

I.P.Pavlov was born in the town of Ryazan in 1849 in the priest family.
At the age of eleven he entered the parish school in Ryazan and later - the seminary. But he didn't finish his seminary courses because of the desire to study biology and physiology, under the influence of Charles Darwin's and Sechenov's ideas.
So, in 1869 Pavlov enrolled into the Saint-Petersburg University and after graduating from it in 1875, enrolled at the third course of the Medical Surgical Academy ( now Medical Military Academy). After graduating in 1879 with the golden award, Pavlov started his work in the physiological laboratory of Botkin's clinic, where he carried out the investigations in blood circulation and prepared the thesis "Centrifugal nerves of the heart".

In 1890 the Institute of Experimental Medicine was founded in St-Petersburg and Ivan Pavlov became the head of the Physiological Department. The study of digestion physiology was carried out there for more than 10 years. In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for these investigations. Pavlov noticed, that not only the stomach secretion, but the salivation in the mouth as well starts before the actual food contact with the adequate gland. This observation made Pavlov to develop the salivary registration method on dogs, which put the beginning of conditional reflex studies.