The Way of an Investigator. A Scientist's Experiences in Medical Research

New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1945. First edition, a wartime book (stated).

1945 SCARCE FIRST PRINTING OF LANDMARK AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY WALTER CANNON, WHO DEFINED THE FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE.

8 1/2 inches tall hardcover, 229 pages, red cloth binding, covers lightly stained, spine darkened, corners and spine ends rubbed, residue from rusty paper clip on front paste-down and front free endpaper, text unmarked, very good minus. First printings of this wartime book, an autobiography published the year of Cannon's death, are very scarce.

WALTER BRADFORD CANNON (1871 - 1945) was an American physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. He coined the term fight or flight response, and he expanded on Claude Bernard's concept of homeostasis. In his autobiography The Way of an Investigator, Cannon counts himself among the descendents of Jacques de Noyon, a French Canadian explorer and coureur des bois. A high school teacher, Mary Jeannette Newson, became his mentor. ""Miss May"" Newson motivated and helped him take his academic skills to Harvard University. In 1896, his first year at Harvard Medical School, he started working in Bowditch's Lab, and in 1900 he received his medical degree. After graduation, Cannon was hired by Harvard to instruct in the Department of Physiology. In 1906 Cannon became Higginson Professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School, a position he held until 1942. From 1914 to 1916 he was also President of the American Physiological Society. In 1915, he coined the term fight or flight to describe an animal's response to threats in Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement.