The Anatomical Lecture Theatre

A skilled, ambidextrous surgeon, Pavlov regularly performed operations on live dogs for in these sessions (known as vivisection) — to demonstrate physiological mechanisms such as the connections between the beating heart and the nervous system. 

In a crowded lecture theatre, only those in the front rows could see what was happening. The rest had to rely on Pavlov’s commentary. He commonly requested that a student stand close by and confirm to the crowd that what Pavlov said about the detail of the procedure was really happening. Boris Babkin, Pavlov’s long-time assistant, recalled that these students ​‘either from embarrassment or because the complicated experiment was too difficult to follow, usually stood by either dumb or nodding his head, not always at the right time’. Stripped of scientific or medical convention, the scene appears more like a ritual sacrifice, Pavlov the priest-like figure, surrounded by his acolytes, incanting to the crowd. 

In the anatomical lecture theatre, many dogs will have died in the room or as a result of post-experiment complications. We don’t know what happened to those that survived. Perhaps, once stitched up, they were returned to the streets. Or perhaps they were shipped over from Pavlov’s Physiology Department at the Institute, experienced experimental animals. Or maybe that was their destiny, should they survive this bloody ritual.