>Walter Bradley Cannon, an American physiologist, was born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin on October 19, 1871. Following his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1900, Cannon accepted a position under the renowned W. T. Porter and began performing his pioneering research on digestion (in particular that related to the stomach). This early work would eventually lead to his classic text Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement that would detail his research into the sympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system and the secretion of adrenalin by the adrenal glands under emotional stress (later known as the fight-or-flight response. He is also remembered for coining the phrase "homeostasis" (a stable equilibrium reached or maintained between an organism and its environment), and his later investigations on the role of bodily secretions during the emotional states. Among his numerous awards was the Lasker Award (given "to advance the study of medical research.") In later years, Cannon developed heart ailments and finally succumbed to coronary thrombosis in Franklin, New Hampshire on October 1, 1945.