Samuel Corson

Samuel Abraham Corson (31 December 190927 January 1998) was an American professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University who, with his wife Elizabeth, led early research into pet therapy, which contributed to dogs and other pets becoming commonplace in settings such as nursing homes.

His initial research involved applying Pavlovian techniques in the study of the effects of stress on dogs. Subsequently, by chance, Corson and his wife became interested in what they termed "pet-facilitated psychotherapy" when some adolescent patients with mental illness asked to meet the animals. They then extended pet facilitated therapy to the elderly. In 1975, Corson described the case of an elderly man who spoke for the first time in 26 years after being introduced to a dog named Whiskey. Provided by Wikipedia