Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Packaging Stress
- Part Two Trauma and Acute Stress
- Part Three War
- Part Four Work
- Part Five Managing Stress
- 9 The Invention of the “Stressed Animal” and the Development of a Science of Animal Welfare, 1947–86
- 10 Memorial's Stress? Arthur M. Sutherland and the Management of the Cancer Patient in the 1950s
- Part Six Surveilling Stress
- List of Contributors
- Index
9 - The Invention of the “Stressed Animal” and the Development of a Science of Animal Welfare, 1947–86
from Part Five - Managing Stress
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Packaging Stress
- Part Two Trauma and Acute Stress
- Part Three War
- Part Four Work
- Part Five Managing Stress
- 9 The Invention of the “Stressed Animal” and the Development of a Science of Animal Welfare, 1947–86
- 10 Memorial's Stress? Arthur M. Sutherland and the Management of the Cancer Patient in the 1950s
- Part Six Surveilling Stress
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
In Britain, as elsewhere in the 1950s, it had become “fashionable to assert” that there was “an increase in the incidence of mental disorders and that the cause of this is the increased stress of modern life.” Some medical professionals feared this trend to be self-fulfilling, warning that “mental health propaganda” was “instilling a phobia for the inevitable stresses of life.” The language of stress was certainly ubiquitous at this time, not least within the various branches of the biomedical sciences. In the wake of Hans Selye's general adaptation syndrome, stress had quickly become a conceptual space in which the study of clinical medicine, biology, physiology, endocrinology, neurology, biochemistry, psychology, psychiatry, and behavior, among many other fields, could enter into dialogue. This is not to suggest that there was agreement on the nature of stress or even the meaning of the term. On the contrary, across these disciplines stress was invoked in different ways, according to different models. Arguably, it was the very flexibility of the concept that accounted for its prevalence.
In July 1958, for example, the Mental Health Research Fund organized a conference with the aim to “arrive at a synthesis of the concepts used in different branches of the behavioral sciences when discussing stressful effects.”
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- Information
- Stress, Shock, and Adaptation in the Twentieth Century , pp. 241 - 263Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014