| In 1936, physiologist Hans Selye articulated the concept of a generalized physiological stress response, a cascade of hormones from the pituitary gland and the adrenal cortex that mediate an organism's reaction to the myriad challenges of its environment. Selye subsequently elaborated and popularized his theories, and existing histories of stress research treat him as the foundation of the modern study of stress. Such treatments fail to acknowledge the rich scientific context in which Selye's work developed. My study demonstrates that to make sense of modern notions of stress we must understand the multi-disciplinary research of the mid-twentieth century that elucidated the pituitary-adrenal cortical system and sought to deploy this knowledge in the postwar world. Selye was not the lone originator of the stress response. Scientists in the postwar biological sciences sought to apply the new knowledge of the physiology of stress to problems of medical and military significance. This work ultimately resulted in the interrogation, modification, and eventual overthrow of the central tenets of Selye's ideas.;This study analyzes the process of constitution, extension, and deployment of the pituitary-adrenal cortical system as the body's stress response, highlighting the role of interdisciplinary collaboration between biochemists, physiologists, and, later, psychologists. By examining the work of Edward Kendall, James Collip, C. N. H. Long, Herbert Evans, it explores the biochemical and physiological investigations of the adrenal cortex, the pituitary gland, their hormones, and their functional relationships and unearths the scientific context of Selye's theory of stress. While Selye and others began fitting this complex body of knowledge together to form a picture of the pituitary-adrenal cortical system, researchers inspired by Selye's formulation of stress, including Dwight Ingle, Hudson Hoagland, Gregory Pincus, John Mason, and Joseph Brady, extended his theory, eclipsed his methods, and questioned the generality of his concepts. Finally, I chart how this mixed reception of Selye played out in the troubled attempts of the United States military to apply stress physiology to the practical problem of combat stress, an effort that forced researchers to acknowledge the important role of psychological factors in the way all organisms respond and adapt to stress. |
