Abstract
The purpose of this article is to study how religious beliefs played a role in the development of science. Science is studied by using the T. S. Kuhn theory of “normal science”. Kuhn describes the mechanism of “normal science” as “the regular work of scientists theorizing, observing, and experimenting within a settled paradigm” (Kuhn 1962). Hans Selye dedicated much of his life to disseminating the notion of stress and was instrumental in introducing it into the medical discourse. He publicized his own notion of stress and built a new paradigm. Through his archival research, Guillaume Lecoeur was able to divide the itinerary of Selye’s elective affinity into three “ages”: childhood, maturity and profession. Hans Selye’s “elective affinities” are rooted in his Catholic origins and his life in Hungary. His meetings with other scientists such as James Bertram Collip and Walter Cannon, a protestant, played a major role in the formalization of his “affinity”. The last part studies the age of profession which corresponds to the realization of Selye’s elective affinity. Selye spread his “invention” and popularized the concept of stress. His professional ethics were echoed in newspaper articles and ultimately helped disseminate the notion of stress.
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Notes
- 1.
The notion “elective affinity” is defined as Weber as a “correlations between forms of religious belief and practical ethics” (Weber 1930: 91).
- 2.
This case study has been made possible thanks to support from the University of Montreal, which made available its collection of Selye-related press clippings.
- 3.
Translate from French: «Je découpais des morceaux de viandes et je les apportais glorieusement à la maison. Nous mangions cette viande».
- 4.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, La presse, 26 février 1964. Translate from French.
- 5.
Translate from French “La seule chose qui soit vraiment à toi, c’est ce que tu peux apprendre. Personne ne peut te le prendre sans prendre en même temps ta vie, et si tu dois perdre la vie, peu importe que tu perdes aussi le reste”.
- 6.
Harvard Medical School Archives, Correspondance between Walter Cannon and Hans Selye, April 2, 1936. In his correspondance, Selye requests certain papers from Cannon. They discuss a point of disagreement, as Selye already seems to insist on the existence of a general syndrome while Cannon insists on the complexity of the body’s reactions: “In relation to your interesting observations on a possible factor in the adrenal cortex which we have not hitherto recognized, may i suggest that there is a strong possibility that the different layers of cells in the cortex may mean different functions. Is it not possible that by the application of regulated heat to the cortex – perhaps as Dusser de Barenne has applied heat to the cervical cortex – different depths of injury could be done to the adrenal cortex and thereby something learned about the values of the various strata in its structure? When you publish your observations will you be so kind as to send me a reprint? I really was very much interested in what you reported in Washington”.
- 7.
A study conducted on the number of articles published featuring Selye by language yielded the following results. The principal dissemination languages were English, French and German. The largest number of articles was published in English (1312 articles, compared to 519 in French and 162 in German). The other languages are presented in descending order: Hungarian, Spanish, Italian (between 161 and 51 articles) then Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Czech, Slovak and Danish (fewer than 30 articles).
- 8.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, The Montreal Star, November 24, 1956.
- 9.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Pfizer Spectrum, January 15, 1957.
- 10.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Quarterly, Victoria Order of Nurses of Canada, 1959.
- 11.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye. The play, Adèle and stress, is an adaptation of the French play, “Le Don d’Adèle”, for Poland. The word stress was added to the play and Selye is referenced in the play’s opening pages.
- 12.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Reader’s Digest, March 1955: a summary of Selye’s research is translated into ten different languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Japanese, Danish, Finnish, Swedish).
- 13.
In an article on fatigue from the magazine Star weekly, Selye is questioned on the definition of fatigue and he responds using his notion of stress.
- 14.
Montreal Archives, Gazette (Mtl), September 30, 1944. Here, the company in question is F. W. Horner, a pharmaceutics company. Another entity, a foundation, is created to finance the research undertaken by the Institut de médecine et de chirurgie expérimentale.
- 15.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Le quartier latin, October 3, 1947.
- 16.
McGill University, Fond Selye, Toronto Daily Star, April 5, 1951.
- 17.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, journal du collège, Marie de France. November 1959. The English translations of this verse do not render the exact same meaning as the French version, which we would translate here as, “one who lives and believes in me shall live”. The King James version renders this same passage as “whoever lives and believes in Me will never die […]” (John 11:26). The French passage being read here was arguably more evocative of disinterested life than of the eternal life evoked by its English equivalent.
- 18.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Catholic Digest, January 1960.
- 19.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Bulletin of the Albertus Magnus Build, February 1961.
- 20.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, La patrie du Dimanche, August 1961.
- 21.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1957.
- 22.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, La patrie, March 21, 1953.
- 23.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Le nouveau journal, May 8, 1962.
- 24.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Le petit journal, September 19, 1959. Translate from French: «Nous ne pouvons plus nous permettre de laisser languir le chercheur de talent, faute d’argent, il faut nous rendre compte que le problème dépasse les limites de l’aide matérielle. L’issue des guerres prochaines ne dépendra plus de la force physique. Les grandes victoires seront attribuées à ceux dont la vie entière aura été dédiée à une œuvre. Il est beaucoup plus difficile de vivre que de mourir pour une cause».
- 25.
Translate from French: «Dans ma vie, je n’aurai fait qu’une seule chose. J’ai écrit 33 livres sur le même sujet, et aussi longtemps que je vivrai, […] je m’occuperai du Stress. Le stress, c’est ma cathédrale à moi!»
- 26.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Patrie du dimanche, July 19, 1959.
- 27.
Montreal Archives, Fond Selye, Healthful Living, 1951.
- 28.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, London Sunday, November 18, 1956.
- 29.
Montreal Archives, Fonds Selye, Toronto, 1960.
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Lecoeur, G. (2019). “Elective Affinities” and Development of “Normal Science”: What Kind of Regulation? The Example of Hans Selye (1907–1981). In: Loriol, M. (eds) Stress and Suffering at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05876-0_2
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