![]() The most infamous of the experiments was named, quite dramatically, Universe 25. John B Calhoun set about creating a series of experiments that would essentially cater to every need of rodents, and then track the effect on the population over time. Threatening life and evolution are the two deaths, death of the spirit and death of the body….But while everyone was worried about a lack of resources, one behavioral researcher in the 1970s sought to answer a different question: what happens to society if all our appetites are catered for, and all our needs are met? The answer – according to his study – was an awful lot of cannibalism shortly followed by an apocalypse. “I shall largely speak of mice, but my thoughts are on man, on healing, on life and its evolution. Calhoun describes his experiments and findings. In a 1973 article published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr. Students of the subject have given most of their attention to misery, that is, to predation, disease and food supply….But what of vice? Setting aside the moral burden of this word, what are the effects…of population density on social behavior?”ĭeath Squared: The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population “In the celebrated thesis of Thomas Malthus, vice and misery impose the ultimate natural limit on the growth of populations. In this 1970 piece published in the Western Journal of Medicine, Calhoun writes about the destructive social implications of severe overcrowding. Edmund Ramsden visited NLM and delivered a History of Medicine lecture titled “Finding Humanity in Rat City: John B. Medical Historian Examines NIMH Experiments in Crowding The researcher who loved rats and fueled our doomsday fearsīy Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post, Retropolis column, June 19, 2017. See links below to two titles from NLM Digital Collections. Public Health Service produced many films in the 1940s and 1950s about the habits of rats, the perils of contamination and disease, how to ratproof homes and buildings, and as necessary, how to poison rats effectively. Calhoun from 1947 to 1959 near Towson Maryland U.S. (Rattus norvegicus): a study conducted by John B. These materials provide exceptional insight into Calhoun’s own mind and thought processes.Īdditional Films at the National Library of Medicine Users will find these organizational codes throughout the collection. In addition to this, Calhoun employed several other organizational schemes, such as numbered Section on Behavioral Systems (SOBS), Unit for Research of Behavioral Systems (URBS), Internal Research Query (IRQ), Research Communications (RC), “Review and Synthesis,” and alphanumeric document sets. He arranged the entire corpus of his research documentation within a series entitled the Historical Flow Chart (HFC). Calhoun was often on the cutting-edge of behavioral research during a time of dramatic scientific organizational change at NIH. Users will also find much information about NIH internal and external politics. Calhoun’s research activity at NIMH’s Section on Behavioral Systems. Research data, audio and video tapes and film, photographs and negatives, charts and graphs, and reprints document Dr. ![]() Calhoun Film 7.1Įxplore the Finding Aid to the John B. ![]() Mortality rates climbed and the population collapsed…. The resulting “behavioral sink” shows the mice engaged in aberrant actions such as hyperaggression, compulsive grooming, failure to reproduce, and infant cannibalism. Calhoun explains, and the viewer sees, the effects on the animals of sustained overcrowding. Calhoun constructed mouse colony “universes” where rodent residents had plenty of food and water, and were safe from predators. ![]() One of his areas of study was the effects of overcrowding. ![]() Calhoun was a research psychologist for 40 years at the National Institute of Mental Health. PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: National Institute of Mental Health, Time-Life Broadcasting Read The Essay | Go to NLM Manuscript | Watch on YouTube | Read TranscriptĬATEGORY: Research & Documentation, Sound, Color ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |