A Neurotic Dog’s Life: Experimental Psychiatry and the Conditional Reflex Method in the Work of W. Horsley Gantt

Ramsden, Edmund

doi:10.1086/698241

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

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Critical Periods in Science and the Science of Critical Periods: Canine Behavior in America

Bolman

2022

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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This article offers a canine history of the "critical period" concept, situating its emergence within a growing, interdisciplinary network of canine behavior studies that connected eugenically minded American veterinarians, behavioral geneticists, and dog lovers with large institutional benefactors. These studies established both logistical and conceptual foundations for large-scale science with dogs while establishing a lingering interdependence between American dog science and eugenics. The article emphasizes the importance of dogs as subjects of ethological study, particularly in the United States, where some of the earliest organized efforts to analyze canine behavior began. Further, the article argues that the "critical period" is important not only for its lasting prominence in multiple fields of scientific inquiry, but also as a historiographical tool, one that invites reflection on the tendency of historians to emphasize a particular narrative structure of scientific advancement.

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Critical Periods in Science and the Science of Critical Periods: Canine Behavior in America

Bolman

2022

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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The uses of trauma in experiment: Traumatic stress and the history of experimental neurosis, c. 1925–1975

Koch

2019

Sci Context

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ArgumentThe article retraces the shifting conceptualizations of psychological trauma in experimental psychopathological research in the middle decades of the twentieth century in the United States. Among researchers studying so-called experimental neuroses in animal laboratories, trauma was an often-invoked category used to denote the clash of conflicting forces believed to lead to neurotic suffering. Experimental psychologists, however, soon grew skeptical of the traumatogenic model and ultimately came to reject neurosis as a disease entity. Both theoretical differences and practical circumstances, such as the technical challenge of stabilizing neurotic symptoms in rats, led to this demise. Yet, despite their reservations, experimental psychologists continued to employ traumatic stimuli to produce psychopathological syndromes. In the 1960s, a new understanding of trauma evolved, which emphasized the loss of control experienced by traumatized animal subjects. These shifting ideas about trauma, I argue, reflect both varying experimental cultures, epistemic norms as well as changing societal concerns.

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2018 Isis Current Bibliography

2018

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A Neurotic Dog’s Life: Experimental Psychiatry and the Conditional Reflex Method in the Work of W. Horsley Gantt

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

Critical Periods in Science and the Science of Critical Periods: Canine Behavior in America

Critical Periods in Science and the Science of Critical Periods: Canine Behavior in America

The uses of trauma in experiment: Traumatic stress and the history of experimental neurosis, c. 1925–1975

2018 Isis Current Bibliography

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