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Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918
This article examines the emergence of ‘industrial fatigue’ as an object of medico-scientific enquiry and social anxiety in early-twentieth-century Britain. Between 1900 and 1918, industrial fatigue research became the basis of a new science of work, which I term ‘industrial physiology’. Drawing on...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2019
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6481382/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31037024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkx077 |
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author | Blayney, Steffan |
author_facet | Blayney, Steffan |
author_sort | Blayney, Steffan |
collection | PubMed |
description | This article examines the emergence of ‘industrial fatigue’ as an object of medico-scientific enquiry and social anxiety in early-twentieth-century Britain. Between 1900 and 1918, industrial fatigue research became the basis of a new science of work, which I term ‘industrial physiology’. Drawing on François Guéry and Didier Deleule, I argue that industrial physiology is best understood as a science of ‘the productive body’. The worker was an object for medico-scientific intervention only insofar as they represented a constituent part of the machinery of industrial labour, while the individual body was, in turn, reimagined as a productive system in microcosm. In this context, industrial fatigue—defined as diminished capacity for productive work—emerged as the emblematic pathology of industrial civilisation. By 1918, it had become the central category in the scientific articulation of a conception of the body in which health was equated squarely with productive capacity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6481382 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64813822019-04-29 Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 Blayney, Steffan Soc Hist Med Original Articles This article examines the emergence of ‘industrial fatigue’ as an object of medico-scientific enquiry and social anxiety in early-twentieth-century Britain. Between 1900 and 1918, industrial fatigue research became the basis of a new science of work, which I term ‘industrial physiology’. Drawing on François Guéry and Didier Deleule, I argue that industrial physiology is best understood as a science of ‘the productive body’. The worker was an object for medico-scientific intervention only insofar as they represented a constituent part of the machinery of industrial labour, while the individual body was, in turn, reimagined as a productive system in microcosm. In this context, industrial fatigue—defined as diminished capacity for productive work—emerged as the emblematic pathology of industrial civilisation. By 1918, it had become the central category in the scientific articulation of a conception of the body in which health was equated squarely with productive capacity. Oxford University Press 2019-05 2017-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6481382/ /pubmed/31037024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkx077 Text en © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Blayney, Steffan Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title | Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title_full | Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title_fullStr | Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title_full_unstemmed | Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title_short | Industrial Fatigue and the Productive Body: the Science of Work in Britain, c. 1900–1918 |
title_sort | industrial fatigue and the productive body: the science of work in britain, c. 1900–1918 |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6481382/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31037024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkx077 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT blayneysteffan industrialfatigueandtheproductivebodythescienceofworkinbritainc19001918 |