Doctors have long recognized a medical fact behind the saying that "people make themselves ill" through strain or worry. But it was only in recent years that anyone advanced a coherent theory of why this occurs: applying his "general adaptation syndrome" theory (TIME, Oct. 9, 1950), Montreal's Dr. Hans Selye minutely described how body tissues, adapted to normal stresses, sometimes suffer severe damage because of fatigue, worry or even bad eating habits. Still unanswered was the question of just how individual body cells act under stress. This blind spot stymied the search for...
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