The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory

The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory opened its doors for the first time in the fall of 1927 as a laboratory of human physiology in the Harvard Graduate School of Business. According to the Mandeville Special Collections Library, The founding committee of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory consisted of Lawrence J. Henderson; Wallace Donham, dean of the Business School; William Morton Wheeler, professor of entomology at Harvard College; David T. Edsall, dean of the Medical School; Elton Mayo, professor of industrial research in the Business School; and Arlie Bock, of the Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

The purpose of the Fatigue Laboratory was to study how the body reacted to certain situations, and how the body fatigued in relationship to those certain situations. Some of the topics researched at the Laboratory according to the Mandeville Special Collections Library, were the physical chemistry of blood, exercise physiology, nutritional interactions, aging, and the stresses of high altitude and climate. The Laboratory was equipped with plenty of treadmills, a climatic room, altitude chamber, and animal room. The Laboratory conducted high-altitude studies and also performed a desert study. With these unique studies being performed, it attracted numerous people from different regions of the world, and physiologists from here in the United States.