John B. Calhoun

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John Bumpass Calhoun (May 11, 1917 – September 7, 1995) was an American

Calhoun met his future wife, Edith Gressley, at Northwestern, where she was a biology major and a student in one of his classes.^[citation needed]

Career

Early rat studies

After graduating from Northwestern, he taught at Emory University and Ohio State University. In 1946, he and his wife, Edith, moved to Towson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Calhoun worked on the Rodent Ecology Project at Johns Hopkins University. In March 1947, he began a 28-month study of a colony of Norway rats in a 10,000-square-foot (930 m²) outdoor pen. Even though five females over this time-span could theoretically produce 5,000 healthy progeny for this size pen, Calhoun found that the population never exceeded 200 individuals, and stabilized at 150. Moreover, the rats were not randomly scattered throughout the pen area, but had organized themselves into twelve or thirteen local colonies of a dozen rats each. He noted that twelve rats is the maximum number that can live harmoniously in a natural group, beyond which stress and psychological effects function as group break-up forces.^{[citation needed]}

While posted at

In 1951, Calhoun and family moved back to Silver Spring, Maryland. He worked for Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the division of neuropsychiatry before gaining his position at the National Institutes of Health in 1954 where he worked for the next 33 years. 1954 was also the year his second daughter, Cheshire Calhoun, was born.^{[citation needed]}

Norway rat experiments

Calhoun pursued his experiments in behavior, using domesticated

The research area was divided into three parts. In the center section a box-like room was built. There was a hallway all the way around this box and stairs that led to the top of it. This box was divided into 4 rooms, or habitats, 10 by 14 by 9 feet (3.0 m × 4.3 m × 2.7 m). Each room had a door for a researcher or caretaker to enter by, and in the ceiling of each room was a glass window. The activity in each room could be observed through these windows. Each room was divided into quarters by 2-foot-high (0.61 m; 24 in; 61 cm) partitions. V-shaped ramps connected pens I and II, II and III, and III and IV. Pens I and IV were not connected. Mounted on the wall in the corner of each quarter was an artificial burrow, which could be accessed via a spiral staircase. In two of the quarters the "burrows" were 3 feet (0.91 m; 36 in; 91 cm) from the floor, and in the other two the "burrows" were 6 feet (1.8 m; 72 in; 180 cm) from the floor. Each quarter also contained a drinking station and a feeding station. These variations in environment led to differences in behavior patterns and ultimately to the concept of "behavioral sinks".^{[citation needed]}

The research carried on in the lab on Casey's farm began in 1958 and lasted until 1962, when Calhoun was invited to spend a year at The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California.^{[citation needed]}

Mouse experiments

In the early 1960s, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) acquired property in a rural area outside Poolesville, Maryland. The facility that was built on this property housed several research projects, including those headed by Calhoun. It was here that his most famous experiment, the mouse universes (the most famous of which is universe 25), was created.^[1] In July 1968, four pairs of mice were introduced into the habitat. The habitat was a 9-foot (2.7 m; 110 in; 270 cm) square metal pen with 4.5-foot-high (1.4 m; 54 in; 140 cm) sides. Each side had four groups of four vertical, wire mesh "tunnels". The "tunnels" gave access to nesting boxes, food hoppers, and water dispensers. There was no shortage of food or water or nesting material. There were no predators. The only adversity was the limit on space.^[2]

Initially, the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly, doubling only every 145 days. The last surviving birth was on day 600, bringing the total population to a mere 2200 mice, even though the experiment setup allowed for as many as 3840 mice in terms of nesting space. This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a

After day 600, the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting and only engaging in tasks that were essential to their health. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed "the beautiful ones". Breeding never resumed and behavior patterns were permanently changed.[1]

The conclusions drawn from this experiment were that when all available space is taken and all social roles filled, competition and the stresses experienced by the individuals will result in a total breakdown in complex social behaviors, ultimately resulting in the demise of the population.^[1]

Calhoun saw the fate of the population of mice as a metaphor for the potential fate of man. He characterized the social breakdown as a "second death", with reference to the "second death" mentioned in the

During the 1960s, Calhoun and Leonard Duhl formed an informal group, the Space Cadets, which met to discuss the social uses of space. The members of this group came from as diverse professions as architecture, city planning, physics, and psychiatry. In Calhoun's own words:

"Our success in being human has so far derived from our honoring deviance more than tradition. Template changing always has gained a slight, though often tenuous, lead over template obeying. Now we must search diligently for those creative deviants from which, alone, will come the conceptualization of an evolutionary designing process. This can assure us an open-ended future toward whose realization we can participate."

— Calhoun^{[citation needed]}

Calhoun's phrase "behavioral sink" was sometimes used by others in reference to perceived urban moral degradation. Alan Grant, co-creator of the dystopian Judge Dredd character, has acknowledged Calhoun's work as an influence. Ramsden believes Calhoun's work may have influenced other apocalyptic fiction as well, including Soylent Green.^[9]

Calhoun wrote or edited a number of publications, including:

• The Role of Temperature and Natural Selection in Relation to the Variations in the Size of the English Sparrow in the United States (1947)
• Social Welfare as a Variable in Population Dynamics (1957)
• Calculation of Home Range and Density of Small Mammals (with James U. Casby, 1958)
• The Ecology and Sociology of the Norway Rat (1962)
• Environment and Population: Problems of Adaptation: An Experimental Book Integrating Statements by 162 Contributors (editor, 1983)

Calhoun died on 7 September 1995 at the age of 78.^[6] His papers were donated to the National Library of Medicine by Edith Calhoun and the American Heritage Center.^[10]

Publications

• Calhoun, John (1947–1948). Crowding and Social Behavior in Animals. Anchor Books.
• Calhoun, John B. (1950). "The Study of Wild Animals under Controlled Conditions". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 51 (6): 1113–22.
  S2CID 84859682
  .
• Calhoun, John B. (1952). "The Social Aspects of Population Dynamics". Journal of Mammalogy. 33 (2). American Society of Mammalogists: 139–159.
  JSTOR 1375923
  .
• Calhoun, John B. (1962). "Chapter 22: A Behavioral Sink". In Bliss, Eugene L. (ed.). Roots of Behavior. New York: Harper.
  OCLC 1282144
  .
• Calhoun, John B. (1962). "Population density and social pathology". Scientific American. 206 (2): 139–148.
  PMID 13875732.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link
  )
• Calhoun, John B (January 1973). "Death Squared". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 66 (1 Pt 2): 80–88.
  PMID 4734760
  .
• Calhoun, John B. (Nov 1972). "Plight of the Ik and Kaiadilt is seen as a chilling possible end for Man". Smithsonian. Vol. 3, no. 8. pp. 27–32.
  OCLC 58002970
  .
• Calhoun, John B (1983). Environment and Population: Problems and Adaptation: An Experimental Book Integrating Statements by 162 Contributors. Praeger. p. 486.
  ISBN 0-275-90955-7
  .

See also

• Lek mating
• Proxemics

References

1. ^
   PMID 4734760
   .
2. ^ ""Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence"" (PDF).
3. doi:10.15760/etd.1428
   .
4. ISBN 9780842382878
   .
5. ^ Fessenden, Marissa (2015). "How 1960s Mouse Utopias Led to Grim Predictions for Future of Humanity". Smithsonian Magazine.
6. ^ ^{a b} Fountain, Henry (29 Sep 1995). "J. B. Calhoun, 78, Researcher On Effects of Overpopulation". The New York Times.
7. ^ "Secret of NIMH Was Inspired by Hideous Lab Experiments". 2 October 2014.
8. PMID 19274352
   .
9. S2CID 145278739
   .
10. ^ "John B. Calhoun Papers 1909-1996". National Library of Medicine.

Bibliography

• Alsop, Stewart (17 August 1970). "Dr. Calhoun's Horrible Mousery". Newsweek: 96.
• Barnes, Bart (30 September 1995). "Scientist John Calhoun Dies". Washington Post.
• Davis, Louise (1971). "The Garden of Eden or Doomsday?". Tennessean Magazine.
• Fountain, Henry (29 September 1995). "J. B. Calhoun, 78, Researcher On Effects of Overpopulation". The New York Times.
• "Letting the rat out of the bag, The cultural influence of John B. Calhoun's rodent experiments". London School of Economics and Political Science. June 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-06-11. Retrieved 2010-06-07.

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