This book contains the contributions to a workshop on stress in farm animals held on April 17-18,1986 at the Pietersberg Con ference Centre Oosterbeek. The workshop was financed by the Commis sion of the European Communities from its budget for the coordina tion of Community Agricultural Research and the Agricultural Uni versity of Wageningen (The Netherlands). Its aim was to bring together experts from different disciplines all having in common that in one way or another they were involved in stress research. Such a multidisciplinary encounter should not only provide an interesting description of present day knowledge on stress, but also promote a more integrated view on stress phenomena as they occur in higher vertebrates. In the course of this workshop the following fields of research were related to stress: endocrinology, immunology, pathology, neurobiology, ethology and theoretical bio logy. Each of these relationships was introduce& by one speaker presenting a concise state of the art. The same relationship was elaborated by a second speaker implementing the available knowledge as far as possible to the farm animal situation. Therefore in this book each discipline is represented by a duo and introduced by some integrating remarks.

From a historical point of view the first studies on the response of the organism to stressful situations in general, and on the psychobiology of stress in particular, are probably those of Cannon and de la Paz, the physiologists who showed in 1911 that the adrenal medulla and the sympathetic system are involved in emergency situations. Cannon noted that the venous blood of cats frightened by barking dogs contained adrenaline, a response of the organism which was prevented by adrenalectomy or by section of the splanchnic nerve innervating the adrenal medulla. Cannon suggested that the adrenal medulla was acting in concert with the sympathetic nervous system, so that both systems were activated during stress. The role of the sympathetic system in response to stressful events was later emphasized by the experiments carried out by Maickel et al. (1967) and by Mason (1968): these authors clearly showed that stressors activate the sympathetic system causing it to release adrenaline and noradrenaline. This line of research may be contrasted with that carried out by Hans Selye, centered on of the adrenal cortex in the stress response. Selye's findings and theories originated the role the so-called hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal cortex (HPA) model of stress: in short, during stress adrenocorticotropic hormone is released from cells of the anterior pituitary and elicits secretion of glucocorticoids from the adrenal cortex.

The subjects of stress and animal welfare are currently attracting immense interest. This book brings together a range of perspectives from biomedical research (including human health and animal models of human stress) on stress and welfare, and assesses new approaches to conceptualising and alleviating stress.

This book contains the contributions to a workshop on stress in farm animals held on April 17-18,1986 at the Pietersberg Con ference Centre Oosterbeek. The workshop was financed by the Commis sion of the European Communities from its budget for the coordina tion of Community Agricultural Research and the Agricultural Uni versity of Wageningen (The Netherlands). Its aim was to bring together experts from different disciplines all having in common that in one way or another they were involved in stress research. Such a multidisciplinary encounter should not only provide an interesting description of present day knowledge on stress, but also promote a more integrated view on stress phenomena as they occur in higher vertebrates. In the course of this workshop the following fields of research were related to stress: endocrinology, immunology, pathology, neurobiology, ethology and theoretical bio logy. Each of these relationships was introduce& by one speaker presenting a concise state of the art. The same relationship was elaborated by a second speaker implementing the available knowledge as far as possible to the farm animal situation. Therefore in this book each discipline is represented by a duo and introduced by some integrating remarks.