It has been over 50 years since Hans Selye formulated his concept of stress. This came after the isolation of epinephrine and norepinephrine and after the sympathetic system was associated with Walter Cannon's "fight or flight" response. The intervening years have witnessed a number of dis- coveries that have furthered our understanding of the mechanisms of the stress response. The isolation, identification and manufacture of gluco- corticoids, the...