Stepping From Belgium to the United States and Back: The Conceptualization and Impact of the Harvard Step Test, 1942–2012

Abstract

Purpose: This article examines the contribution of the Belgian-American exercise physiologist Lucien Brouha in developing the Harvard Step Test (HST) at the pioneering Harvard Fatigue Laboratory (HFL) during the Second World War and provides a better understanding of the importance of transnational relations concerning scientific progress. Method: Analysis of sources in the University Archives of the State University in Liège (Belgium), the Archives and Documentation Centre of the Sportimonium at Hofstade (Belgium), the Harvard Business School Archives at Baker Library (Cambridge, MA), the Harvard Medical School Archives at Countway Library (Cambridge, MA), and the Brouha and Shaler private family archives (Sutton, VT). Results: The outbreak of the Second World War shifted research at the interdisciplinary HFL toward the field of military physiology and resulted in the transfer of Brouha from Belgium to the HFL. Brouha's personal and academic experiences made him the right man in the right place to develop the HST in 1942. The HST—which has celebrated its 70th anniversary—was of immediate academic and practical significance during and after the war. Conclusions: Brouha's case demonstrates the importance of personal experiences, transnational relations, and interdisciplinary research settings for the establishment of scientific (sub)disciplines. Studying internal scientific evolutions in relation to personal and work experiences of “mobile” and therefore often “forgotten” researchers like Brouha is necessary to better understand and interpret evolutions in science and corresponding processes of academic and social mobility.

Keywords:

• Harvard Fatigue Laboratory
• history of exercise physiology
• physical fitness testing
• transnational scientific interaction

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for its support of this research, the archivists of the University Archives of the State University in Liège, the Archives and Documentation Centre of the Sportimonium at Hofstade in Belgium, the Harvard Business School Archives at Baker Library in Cambridge, MA, the Harvard Medical School Archives stored at Countway Library in Cambridge, MA, and Paul and Carol Brouha for granting us access to the Brouha and Shaler private family archives at Sutton in Vermont and for their warm welcome. Furthermore, the authors would like to dedicate this article to their colleague Gaston Beunen, who passed away on August 13, 2011. Gaston Beunen devoted his academic career to the improvement of physical fitness testing and was one of the main drivers behind the Leuven Longitudinal Study on Lifestyle, Physical Fitness, and Health.