Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society 9780691198446, 0691052263, 0691198446

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Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society

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[44] Antivivisection in Victorian Society as the London hospital medical schools, to create separate teaching posts in the subject and to find the most competent physiologists to fill them."® As mentioned above, this process

was not completed until the nineties, but the turning point was undoubtedly the Royal College of Surgeons’ realization of the need for specialist training in physiology. Compara-

tive figures on the success in the Royal College examinations of men from the various institutions must have been a powerful spur to reform, especially in the highly competitive atmosphere of medical education in the metropolis. Medical witnesses before the Royal Commission in 1876 were unanimous in testifying that there was much more

vivisection performed on the continent than in Britain. More to the immediate point, however, many of the witnesses also noted a recent increase in the amount of vivisection in Britain. A survey carried out by the Royal Commission showed that by 1875 medical schools in Great Britain

carried out a significant number of experiments on living animals for purposes of instruction and research. Among the institutions particularly prominent were University College London, the Brown Institution, Cambridge University, and Edinburgh University, in all of which changes or additions of teaching personnel since 1870 had undoubtedly

greatly stimulated such activity.1* In the light of these “Z. Cope, The Royal College of Surgeons of England. A History (London, 1959), p. 143. In testimony before the Royal Commission of 1876, William Sharpey, for many years Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology at University College London, readily agreed with the suggestion of his colleague, commissioner J. E. Erichsen, that, “physiological laboratories have been established recently in a great measure, have they not, under the direction of the examining authorities and bodies of this country, such as the College of Surgeons?” “Report of the Royal Commission on the Practice of Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments for Scientific Purposes,” Parl. Papers 1876 xli (C.-1397), Q.484.

“Report of the Royal Commission on the Practice of Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments for Scientific Purposes; with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix,” Parl. Papers 1876 xli (C.—1397 ), 277-733; “General Analytical Index,” Parl. Papers 1877 xxvii, 663-686; Digest

of Evidence Taken Before the Royal Commission on the Practice of Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments for Scientific Purposes;

Experimental Medicine in Britain [45] events, it is interesting that in 1870 the General Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

resolved to form a committee to enunciate guidelines for physiological experiment and

. . . . to consider from time to time whether any steps can be taken by them or by the Association, which will tend to reduce to its minimum the suffering entailed by legitimate physiological inquiries; or any which will have the effect of employing the influence of this Association in the discouragement of experiments which are not clearly legitimate on live animals.

This committee, consisting of ten anatomists and physiolo-

gists (Burdon Sanderson and Foster were among them), produced a report that was submitted to the Association at its 1871 meeting. The report amounted to just such a code to govern experiment as the medical press had called for in the sixties. It made four main points. First, every experiment that could utilize anesthesia ought to do so. Second, teaching demonstrations on living animals ought to be painless or to utilize anesthesia. Third, painful experiments for the purposes of research ought to be performed

only by skilled persons with appropriate instruments and

facilities in a laboratory, “under proper regulations.” Finally, vivisection ought not to be performed in veterinary education for the purpose of obtaining manual dexterity.” with an Alphabetical List of Witnesses (London, H.M.S.O., 1876). Appendix iii of the Report of the Royal Commission shows the results

of a survey of the medical and veterinary schools of Great Britian and Ireland with regard to frequency and type of animal experiments performed. The survey’s categories and the responses to them do not appear to me to be sufficiently consistent to abstract any meaningful statistical data. For example, whether operations on pithed frogs or indeed the act of pithing itself are to be considered as experiments on living animals is unspecified in the survey. ' Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (41st meeting, Edinburgh, 1871; London, 1872), p. 144. For a copy

of the report, see Appendix I. The report was signed by only seven of the ten committee members. I have found no evidence, however, that it was controversial. See also “Vivisection,” B.M.J. ii (1871), 185.

[ 46 | Antivivisection in Victorian Society The inclusion of this last point shows clearly the impact of the revelations of French practices, for British veterinarians never used vivisection to any extent and had, in fact, been in the forefront of protest against Alfort and the other French schools. Nevertheless, the committee apparently felt it necessary to use the imprimatur of the British Association to reassure the public on the point. The physiologists knew they were treating a subject of consider-

able sensitivity, but they still trusted that the statement of careful guidelines and the avowal of good intentions might suffice.

Events showed differently. The ambitions of British physiologists inevitably collided with an antivivisection tradition that had deep, if sporadic and disparate, roots. British physiologists were neither circumspect nor sophisti-

cated enough to avoid the collision, and they barely succeeded in minimizing the damage resulting. They faced an organization that was wealthy, prestigious, politically influential, adept in courts of law, publicity conscious, and, most important, vigilant. The R.S.P.C.A. was ready to test the applicability of Martin’s Act to the practice of vivisection. British experimental medicine was not slow to provide

it with an opportunity. “Lex,” a correspondent of the R.S.P.C.A. magazine, Animal World, wrote in 1870, “My opinion is, that if this matter were agitated, it might lead to the whole subject being regulated by legislative enactment. . . .”15 Quite so. PRELUDE TO CONTROVERSY

The R.S.P.C.A. was devoting quite minimal attention and resources to the problem of vivisection during the period from 1870 to 1874, while British physiology was establishing

itself at Cambridge and University College London. “The entire suppression of experiments upon animals made for discoveries in science when conducted with torture” was only one of a number of specific goals listed by Animal World when the society’s periodical was launched in 1869." 8 Animal World ii (1870-1871), 46. * “Our Object,” Animal World i (1869-1870), 8.

Experimental Medicine in Britain [47] There were occasional skirmishes in the press,*° but no sustained discussion arose. An advertisement in the Scotsman seeking cats and dogs to be used in the University of Edinburgh’s physiological laboratory angered the B.M.]J.

by its lack of tact. It editorialized in June 1873: It is evident that, unless the doings within the walls of the Edinburgh University Physiological Laboratory are

kept publicly quiet, it is very probable that the whole question of experiments on living animals will be once more brought before the public in the usual sensational style, to the injury of harmless physiological research.”

The inclusion in John Burdon Sanderson’s 1873 lectures

at University College London, of a section “On the propriety of using the lower animals for the purpose of experimentation”? indicated at least some sense by physiologists of popular concern about the subject. That that sense was woefully deficient was revealed in the same year with the publication of a two-volume work, Handbook for the Physi-

ological Laboratory, edited by Burdon Sanderson.?* The other contributors were Emanuel Klein, histologist and bacteriologist of the Brown Institution,?* Michael Foster, physiologist of Cambridge,*® and T. Lauder Brunton, pharmacologist of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London.*® The See Animal World i (1869-1870), 43, 58-59, 80, 125-126; ii (1870-1871), 46, 138; iii (1871-1872), 176; and Pall Mall Gazette (1871), passim; Nature ix (1873), 144-145, 242-243. ” Edinburgh University was the only British university with pretentions to experimental medicine before 1870. “Physiological Research on the Lower Animals,” B.M.J. i (1873), 662.

”H. Cushing, The Life of Sir William Osler (London, 1940), p. 99. I am told that such lectures are still given in the course on general

physiology at University College. |

* J. Burdon Sanderson (ed.), Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory (London, 1873) 2 vols. On Burdon Sanderson see G. Burdon Sanderson, Sir John Burdon Sanderson—A Memoir (Oxford, 1911).

*W. Bulloch, “Emanuel Klein,’ J. of Path. and Bac. xxviii (1925), 684-697. * G. L. Geison, “Michael Foster and the Rise of the Cambridge School of Physiology, 1870-1900” (Yale Univ. Ph.D. thesis 1970). °° W. F. Bynum, “Thomas Lauder Brunton,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1970), ii. 547-548.

[48 | Antivivisection in Victorian Society Handbook was the first manual for the physiological labora-

tory published in the English language. One volume contained precise step-by-step instructions for the repetition of dozens of classical experiments in physiology—successtful

solutions to problems in the subject. The second volume contained 123 plates illustrating the experiments. Burdon Sanderson, in the preface, wrote, “This book is intended for beginners in physiological work. It is a book of methods, not a compendium of the science of physiology, and conse-

quently claims a place rather in the laboratory than in the study.”?"

The importance of the publication of the Handbook at this time can scarcely be overestimated. It embodied the vivisectional methodology of what was to Britain a new physiology, and thus disclosed to concerned lay readers the continental models adopted by the country’s rising young physiologists. Including among its authors, as it did, men of key institutional positions, it was taken to presage widespread vivisection for instructional purposes in medical

education. Failing to specify the use of anesthetics, as it largely did, it gave no assurance as to the painless nature of such vivisection. Prefaced for “beginners,” as it was, it seemed to set no limits to callow youth being indoctrinated in animal experiment. The impact of the Handbook among laymen was not sudden and widespread, it was progressive and limited to those primarily interested in the problem of experiments on living animals. It is not clear how many readers became antivivisectionists from , a perusal of the book, but innumerable references in the pamphlet literature of the movement make it clear that appeals to the Handbook as proof of the nature and extent of vivisection in Britain exerted a very powerful cumulative

influence.?® At last British antivivisectionists had a clear mandate to scrutinize the institutions and literature of British physiology for cruelty in the new and growing practice

“" Handbook, vol. i, p. vii. Italics are my own. , ” See, for example, Prof. Burdon Sanderson’s Portion of the “Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory”: Extracts therefrom, with Explanations (London, c. 1884).

Experimental Medicine in Britain [49] of animal experiment. Witnesses before the Royal Commis-

sion were often asked their opinions of the Handbook,” and Burdon Sanderson was cross-examined at length on it.° He admitted that the preface was misleading, “beginners” being meant to apply to the small class of persons who wished to do actual research in physiology and not to all medical students, much less to any others who might study the subject. Further, he testified,

May I make a general observation in reference to this book, namely, that we had not in view the criticisms of people who did not belong to our craft in writing it, and that we did not guard against all possible misunder-

standings of that sort. It is generally understood that we use anaesthetics whenever we possibly can, and conse-

quently that is a thing taken for granted. That ought to have been stated much more distinctly at the beginning

in a general way; but it was not stated for the reason I have given.”

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done by 1875, when Burdon Sanderson spoke these words. Both the Report of the Royal Commission*? and British teachers of physiology (including Foster and Burdon Sanderson )**

agreed in attributing public feeling on the question to the ” “Report of the Royal Commission on the Practice of Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments for Scientific Purposes,” Parl. Papers 1876 xli (C.—-1397), Q. 205-207, 354-356, 767, 970-971, 999, 11101111, 1270, 1351, 1623-1631, 1939-1942, 2170-2176, 2411, 2415, 3533, 3537, 5226, 5776-5790. Hereafter cited as “Report of the Royal Commission.”

” “Report of the Royal Commission,” Q. 2209-2284, 2746-2749. * “Report of the Royal Commission,” Q. 2265. Burdon Sanderson’s 1873 lecture had declared painful demonstrations to be unjustified. * “Report of the Royal Commission,” p. viii. See also the R.S.P.C.A. submission on the Handbook, Appendix iv, pp. 658-663.

* Memorandum of Facts and Considerations Relating to the “Cruelty to Animals Bill,” by Teachers of Physiology in England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1876), p. 1. Cf. F. P. Cobbe, Life of Frances Power Cobbe (Boston and New York, 1894), ii. 567-568.

[50] Antivivisection in Victorian Society publication of the Handbook in 1873. As the Saturday Review wrote in 1876:

It may be thought . . . surprising that the proceedings of so few persons—some of them persons whose names are scarcely known to the general public—should excite throughout the country a feeling of indignation so univer_ sal that the most remote country villages and the most obscure religious communities should express abhorrence of their acts by petitioning the legislature against them. The truth is, we imagine, that the present strong feeling

on the subject is mainly due to the publication of the notorious Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory, the

tendency of which was supposed to be to import into this country not only the practices, but the principles, which are believed to prevail in France and Germany with respect to the relation of man to animals. The appear-

ance of this book seemed ominous. It was regarded as

the introduction into England of a new moral contagion...”

The Handbook provided ample cause for vigilance on the part of the animal protection movement. The movement still, however, lacked a cause celebre. 1874: A CONTROVERSY SUSTAINED

In late 1873 a surge of agitation against the experiments of Moritz Schiff, Professor of Physiology at the Royal Supe-

rior Institute in Florence, proved the starting point of a lengthy discussion of the rights and wrongs of vivisection in British periodicals. This discussion directed increased attention to the Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory and to the issue of anima] experiment in Britain. An article by the Times's Rome correspondent,®> very favorable to ** Saturday Review xli (1876), 773.

* Times (London), 24 December 1873. The original agitation against Schiff had been initiated in 1863 by the English colony in Florence. See F. P. Cobbe, Life of Frances Power Cobbe (London, 1894), ii. 561-565. For a synopsis of an 1863 pamphlet written by Schiff in his own defense, see “Schiff on Vivisection,” British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review lvii (1876), 134-136.

Experimental Medicine in Britain [51] efforts against Schiff’s experiments, was followed by a num-

ber of similar articles in the Morning Post and other newspapers. George Macilwain wrote to the Times and he was joined in the Times and the Spectator by a second medical critic of vivisection, A. De Noé Walker. Walker condemned the practice in strong terms and called for its legal restriction, though not its abolition.*° The first public defender

of the practice was not a medical man but a zoologist, Edwin Ray Lankester (1847-1929), a student of T. H. Huxley. Lankester, who was no man to pour oil on troubled

waters, enthusiastically vindicated Schiff and vivisection in general, helpfully adding that experiments on living animals took place in Britain as well as on the continent (despite the Times article’s report to the contrary ). In a second

letter, Lankester outdid himself with a prescient but impolitic dictum, which was to be cited again and again by antivivisectionists: “If you allow experiment at all, you must

admit the more of it the better, since it is very certain that for many years to come the problems of physiology demanding experimental solution will increase in something like geometrical ratio, instead of decreasing.”*” Talk like this was quite enough for Richard Holt Hutton,

editor of the Spectator, who declared that there could be no justification for painful experiments on living animals and that physiologists could not be trusted to limit themselves (an obvious reference to “geometrical” rates of increase). Perhaps, wrote Hutton, scientific advances had been made through vivisection, but one could not approve any painful vivisection unless one were willing to approve all that any qualified scientist wishes to perform. It was only too clear where such a policy would lead.**

It did not take the medical press long to realize that the discussions in the Times and the Spectator were doing the cause of experimental medicine more harm than good. ** Spectator xlvii (1874), 47, 110-111. Walker was a former military

surgeon who had been a student in physiological laboratories on the continent. “Report of the Royal Commission,” Q. 1703, 1707. * Spectator xlvii (1874), 13-14, 46-47. “ Spectator xlvii (1874), 44-45, 176-178, 591-592.

[52] Antivivisection in Victorian Society Only the Lancet ventured to “hope the discussion will not close until a solution be arrived at in accordance with the dictates of humanity and the interests of science.”*® The Medical Times and Gazette sniffed at the public ignorance

displayed and regretted the unproductive nature of the discussion.‘° Where earlier medical men attacking vivisec-

tion had been generally ignored, now the Medical Times and Gazette,*! the British Medical Journal and the Practitioner closed ranks in explicitly criticizing Macilwain and Walker in order to exert professional pressure upon them. The B.M.J. referred to Macilwain’s nom de plume (“Author of Medicine and Surgery One Inductive Science”) and dis-

missed him: “. . . persons . .. are often found of eccentric character but high pretensions, who are ignorant of the fundamental facts of research with which they profess to be conversant.’** The Practitioner was more patronizing:

“Mr. de Noé Walker is presumably a young man and the temptation of occupying a large space in a public sensational discussion has probably been too much for his com-

mon sense as well as for his sense of justice and propriety.”#? Later medical men who opposed vivisection found

themselves subjected to similar criticism, labeled by antivivisectionists as “trades-union” measures.

The conversion of Richard Hutton (1826-1897) to the cause of antivivisection was highly significant. Mathematician, theologian, editor, Hutton was a brilliant and powerful figure whose opinions clearly mattered in the intellectual

life of London. He did not wait long to turn his newly enunciated principles into action. As a member of the Senate of the University of London, Hutton launched a concerted campaign to end experiment upon animals at the Brown Institution, a university affiliate for research on the diseases of animals. Hutton’s lengthy and unsuccess* Lancet i (1874), 22-23. * Medical Times and Gazette i (1874), 10, 70-71. * Tbid.

® BMJ. i (1874), 18-19. * Practitioner xii (1874), 38-39.

Experimental Medicine in Britain [53 | ful battles, which ultimately led to his tendering his resigna-

tion to the Senate, were widely reported. Hutton’s efforts kept the issue before the public when

the controversy initiated by the agitation against Schiff began to die down. The Medical Times and Gazette was sharply critical of Hutton,** but the Lancet, while disagreeing with him, was pleased at his directing further attention

to the question, for it felt that enlightened public opinion rather than legislation must be the pathway to a solution.* A relatively uninfluential medical monthly, the Doctor, con-

demned the Senate for rejecting Hutton’s resolution, and unqualifiedly contradicted John Burdon Sanderson's defense of the Institution.‘7 Medical opinion was as divided as public opinion, if the medical press can be taken as any indication. The discussion surrounding the Schiff and Brown Institution affairs was undoubtedly followed closely in the offices “See R. H. Hutton, The University of London and Vivisection (London, 1876), and R. H. Hutton to J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 29 May 1875, The Library, University College, London. Burdon Sanderson Papers, Ms. Add. 179/2 £.21. For any amount of detail on subsequent attacks on the Brown Institution, see G. R. Jesse’s two pamph-

lets, The Animal Hospital Founded by Thomas Brown (London, 1876) and Man’s Injustice to Animals. The Brown Animal Sanatory Institution (2nd ed., London, 1888). See also “The Brown Institu-

tion,’ Verulam Review i (1888-1889), 133-144, and Lancet i (1883), 795. ® Medical Times and Gazette i (1874), 534. ** Lancet i (1874), 733-734; see also “Debate on Vivisection at the Meeting of the Convocation of the University of London,” Lancet i (1874), 709-710. “ Doctor iv (1874), 101, 140. The Doctor was published in London, 1871-1878. In 1875, it declared vivisection to be justifiable for purposes of original research but not for demonstration or “sensation.” Further, “. . . the cruelties to which we have adverted are regularly practised at the Brown Institution, and that for the purpose of teach-

ing. In fact, that institution may be looked upon as the centre of vivisection, whence its pupils go forth to practise elsewhere. What would the benevolent Mr. Brown have thought had he foreseen to what his legacy for a hospital for animals would lead! We commend the case to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals”. See Doctor v (1875), 21-22.

[54] Antivivisection in Victorian Society of the R.S.P.C.A. The issue was dealt with at length at the Sixth International Congress of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, held in London in June 1874. After the reading of a letter from Queen Victoria, alluding to “sufferings . . . from experiments in the pursuit of science,’** the congress heard a number of speakers: on

the subject of vivisection. De Noé Walker renewed his attack on the practice and called for its regulation by law, adducing a number of vivid examples in support of his views. Richard Hutton and John Colam, secretary of the R.S.P.C.A., spoke in a similar vein. According to Benjamin

Ward Richardson, however, stopping vivisection would cause more suffering than it would prevent. Richardson rejected statements that experiments on living animals are useless and argued ably for their indispensability to medicine. He opposed suggested restrictions and inspection of experiments: “If... you strive to suppress experiment, by making it impossible in open day, you will only relegate

it to dark places in which it should never be concealed.” Colam challenged the existing secrecy with regard to experiments on living animals and, in the end, the congress passed Colam’s resolution “that painful experiments on living animals, if not already illegal, should be forbidden by law except under licence and precautions for publicity, and that no experiments on living animals should be permitted except under the same precautions.”*® There could be no doubt that a strong antivivisection policy was now an idea whose time had come. The problem of vivisection moved rapidly higher in the priorities of the R.S.P.C.A., though its annual report in August 1874 revealed no specific * “Report of the Royal Commission,” Appendix i.

See Animal World v (1874), 134; “Congress of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” B.M.J. i (1874), 847; “The Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Vivisection,” Medical Times and Gazette i (1874), 696-697; B. W. Richardson, “On Experimentation on Animals for the Knowledge and Cure of Disease,” Lancet ii (1874), 5-7. Richardson’s attitude toward animal experiment became progressively less favorable as he aged. See L. G. Stevenson, “Science Down the Drain,” Bull. Hist. Med. xxix (1955), 1-26.

Experimental Medicine in Britain [55] proposals for legislation. Instead, Colam pledged to the membership continued publicity to abuses connected with experiments on living animals, stating that discussions had

already “tended to check the practices of experimental physiologists.” The executive of the society, Colam said, would remain vigilant for any opportunity to act.°° R. H. Hutton is one figure crucial for an understanding

of how antivivisection developed from disorganized and impotent strands of opinion into an agitation with national and international repercussions. John Colam, secretary of the R.S.P.C.A. from 1861 to 1905, is a second. Colam’s

indefatigability, ingenuity, and tact dominated the R.S.P.C.A. during its greatest days in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was during that time that the society first achieved broad scale enforcement of animal protection laws, greatly extended such legislation, and undertook systematic education in humanitarian values. Colam’s R.S.P.C.A. of the mid-seventies was highly orga-

nized (instigating hundreds of prosecutions a year), wealthy (receiving thousands of pounds in subscriptions and legacies annually), prestigious (with highly cultivated and very public aristocratic connections), and powerful (with influential members in both Houses of Parliament). It had its own periodical and virtually unlimited access to others.*’ Into the hands of this humanitarian monolith the British Medical Association (B.M.A.) marched, obliging with a particularly ill-chosen experimental demonstration at its annual meeting at Norwich in August 1874. In the aftermath, the train of events toward a national agitation could not have been reversed. At that meeting, a French experimentalist, Eugene Mag-

nan, was invited to lecture on the physiological effects of alcohol. After his lecture, a separate experimental demonstration of the induction of epilepsy in the dog by intravenous injection of absinthe was to be carried out for those ° Animal World v (1874), 118. * My discussion of the R.S.P.C.A. here and elsewhere in this study owes much to a lecture by B. H. Harrison at Corpus Christi College, Oxford on 12 May 1970.

[56] Antivivisection in Victorian Society medical men who were interested. At the appointed time and place, with two canine subjects appropriately bound on an experimental bench in front of him, Magnan spoke briefly and commenced his injection into a vein in the thigh of the first dog. What happened thereafter is not completely clear, but something of a scene took place. Protests at the cruel and unnecessary nature of the experiments were voiced by certain of those present, notably Samuel Haughton (1821-1897) of Trinity College, Dublin; T. Jolliffe Tufnell (1819-1885), President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland; and a layman who happened to be present quite by accident, one Knight Bruce. During the spirited dispute that followed, a vote was taken which resulted in a considerable majority of those present in favor of the experiments proceeding. At some point Jolliffe Tufnell cut the restraints of one of the experimental animals, leaving the staggering beast to be apprehended by Magnan. When Tufnell returned with two county magistrates, the gathering broke up in confusion.

The vigilant Colam now had his opportunity. Informed

of the B.M.A. debacle—perhaps by a Mr. Smith of the Norwich R.S.P.C.A., who had attended the sessions of the congress—he dispatched one of the society's inspectors, Richard Roard, to the scene to make inquiries. In October, Colam formally proceeded against Magnan and three Norwich doctors responsible for arranging the demonstration, charging them with wanton cruelty to a dog under Martin’s

Act (which had been amended to include all domestic animals within its purview). He prosecuted the case in person at Norwich Petty Sessions, 9 December 1874. With Magnan in France, only the three Norwich medical men appeared as defendants. Richard Roard testified as to arrangements for the demonstration and as to purchase of the dogs, which had been carried out by the defendants. Knight Bruce, Jolliffe Tufnell, and Samuel Haughton described the events in question with vehemence and indignation. The last two, as expert medical witnesses, testified as to the worthless and unnecessary nature of the experiments. Vivisection in general was condemned as a demoralizing and dangerous practice. Tuf-

Experimental Medicine in Britain [57] nell’s and Haughton’s opinions were augmented by the testimony of the president of the B.M.A. for 1875, Sir William Fergusson (1808-1877). Fergusson was sergeantsurgeon to Queen Victoria, and among the most influential surgeons in the country. Although Fergusson admitted he was not au courant with current research on the physiological effects of alcohol, and had not attended the demonstration, he did not hesitate to stigmatize Magnan’s experiments

in terms similar to those of the previous witnesses. Defense contentions that the prosecution had failed to demonstrate the involvement of the present defendants in the operation, which was supposed to have constituted the alleged cruelty, proved successful when the nine-man Board of Magistrates handed down such a judgment. The Board further held, by a five to four majority, that the R.S.P.C.A. was justified in instituting the proceedings, and denied a defense motion for costs.*? Press reaction to the various events of 1874 shows steadily

increasing public interest in the issue of experimentation on living animals, culminating in national coverage of the Norwich trial. Editorial opinion during 1874 was extremely suspicious of the practice of vivisection. Both Punch and Saturday Review, ultimately to be bitterly attacked by antivivisectionists for their support of medical interests, were in 1874 highly critical of vivisection, though they would not see it completely prohibited.** Experimental medicine seems to have been in retreat before an increasingly nega* For accounts of the demonstration and the trial see the Norwich Chronicle (12 December 1874); R.S.P.C.A. Records xiv (1873-1875), 83-89; “Prosecution at Norwich. Experiments on Animals,” B.M.J. ii (1874), 751-754; “Vivisection at Norwich,” Medical Times and

Gazette ii (1874), 691; “Vivisection Prosecution at Norwich,” Lancet ii (1874), 851-852; “Vivisection at Norwich,” Lancet ii (1874), 348; Vivisection Prosecution. Report of a Prosecution of Physiologists by the R.S.P.C.A., at the Town Hall, Norwich, for alleged cruelty to two dogs (London, 1875). It seems very likely from its content that this last pamphlet was published by the R.S.P.C.A. itself,

*“Vivisection,” Saturday Review xxxvii (1874), 46-47; “Cruelty

to Animals,” Saturday Review xxxvii (1874), 807-808; “Vivisection and Cheek,” Punch lxvi (1874), 28; and “Vivisection and Science,” Punch Ixvii (1874), 257.

[58] Antivivisection in Victorian Society tive public opinion. Word of the Norwich dispute reached the public in garbled forms even before the legal proceedings,** and the trial itself undoubtedly confirmed suspicions and generated new ones throughout the country. The reaction of the Liverpool Daily Post was probably not untypi-

cal: “We are not ourselves disposed to go to the length of saying that vivisection ought in no case to be allowed. But we emphatically declare that we do not trust the physiological conscience in this matter.” Clearly, the R.S.P.C.A.’s legal defeat at Norwich was a moral and propaganda victory. If the applicability of Martin’s Act to scientific experi-

ments on living animals was left in doubt, the cruelty of physiologists was not. The advice of the Liverpool editor, therefore, was “The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are bound, if they wish to continue in existence, to persevere till they have tested the applicability of the law, in its present state, to vivisection.”°> The implication was that should Martin’s Act prove insufficient, special legislation would be necessary. December 1874 saw the first two

antivivisection pamphlets, Need of a Bill and Reasons for Interference, appear in London.*®

The medical press remained greatly divided in this atmosphere of increasing urgency. The B.M.J. adopted the hard line that was to characterize it throughout the controversy. It justified Magnan’s experiments and gave a blistering criticism of Tufnell and Sir William Fergusson: “The quality of mind of gentlemen who can go into court as accusers of their brethren on a matter as to which, according

to their own statements, they are profoundly ignorant, is certainly somewhat beyond ordinary appreciation.”*’ Despite Fergusson’s eminence in the medical world and in *“ Lancet ii (1874), 348. * For cross-sections of press response to the Norwich trial, see “The Vivisection Trial at Norwich,” Public Oninion xxvi (1874), 763-764,

and “Prosecutions against Vivisections,’ Animal World vi (1875), 2-3. The Liverpool Daily Post is quoted in the former.

I have been unable to locate these two pamphlets by Frances Power Cobbe. See Dates of the Principal Events connected with the Anti-Vivisection Movement (London, 1897), p. 1. *"“M. Magnan’s Experiments,” B.M.J. ii (1874), 828-829.

Experimental Medicine in Britain [59] the B.M.A. (which published the Journal), editor Ernest Hart (1835-1898) maintained strong pressure upon him in subsequent issues.°** Moreover, according to Hart, “We do not hesitate to stigmatise the prosecution as a grave misuse of the forms of justice. A more lamentable display of fanatical ignorance on the part of the prosecution and a board of

local magistrates has never been witnessed in a court of justice.”°® The Medical Times and Gazette and the Lancet, on the other hand, found the prosecution quite understand-

able and reasonable. The Medical Times and Gazette felt “that the manner, time and place of performing the experiments were ill-chosen and injudicious” and was “not at all satisfied that such a demonstration . . . was either necessary or useful. . . . the whole proceeding was an unhappy mistake.”®° The Times and Gazette was also critical of Fergusson."' The Lancet justified Magnan’s experiments, and,

while not condemning the R.S.P.C.A., pointed out that “, . . the question cannot be properly discussed except by those who possess the physiological knowledge which shall enable them to distinguish between appearances and reali-

ties.” To keep the important decisions from resting with such ignorant bodies as the Norwich Bench of Magistrates, the Lancet was willing to countenance some formal arrangement. It rejected arguments that it was impossible to draw a firm line between justified and unjustified experi-

ments with the contention that it was at least possible to ensure that experimenters were skilled persons with ade-

quate scientific objectives. “We believe . .. that an attempt might be made to institute something in the way of regulation and supervision. .. . Someone, in whose “The Recent Vivisection Trial at Norwich,” B.M.J. i (1875), 25-26 and “Sir William Fergusson and the Norwich Prosecution,” ibid., 63. For an antivivisectionist defense of Fergusson, see “Vivisection at Norwich,” Medical Press and Circular i (1875), 149-150. “See note 57. This was surely hard on the magistrates, who betrayed themselves by no more than the occasional ejaculation at the more sensational points of evidence, and by denial of costs. ° “Vivisection at Norwich,” Medical Times and Gazette ii (1874), 691.

““Vivisection Again!” i (1875), 116-117.

[60 | Antivivisection in Victorian Society knowledge, judgement, and character the profession and the public had confidence, might be invested with the requisite

authority to inquire into and report upon the aims and methods of such experimenters, whenever and wherever any investigation was necessary.”®? It was clear that such

arrangements were unlikely to evolve in the absence of legislation. _ A favorable public opinion and a divided and confused medical press, making frantic efforts to force recalcitrant members to toe the professional line, signalled a golden opportunity for organized animal protection to step in with a coordinated campaign. The momentum of Norwich was indeed to invigorate the antivivisection movement, putting experimental medicine on the defensive for nearly a decade and threatening its vulnerable foothold in British

| institutions.

* Lancet i (1875), 19-21.

4. The Politics of Experimental Medicine

The publication of the Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory, the enthusiastic predictions by Ray Lankester in the Spectator, the campaign by physiologists and their medical allies to have experimental medicine on the conti-

nental model entrenched in British medical schools, all seemed part of an ominous pattern of events to antivivisec-

tionists. Until Norwich, however, there had been few avenues of practical action open to them. The R.S.P.C.A. was, by the seventies, a large, multifaceted organization unprepared to move too far ahead of public opinion and thus jeopardize any part of its very substantial constituency.

Its prosecution of what it took to be obvious abuse at Norwich was to initiate a train of events beyond its control.

The publicity surrounding the Norwich affair permitted the evolution of an explicitly antivivisectionist movement, a movement whose independent power derived from a somewhat different public than the R.S.P.C.A.’s and whose

relations with the larger society were ambivalent to say the least.

Slowly the leading actors in the Victorian vivisection controversy emerged. Michael Foster, Cambridge physiologist, wrote a defense of vivisection for Macmillan's Maga-

zine.t Richard Hutton used the Spectator and his promi- | nence in London life to draw public attention to the issue. John Colam, secretary of the R.S.P.C.A., capably pursued the Norwich affair and remained the most important influence within the movement for animal protection. It was, however, the somewhat improbable figure of Frances Power Cobbe who grasped the initiative during the crucial months *“Vivisection,”’ Macmillan’s Magazine xxix (1874), 367-376.

[62] Antivivisection in Victorian Society in the aftermath of Norwich. By doing so, she was to domi-

nate the new movement until she became in the public | mind the personification of antivivisectionism (see Figure 2). FIRST STEPS: STRATEGIES FOR RESTRICTION

Cobbe (1822-1904) was an indomitable Anglo-Irish spin-

ster; as a journalist she wrote a great deal on feminist, religious, and philanthropic topics. She was well known in London literary circles, writing editorials for the Echo newspaper from 1868 to 1875. Cobbe had been sensitized to vivisection as an issue by the R.S.P.C.A.’s campaign in

France during the sixties. In 1863, she led the English community in Florence against the experiments of Moritz Schiff, Professor of Physiology at the Royal Superior Institute. Her wide reputation and extensive personal acquain-

tance with the likes of Benjamin Jowett, J. A. Froude, W. E. H. Lecky, James Martineau, Bishop Colenso, and Herbert Spencer were to stand her in good stead in her attempts to legitimize the antivivisection movement. She brought other assets to the movement as well, as the follow-

ing brilliant, if hostile, capsule description indicates: For superabounding energy, for absolute self-conviction, for magnificent unscrupulousness of assertion, for entire imperviousness alike to reason and ridicule, and for inextinguishable eloquence, especially in the direction of vituperation, she is, in these latter days, almost, if not quite, unsurpassed. And for a public agitation of any kind, these are the gifts required; the indispensable, if not the only, requirements for practical success.*

As Cobbe reflected on the Norwich trial, it became evi-

| dent to her that Martin’s Act was insufficiently strong to deal with abuses of vivisection. In particular, she felt that *See her autobiography, Life of Frances Power Cobbe (Boston and New York, 1894), 2 vols. Discussion of Cobbe’s activities and of events with which she was concerned is based upon her autobiography, especially vol. ii. 556-634, unless otherwise noted. >C. Adams, “The Anti-Vivisection Movement and Miss Cobbe,” Verulam Review iii (1892-93), 201.

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