Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain

A Social History

A.W.H. Bates

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781137556974
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book explores the social history of the anti-vivisection movement in Britain from its nineteenth-century beginnings until the 1960s. It discusses the ethical principles that inspired the movement and the socio-political background that explains its rise and fall. Opposition to vivisection began when medical practitioners complained it was contrary to the compassionate ethos of their profession. Christian anti-cruelty organizations took up the cause out of concern that callousness among the professional classes would have a demoralizing effect on the rest of society. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the influence of transcendentalism, Eastern religions and the spiritual revival led new age social reformers to champion a more holistic approach to science, and dismiss reliance on vivisection as a materialistic oversimplification. In response, scientists claimed it was necessary to remainobjective and unemotional in order to perform the experiments necessary for medical progress.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Vivisection, Virtue, and the Law in the Nineteenth Century
• 3. Have Animals Souls ? The Late-Nineteenth Century Spiritual Revival and Animal Welfare
• 4. A New Age for a New Century: Anti-Vivisection, Vegetarianism , and the Order of the Golden Age
• 5. The National Anti-Vivisection Hospital, 1902–1935
• 6. The Research Defence Society : Mobilizing the Medical Profession for Materialist Science in the Early-Twentieth Century
• 7. State Control, Bureaucracy, and the National Interest from the Second World War to the 1960s
• 8. Conclusion
• Back Matter