A dog that died on a laboratory table sparked a seven-year "war"

April 24th is World Laboratory Animal Day, commemorating the billions of animals that die each year in scientific research.

The history of human medicine is a long list of deaths for experimental animals. Since the famous Roman doctor Galen dissected goats in the 2nd century AD, human medicine has made progress again and again, and each step is inseparable from the sacrifice of countless experimental animals. For example, the discovery of the mechanism of diabetes and the development of organ transplantation technology are based on the corpses of thousands of dogs.

The 1940 film "Organism Resurrection Experiment" records how scientists perform organ transplants on dogs. In the film, a dog lies on the operating table | "Organism Resurrection Experiment"

Today, there are specific laws regarding animal experiments that protect the rights and welfare of experimental animals as much as possible. The transition from almost uncontrolled use of experimental animals to protecting the rights of experimental animals is closely related to a brown puppy more than 100 years ago.

A brown puppy

In February 1903, in a lecture hall at the Department of Physiology at University College London, 60 medical students watched a live dissection experiment on a brown terrier.

The dog had participated in the first experiment two months ago. It had its abdomen cut open and its pancreatic duct ligated, and it had been kept in a cage since then. In this demonstration experiment under the watchful eyes of the public, physiologist Ernest Starling first cut open the dog, spent 45 minutes checking the results of the previous experiment, then clamped the wound with tweezers and let another physiologist William Bayliss take over the next experiment.

Portrait of Ernest Starling with a laboratory dog ​​| Walter Westley Russell (1926) / The Public Catalogue Foundation

Baylis's operation was to prove his point: salivary pressure is unrelated to blood pressure. On the last day of the dog's life, its neck was cut open and the nerves of the salivary glands were connected to electrodes; its mouth was muzzled and its head and legs were fixed to the operating board. In this position, its nerves were electrically stimulated for half an hour, but the experimental results ultimately did not prove Baylis's point.

Later in court, William Baylis reenacted the classroom experiment. William Baylis stands in the foreground with an anaesthetised dog, with Ernest Starling, Henry Dale and laboratory technician Charles Scatter to his right | University College London

After the two experiments, the puppy was handed over to a student who did not have an animal experiment qualification certificate, and was then stabbed in the heart with a knife, ending his short life. The student who did not have an experiment qualification certificate at the time was named Henry Dale, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

At that time, the experimenters Starling and Baylis on the podium did not know that this animal experiment, which they were accustomed to, would later set off a seven-year international anti-vivisection wave and became an important node in the history of science.

From the lab to the courtroom

Among the audience that day were two female students from Sweden: Louise Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa K. Schartau. They had visited an animal experiment center and saw animals in captivity that were artificially given diseases for experimental purposes. They were deeply moved and therefore founded the Swedish Anti-Vivisection Society.

While studying in London, they observed many public experiments as students. In this experiment, they thought the brown dog was not adequately anesthetized, had been struggling, and had no smell of anesthesia - all of which they recorded in their diaries.

Louise Lind-af-Hageby | Harris & Ewing / Wikimedia Commons

Hageby and Shardow published their account of this experiment, along with other experiments they had witnessed, in a book called Eye-Witnesses (later renamed Scientific Confusion: Extracts from the Diary of Two Physiology Students). Their account was seen by Stephen Coleridge, secretary of the British Anti-Vivisection Society, who, after analyzing the details of the experiment, concluded that the experimenters had violated two anti-cruelty laws: the dog was not anesthetized; and it was used in more than one experiment.

Stephen Coleridge | Vanity Fair

Coleridge, who was heartbroken for the brown dog, gave a public speech criticizing the cruel vivisection experiment. The rally attracted more than 2,000 people. In his speech, Coleridge angrily accused the scientists: "If this is not torture, let Mr. Baylis and his friends tell us what torture is in the name of God."

Bayliss obviously disagreed with this accusation, and he immediately demanded a public apology from Coleridge and filed a lawsuit for defamation. In court, he insisted that he had anesthetized the dog because the tube used in the experiment was fragile and would break if the dog kept struggling. Starling, who conducted the experiment with Bayliss, admitted that he violated the regulations by using one dog for two experiments, but this was to avoid sacrificing two dogs.

This image shows the characters from the famous lawsuit, with Starling at the bottom right and Bayliss at the podium | Frank Gillett (1903)

Not only did both sides hold different opinions, but the testimonies of the student witnesses were also inconsistent - some said that the dog was unconscious and was completely anesthetized throughout the process; others claimed that the dog was struggling violently and that they did not see any device for delivering anesthetics.

In the end, the jury unanimously found that Baylis was defamed, and the lawsuit ended in Baylis's victory.

Seven-year controversy

However, anti-vivisectionists in the UK and around the world were outraged by the outcome of the lawsuit. They raised a fund of £120 and commissioned a sculptor to build a statue for the brown dog. The statue was built in Battersea, London. It stands on a high platform with its eyes looking straight ahead, as if expressing silent resistance. The inscription on the statue's monument reads:

"In memory of the brown terrier who was killed in the University College laboratory in February 1903. He had been subjected to vivisection for more than two months, facing one vivisector after another, until his death came.

It is also in memory of the 232 dogs that were vivisected at the same location between 1902 and 1903.

How long will this go on, men and women of England?"

Brown Dog Memorial Statue | University College London

The establishment of the dog memorial statue was the beginning of a tug-of-war between medical students and anti-vivisectionists. Anti-vivisectionists believed that such experiments were extremely cruel, while London medical students were very angry and believed that vivisection was vital to medical research. For this reason, they repeatedly attacked the statue and launched a protest.

The climax of the dispute came in December 1907, when riots broke out in central London and Battersea Park, pitting medical students against anti-vivisectionists and 300 police officers in an event known as the Brown Dog Affair.

Medical students gathered around the brown dog statue, protested loudly, and tried to destroy it with sticks | References [1]

Because the memorial statue was always vandalized, the police had to guard it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the annual security work cost 700 pounds, which made the officials tired of the endless struggle between the two sides. In March 1910, despite a petition of 20,000 people expressing opposition, under the cover of night, the officials still sent workers and police to quietly remove the memorial statue and let the blacksmith melt it down.

Seven years after the dog's death, this war without gunpowder finally came to a temporary end.

Modern animal testing

However, the fight for the welfare of experimental animals has never ended. Animal rights activists and anti-vivisection activists are still fighting with the medical community and the government, and eventually promoted legislative protection. In 1966, the United States passed the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, and various countries subsequently established relevant laws.

A veterinarian performs a physical examination on a laboratory animal. Keith Weller / Wikimedia Commons

With the improvement of laws and regulations and people's increasing attention to animal welfare, animal experiments in most countries today need to go through layers of review. For example, in the UK, all animal experiments need to be reviewed by the Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body, while countries such as the United States follow the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, which uses quantitative standards to regulate the welfare of laboratory animals and reduce the abuse and mistreatment of laboratory animals.

Housing and feeding conditions for laboratory animals are also important | Otwarte Klatki / Wikimedia Commons

Different countries have slightly different regulations on animal experiments, but the "3R" principle is recognized worldwide. These are the three most basic principles to be followed in the use of experimental animals:

1. Replacement: Substituting other methods for the use of animals in research.

It is divided into complete replacement and partial replacement. Complete replacement directly avoids live animal experiments and instead uses cells, tissues or organoids, or applies mathematical and computer models; partial replacement uses some animals that are currently considered by the scientific community to have the lowest neurophysiological sensitivity, such as invertebrates such as fruit flies and nematodes, to reduce the pain felt by animals.

2. Reduction: Minimize the number of animals used in each experiment.

Minimize the number of live animals while ensuring that the experimental results are reliable and reproducible. Researchers can maximize the information provided by each animal, such as using imaging technology to measure the same animals at different times, rather than killing a batch of animals at each time point to collect data. Sharing animal experiment data between different laboratories and research institutions can also help reduce the use of animals.

3. Refinement: Minimize pain, stress, and lasting harm to experimental animals and improve their welfare.

For example, they should be given appropriate housing and feeding methods, use appropriate anesthetics and analgesics to minimize pain, and train them to cooperate with experimental procedures to reduce pain and stress. Improving the welfare of experimental animals is also beneficial to researchers, because pain and stress can change the behavior, physiology and immunity of animals, affecting the results of experiments.

In 1985, a new brown dog memorial statue was erected in Battersea, London. But this time, opposition to vivisection was no longer the main reason for the dog to stand here. On the contrary, its existence actually acknowledged that animal experiments cannot be completely avoided in laboratories around the world, but it warned people that they need to always protect the rights of experimental animals.

The brown puppy is also reminding people that dogs like it and countless other creatures who have been chosen as experimental animals have been forced to sacrifice in exchange for the progress of human science.

References

[1]Ford, Edward K. (1908) The Brown Dog and His Memorial (London: Euston Grove Press), 56 pages. 2013 complete facsimile of 1908 pamphlet.

[2]https://nc3rs.org.uk/who-we-are/3rs

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair

[4]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6826930/

[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing_regulations

[6]Portrait of a Man and His Dog: The Brown Dog Affair | UCL Researchers in Museums

Author: Cat Tun

Editor: Mai Mai

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