338 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
“December 30: The correspondent (Miss Cobbe) sent to the office of Nazione, 
her name and address, also testimony. Nazione refused to publish same even 
as a paid advertisement. Agitation in Florence taken up by Countess Baldelli 
and maintained until the retreat of Schiff in Genoa — 1877.” 
RESOLUTION OF BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 1871 
The darkening cloud of antivivisectionist activity against scientists on the 
Continent, which appeared in the British journals, may have been a factor in 
the formulation of the set of rules adopted by this association in 1871. In the 
previous year Huxley, then president of the association, had been violently 
attacked for speaking in defense of Brown Sequard, a French physiologist; 
but, as yet, no accusations had been made against Britist scientists. There 
were less than a dozen and a half physiologists in Great Britain using animals 
in research (see later testimony), and the first publication of the British 
Journal of Physiology did not appear until 7 years later. The resolution of 
the British Association for the Advancement of Science was a statement of 
voluntary rules governing the use of anesthetics in experiments that inflict 
pain, and provision that experiments be performed only in acceptable labora- 
tories with adequate facilities and proper supervision and responsibility. A 
similar set of rules was adopted by the American Medical Association in 1908 
and is followed in this country. To read into these resolutions a plea by the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science or by the American Medical 
Association for government supervision, restriction, and policing of medical 
research is clearly wishful thinking. 
Concerning the passage of the British law of 1876, I shall list for reference 
a chronological series of the events preceding its passage : 
1874-76 : Antivivisectionist campaign intensified. 
January 26, 1875 : Deputation to the Royal Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals. 
May 4, 1875 : Lord Hennicker introduced a bill in the House of Lords. 
May 12, 1875 : Lyon Playfair introduced a bill in the House of Commons. 
June 15, 1875: Queen Victoria’s letter to Dr. Joseph Lister, later Lord Lister. 
June 22, 1875 : Royal Commission appointed. 
November, 1875: Victoria Street Society founded by Frances Power Cobbe. 
January 8, 1876 : Report of Royal Commission. 
May 22, 1876 : Bill introduced in House of Lords. 
August 9, 1876 : Second reading of bill in House of Commons. 
August 15, 1876 : Royal signature (Act. 39 and 40, Viet. C-77) . 
1906: Second Royal Commission on vivisection appointed to inquire into the 
law relating to its practice and administration and to report whether any, and if 
so what changes were desirable. 
Having disposed of the resolution of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, the position taken by Darwin and Huxley will be unfolded in 
the course of events that followed. 
ANTIVIVISECTION CAMPAIGN 
A few references only will be cited because of limited space. 
London Times, December 10, 1874: “Vivisection— Yesterday at the Norwich 
police court, some proceedings of considerable interest to the medical profession 
were instituted at the instance of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals against Eugene Mangan of Paris ; Mr. Haynes Robinson, surgeon of 
Norwich ; Mr. J. B. Pitt, surgeon of Norwich, and Mr. Wentworth While, surgeon 
of Norwich, for having as the prosecution alleged, tortured two dogs at the meet- 
ing of the British Medical Association in August last.” (Referred to later.) 
London Times, February 24, 1875 : Advertisement, Society for the Abolition of 
Vivisection. Communicate with George R. Jesse, Esq., Henbury, Macclesfield, 
Cheshire. 
London Times, March 31, 1875 : “The Glasgow Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals was honored by an unusually large and influential meeting. 
The report showed that the income for 1874 tripled that received during the 
preceding year; then, as regards the question of vivisection, which has lately 
been keenly debated in several London journals, a petition to Parliament in favor 
of a bill to impose restrictions on the practice of vivisection was unanimously 
adopted. Glasgow Herald.” 
