Humanitarian attitudes in the early animal experiments of the royal society

References

• Wheatley , H.B. , ed. 1897 . The Diary of Samuel Pepys London 5 February 1660–61. All citations of Pepys' Diary throughout this essay refer to this edition.
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• Harwood , Dix . 1928 . Love for Animals and How It Developed in Great Britain New York Harwood discusses in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 the rise of humanitarian and sentimental feeling toward animals in the eighteenth century, which he attributes largely to Shaftesbury and Mandeville (p. 126). The reasons behind the rise of humanitarianism and sentimentalism in the eighteenth century cannot be discussed within the limits of the present essay. R. S. Crane appears to be correct, however, in arguing that the sentimental benevolence of the mid-eighteenth century did not originate simply in the writings of Shaftesbury and his disciples, since they came along too late. He attributes it instead to ‘the combined influence of numerous Anglican divines of the Latitudinarian tradition who from the Restoration onward into the eighteenth century had preached to their congregations and, through their books, to the larger public essentially the same ethics of benevolence, “good nature”, and “tender sentimental feeling” …’ (‘Suggestions toward a Genealogy of the “Man of Feeling”’, Engl. Lit. Hist. 1934, 1, 207).
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• The air-pump was really invented by Hooke towards 1659, at Boyle's direction. See Gunther R.T. Early Science in Oxford vi 8 8 70–72
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• Boyle , Robert . 1772 . The Spring and Weight of the Air . Works , i : 111 – 112 .
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• 1670 . Phil. Trans. , 5 : 2017 – 2019 . Boyle's machine was later satirized in ‘The Air-Pump’, a poem printed in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1740, 10, 194. The author, ‘Junius’, wrote that Domitian used to spend whole days killing flies and hinted that the Royal Society had outdone the cruelty of the Roman emperor: But had the monarch learn'd the knowledge Since practis'd by our modern college, Of using their pneumatic engine, 'Twou'd have afforded pleasure swinging; The sight of ev'ry rare experiment Had given his heart unusual merriment. For instance—To have seen a mouse Shut fast within its crystal house, And thence the air exhausted all, To view the creature gasp and sprawl; At ev'ry suction of the pump Observe him pant from head to rump, Spew, kek, and turn on his back—T'had been, ye powers, a mighty knack! What arts of choaking, tort'ring, killing, Adepts to teach him had been willing: All nature he'd have known, no doubt, He would have pump'd her secrets out. Dogs, kittens, ev'ry four-legg'd thing, Had been game royal for the king; He'd been with lice, and scrubby vermin, Familiar as a cousin-german, Diverted with each day a new-whim, No toad had come amiss unto him.…
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• 1670 . Phil. Trans. , 5 : 2029 – 2029 .
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• Letter from Hooke to Boyle (10 Gunther R.T. Early Science in Oxford November 1664 vi 217 217 A satisfactory anaesthesia was not discovered until 1846, when Dr William Morton of Boston first used ether successfully for a surgical operation (Encyclopaedia Britannica s.v. ‘Anaesthesia’).
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• Birch , Thomas . 1756 . History of the Royal Society London Quoted by Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, vol. vi, pp. 350, 307, 309, 310.
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• Lower , Richard . 1669 . “ De Corde … ” . In Early Science in Oxford Edited by: Gunther , R.T. Vol. ix , 189 – 189 . trans. K. J. Franklin, in
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• Letter to Boyle (6 July 1666), published in De Corde …, pp. 180–183. The full details of the procedure are given by Nicolson Marjorie H. Pepys' Diary and the New Science University of Virginia Press Charlottesville 1965 71 72 I am greatly indebted to Professor Nicolson's second chapter, ‘The First Blood Transfusions’, for much of the background and many of the quotations used in this section.
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• Quoted by Nicolson Pepys' Diary and the New Science 55 55
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• 1667 . Phil. Trans. , 2 : 449 – 451 . Cited by Nicolson, Pepys' Diary and the New Science, p. 74.
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• 1667 . Phil. Trans. , 2 : 519 – 519 .
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• For the full story of Coga's transfusions, see Nicolson Pepys' Diary and the New Science 76 83
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• The man was actually poisoned by his wife, but continued transfusion experiments on human beings would have inevitably produced the same result. For the full account of this seventeenth-century murder case, see Nicolson Pepys' Diary and the New Science 89 94
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• 1673 . Phil. Trans. , 8 : 6054 – 6055 .
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• 1673 . Phil. Trans. , 8 : 6052 – 6054 .
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• 1673 . Phil. Trans. , 8 : 6078 – 6079 .
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• 1673 . Phil. Trans. , 8 : 6115 – 6115 .
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• 1772 . The Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy . Works , ii : 88 – 88 .
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• Evelyn's . 1661 . Diary , June 19 ‘The seed of the East Indian tree Strychnos nux-vomica, [is] one of the sources from which strychnine is derived; strychnine itself was first produced in 1818’ (note by E. S. de Beer).
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• Pepys's entry is even more laconic. The two relevant entries in Birch's Thomas History of the Royal Society 1756 read as follows: 8 March 1664/5—‘Mr. Graunt produced a box of Macassar poison, which was ordered to be tried out at the next meeting; by dipping a needle in the poison and pricking some dog, or cat, or pullet with it’ (vol. ii, p. 21); 15 March 1664/5—‘The experiment of trying to poison a dog with some of the Macassar powder, in which a needle had been dipped, was made, but without success’ (vol. ii, p. 23).
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• According to Birch's History ii 31 31 a thread was dipped in ‘the Florentine poison’ and drawn with a needle through the skin on the neck of a pullet, ‘which within two or three minutes was thereby so stupified, that it fell down’ but recovered. The procedure was altered slightly for the ‘kitling’—they pricked it ‘in the palate of its mouth with a needle dipt in the poison; which had no other effect but making the animal somewhat drowsy, and to slabber at the mouth’.
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• 1712 . Phil. Trans. , 27 : 485 – 486 .
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• 1712 . Phil. Trans. , 27 : 494 – 495 .
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• Harwood . 1928 . Love for Animals and How It Developed in Great Britain 103 – 105 . New York 111
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