The Playwright, the Practitioner, the Politician, the President, and the Pathologist: A Guide to the 1900 Senate Document Titled "Vivisection"

THE PLAYWRIGHT, THE PRACTITIONER, THE POLITICIAN, THE PRESIDENT, AND THE PATHOLOGIST: A GUIDE TO THE 1900 SENATE DOCUMENT TITLED "VIVISECTION" THOMAS A. WOOLSEY* and ROBERT E. BURKEJ with the assistance of SUSAN SAUERt The Event On February 21, 1900, a hearing was conducted before the subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on the District of Columbia . Its purpose was to hear testimony on "a bill for the further prevention of cruelty to animals in the District of Columbia" (Senate bill [S.] 34; 56th Congr. 1st sess.). The proceedings of the hearing, with an appendix , were published as Senate Document 337, titled Vivisection [I]. According to its proponents, the purpose of S. 34 was to restrict animal experimentation in the district; according to its opponents, S. 34 would lead to an effective abolition of animal experimentation in the United States of America [2, p. 2]. Senate 34 was not the first legislation introduced in the United States with the intent of restricting animal experimentation. In 1880, and thereafter, similar bills were considered in state legislatures [3, p. 141]. Bills were introduced in the 1st session of the 54th United States ConThe authors thank the personnel of the Alan Mason Chesney Archives of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for access to and copies of certain papers of W. H. Welch, and Margo Gross for secretarial assistance. Their colleagues, Marianne GlassDuffy , William M. Landau, Steven E. Petersen, Peter H. Raven, and Henry G. Schwartz kindly read and commented on an early version of this manuscript. None of this work was supported by a public agency. *James L. O'Leary Division of Experimental Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri 63110. tLaboratory of Neural Control, National Institutes of Health, Building 36—Room 5A29, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20205.¿Society for Neuroscience, 11 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.© 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/87/3002-05 14$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 30, 2 ¦ Winter 1987 \ 235 gress, as S. 1552, in 1896 [4, p. 6] and in the 1st session of the 55th Congress, as S. 1063 in 1897 [5, p. 31]. However, the hearing in 1900 is of particular interest because it is a fully documented report of an event at which both sides of this issue were well organized and represented. The opponents and the proponents both drew heavily on the experience in England with the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876. The purpose of this paper is to give an account of and a guide to the Senate hearing in 1900. To place the hearing in context, we provide biographical information on five individuals, four of whom were directly involved in the hearing; we set the general historical background; and we summarize preceding events in England. In comparing the developments regarding opposition to animal experimentation in two nations that Mark Twain characterized as "divided by a common language," it is possible to gain some insight as to why legislation restricting animal experimentation was passed in Britain while similar legislation in the United States was not. The Principals Our title refers to five individuals each of whom can be considered "prototypical." The playwright was Henry Burgh (1823-1888), an independently wealthy man who founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [6, p. 106]. Burgh was a New Yorker who wrote and produced several plays and published some poetry. Although dead for 12 years, his influence was pervasive at the hearing [1, pp. 56, 134, 185, 186]. The practitioner was Albert Leffingwell, M.D. (1845-1917), of Aurora , New York [7, p. 718], A graduate of Hamilton College, he had served as an instructor in physiology. His medical training was taken at Long Island College Hospital in 1876, and he had been active in humane matters since 1872. By 1900, he had retired from the active practice of medicine [1, p. 112]. Leffingwell was secretary of the American Society for the Regulation of Vivisection [1, p. 161], an organization he founded. He coordinated the testimony of those in favor of the bill. The politician...