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I've started a rewrite and expansion of this page, which may look a bit lopsided in places until the first draft is done. I also moved it to Brown Dog riots, as they represent the key incident that seemed shocking at the time (hundreds of medical researchers and their supporters fighting with the police in Trafalgar Square), but it can always be moved back to Brown Dog affair if the riots title seems inappropriate after the re-write. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 03:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Google books has a listing for TSOS, but there's no preview available in the UK. It might be that a USian can see a PDF where I can see nothing. if so, there might be something interesting in the book. (I'm presupposing, SV, that you don't have a dusty copy of it on your desk right now. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 23:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I hesitate to suggest new sections which I'm not prepared to write myself, but taking account of the Steve Jones telegraph article, the prominence of the DB in NAVS publicity, this, and (long shot) articles such as this which look back to Hageby's work, is a section on the relevance of the DBA today worth a candle? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 23:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
It might make it a bit long. I'd love to keep this under the length that triggers the warning. Remember we still have to fill out bits about the trial and the riots.
Then check this out An Exploration of the Sculptures of Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Brown Dog, Battersea, South London, England
Physiological Society academics celebrate the BDA to this day! Also relevant to the idea of a contemporary resonance type section. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the New York Times archive under Lind-af-Hageby, it seems she had another run-in with Bayliss and Starling, in yet another libel trial over vivisection, in 1913. According to the NYT articles, she had some exhibits set up in London to promote anti-vivisection, and a doctor disparaged her and/or her work. She sued him and his publication for libel, and by this time she was apparently an attorney, representing herself. She apparently made news by breaking records in the length of her verbal presentations during the trial, one lasting 9 hours. It seems both Starling and Bayliss participated as witnesses, along with many other eminent scientists in different disciplines. She lost the case, though the judge ended up commending her on her demeanor and abilities, and she had to start another fund raiser to cover her costs. I wonder if all of this merits any mention here, or only in her own article. Crum375 ( talk) 02:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking of nominating this very soon, just to make sure there's plenty of time for people to judge it before the 10th. Any thoughts about whether it's ready? SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I've just printer the DBA article, and the Acol article, one after another; same browser, same printer. DBA comes out in a tiny font. Acol in a larger font. What's all that about, then? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 10:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Its a minor point, I know, but the seminal experiment published by Starling and Bayliss actually used a ligated and denervated section of jejunum, not duodenum. The section has been edited to remove the mention of jejunum from the text. Rockpocke t 20:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The evidence of the vivisectors themselves, in the trial of Bayliss v. Coleridge, proved that a deep wound was made in the body of the dog in December, and a duct in its inside was tied up so as to deprive it of the proper use of one of its internal organs. The wound was then sewn up and the dog having recovered from anaesthetics it was kept in a cage from December to February. Then a fresh wound was made to ascertain whether the tying of the duct had produced inflammation or not. This was done under anaesthetics, then the dog, with this wound clamped together with iron forceps, was handed over to another vivisector, who fastened it down to a board and made another severe wound in its neck, exposing a gland; he fixed little pipes to the end of its arteries, he attached electrodes to its dissected-out nerves, he put a tube into its severed windpipe which was connected under the floor to an automatic pump in another room, in the charge of a laboratory boy, supplying artificial respiratory of anaesthetics, on which apparatus depended the dog’s insensibility. After about an hour on that board the dog was finally handed over to a third operator, who killed it. [1]
I'm thinking this is starting to get too long. I was hoping to keep it at around 30 kilbytes, just so that it's readable, but it's up to 40, so I may go in later and try to tighten it, if that's all right with everyone. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 05:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
We said that the women enrolled in 1902, but Richard Ryder says they studied for two years before publishing in 1903, which suggests they enrolled in 1901. I've tweaked the writing to get rid of the inconsistency, but it would be good if we could check the enrollment date. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 07:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
TS, I reverted your recent additions because of the level of detail. I'm sorry for doing a wholesale revert. It's just easier than trying to keep some and remove other bits. Details like the loony left aren't really appropriate, especially for 1903, and most readers won't know what it refers to. Also, Mason is mentioned a few times without saying who he is, and the two antivivisection societies are mentioned, without saying which ones. We don't say who Louise Woodward is, we don't know why Mason thinks she is the author etc. I'll restore some of the other details later, once I've had a chance to read through for flow, if that's all right. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm still unclear about when the main riots were, and I'm getting the sense we're describing the same night (the big Strand/Trafalgar Square march and riots), but attributing it to two different nights. Not our fault, because it's what the sources do, but I wish we could pin things down. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone with sources know why there were apparently 14 months of calm, with no demonstrations or riots, from the time the memorial was unveiled on September 15, 1906, to when the first demonstrations started in November 1907? Why did it take so long for the students to read the plaque and react? Crum375 05:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Would the text of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 be useful and acceptable on this private site as external link? It is the only place I've been able to find this text online so far. It is also on archive.org here, if needed for stability. Crum375 03:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hey, we've got FA status! Thanks to everyone who collaborated on this article. It was great teamwork. :-)
I've add it as a main-page suggestion here. We have some competition for December 10, it seems, from a very worthy opponent. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 06:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
1. We seem to have some redundancy of information in Notes. Each time Mason is cited in Notes, we get the full book title. Compare with California Condor#References.
2. We seem to have some redundancy of information between Notes and References. Compare with Night of the Long Knives#Footnotes & References
3. What's the criteria for inclusion in Further reading. Should Mason not be in there? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 21:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I think there are some open issues with the book. I tried adding an image of the front page for discussion (with another placement possibility here). What do people think? After all, this book was to a large extent behind the original controversy, and it seems to be hard to get. The page also gives us some useful information: it confirms the fifth edition in 1913, and shows the publisher of this edition was the "Animal Defense & Anti-vivisection Society". Also, per NAVS here. the 'Fun' chapter in the original version was not removed, but was simply retitled to "The Vivisections of the Brown Dog." Crum375 ( talk) 16:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Coleridge examined their material and was particularly struck by the evidence presented in a chapter entitled ‘Fun’ - in a later edition of ‘The Shambles of Science’ it was given the heading ‘The Vivisections of the Brown Dog’. It described how the supposedly serious business of vivisection demonstrations in medical schools were often no more than entertainments.
No, I mean who are the sources for the other changes. I'm getting very confused by some of the alterations. MAterial that is accurate is being removed, and other material that I can't find sources for is being added e.g.
"The Animal Defense and Anti-vivisection Society, founded by Lind-af-Hageby in 1903, [1] republished the book, printing a fifth edition by 1913."<ref name=Kalechofsky/> Where does K say this? That the BUAV republished it was removed, which is in Mason. Was there a reason for that removal? SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 21:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
We're on the main page for the 10th!
Kudos to SlimVirgin for her remarkable rush-job achievement. Crum375 ( talk) 17:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a bad idea. Every April Fools' Day there's a big debate over which article to feature, and you decide to run this one in the middle of December? It would have been perfect! Lampman ( talk) 00:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
"It" should be used as the pronoun when referring to the brown dog, as it's the standard grammatical convention to use non-gendered pronouns when referring to animals. The primary sources also use such conventions, the text should be kept consistent. 67.159.70.74 ( talk)
Used to refer to that one previously mentioned. Used of a nonhuman entity; an animate being whose sex is unspecified, unknown, or irrelevant; a group of objects or individuals; an action; or an abstraction: polished the table until it shone; couldn't find out who it was; opened the meeting by calling it to order.
Or Wiktionary
it (subjective and objective it, reflexive and intensive itself, possessive adjective and noun its) The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a non-human entity, to an inanimate thing with no or unknown sex or gender.
Or Encarta http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861622690/it.html
it [ it ] CORE MEANING: a pronoun used to refer to an object or an animal, and sometimes a baby It's a lovely baby. They've had the dog a week, and they still haven't thought of a name for it.
Sooo that would be support for the existence of any convention. Two things each definition have in common is that they establish a set of sufficient, but not neccessary condition, for the use of the term, most of which are met here: Nonhuman entity--a dog is not a human Unspecified/Unknown sex--The sex is unknown in this case, I think SlimVirgin pointed that out. Irrelevant Sex--Whether or not vivisection on a dog is wrong or right does not seem to be contingent upon the sex of the animal. While it may be true that some (or many) anti-vivisection activists prefer to refer to animals with the same linguistic conventions as humans, that's not out of absolute neccessity, as there is plenty of rooms for a neutrally-connotated version of "it" in the English language.
All of the above isn't of course to say that there aren't times when "it" can be a term with specific baggage, but here it seems that to say he/she would be much more deliberately aligned with a particular perspective. Imagine how out-of-place/awkwardly biased the article would look if instances of the word "he" in question were replaced with "he or she." It seems like using "it" would be a more appropriate resolution of this issue than picking a gender arbitrarily. Balonkey ( talk) 06:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually on consideration we already have a reliable source for the claim that the dog is male namely that the comments from the Swedish witnesses referred to the dog as he. As they witnessed the operations and observed the dog prior, it's not really OR to presume they knew the sex of the dog. It seems unlikely they would have referred to the dog as a he if it was female especially as they were feminists (this is speculatory obviously but it doesn't really matter since we can presuppose the dog is male based on their comments in the absence of reliable sources which differ) Indeed (while I admit again that this is completely speculatory) it seems if the dog was female and they were calling it a he, this would have been used as evidence by those who carried out the experiments that they clearly hadn't observed the dog or experiments very well. Therefore, it seems deferring to the original author would be fine and from what I can tell, SlimVirgin was the first to establish a clearcut preference in this area Nil Einne ( talk) 09:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The animal exhibits all the signs of intense suffering; in his struggles, he again and again lifts his body from the board, and makes powerful attempts to get free.
Referring to the dog as "he" or "it" is pushing either a pro or anti animal rights view. I've fixed the article to always refer to the dog as "the dog". Opinions may differ on whether this dog should be referred to as an "it" or "he" (or even possibly "she") but there is no doubt that we can refer to this dog using "the dog".
V ( talk) 09:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Aha! I've found supporting evidence that the dog was indeed male it's veering into original research though.
If you look at a 1902 experiment conducted by Bayliss and Starling on this page you'll find that they refer to the female dog the experiment was conducted on as a "bitch". [8]
"On January 16th 1902, a bitch of about 6 kilos weight ..."
If you look at Bayliss and Starlings report that I believe, based on the date mentioned and the similarity in the procedure described, is the vivisection that prompted this affair: The oxygen exchange of the pancreas J. Barcroft and E. H. Starling J. Physiol. 1904;31;491-496 [9]
The text is on 1904 so should be public domain so I'm going to quote the relevant paragraphs. (Page 4 of the linked PDF, page 492 of Physiol. 1904;31)
An experiment which we performed on February 5, 1903 may serve as a sample of the whole series. The dog was ansesthetised with morphia and subseqtuently with A.C.E. mixture. Tracheotomny was performed and the abdomen was opened. The vein leading from the tail of the pancreas (which amounts to about one-sixth of the whole organ) was dissected out and ligatures were so placed that a cannula might be rapidly inserted into the vein at a later stage of the operation. A cannula was put into the pancreatic duct and the abdomen was closed up. The blood-pressure was taken from the carotid artery. Cannulm were placed in the femoral artery and jugular vein: the former for the abstraction of samples of arterial blood, the latter in order to return whipped blood into the dog. It is necessary at this point to render the dog's blood non-coagulable. In a few of our earlier experiments we used leech extract for this purpose, but we soon adopted the method of defibrinating, the animal. Before the beginning of the defibrination the dog was placed in a bath of warm salt solution where it remained for the rest of the experiment. When the blood wvas sufficiently free from fibrin the cannula was placed in the vein leading from the pancreas. The blood which flowed from this cannula, other than that which was used for analysis, was collected and injected into the jugular vein.
Assuming this is the procedure in question it strongly suggests that the dog was male given that Bayliss and Starling specifically refer to a female dog as a "bitch" rather than a dog in their earlier report. It also gives us a precise date for the event; February 5, 1903. Unfortunately although the descriptions match Bayliss' description of what occurred according to this wikipedia article, so far I haven't found a source that confirms that this is describing the same event leaving the sex of the dog unconfirmed by this source. I'll be researching more on this topic and see whether I can find a reference that links them. V ( talk) 11:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Some of these claims [10]
"Starling was the first witness. He admitted that he had broken the law by using the dog twice, but said in his defence that he had done so to avoid sacrificing two dogs.[4] The court accepted Bayliss's statement that the brown dog had been anaesthetized with one-and-a-half grains of morphia and six ounces of alcohol, chloroform, and ether. He further stated that the dog had been suffering from chorea, a disease involving involuntary spasm, meaning that any movement the women had witnessed was not purposive. In addition, Bayliss testified that a tracheotomy had been performed, and that it was therefore impossible for the women to have heard the dog crying and whining, as they had claimed."
Sourced to what I assume is Gratzer, Walter. Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 225. are directly contradicted by a paper published in Advances in Physiology Education 274:18-33, 1998.
THE QUEEN HAS BEEN DREADFULLY SHOCKED’’: ASPECTS OF TEACHING EXPERIMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY USING ANIMALS IN BRITAIN, 1876 – 1986 [11](PDF) Page S23 Libel And Law Breaking: The Brown Dog Affair of 1903 (Page 7 of the PDF)
From this source what I'm garnering is something along these lines:
"Although the two Swedish women suggested that the dogs vocal cords had been cut to prevent it crying out, and insisted that the dog had not been anesthetized. Henry Dale, the aforementioned student who had assisted in the demonstration confirmed in his testimony that the dog was moribund from anesthetics when passed to him to kill."
The first paragraph from the wikipedia article says that the two Swedish women heard the dog crying and whining, and that Bayliss was the one who claimed it was impossible for them to have heard any crying. According to the second source it's the two women who claimed that the dogs vocal cords had been cut to prevent the dog from crying out. As far as I can tell these claims directly contradict each other.
Is there anyway to harmonize this conflict between the two narratives or incorporate them both into the article contradiction and all? V ( talk) 14:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The info pane under the first photo has been vandalised. If someone with more time than me would care to repair this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 ( talk) 14:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The restriction on multiple uses of an animal continues to this day. I'm curious - what motivated animal-rights proponents to favor this policy? It must considerably increase the number of animals killed to accomplish the same amount of research. 70.15.116.59 ( talk) 17:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the article about women's sufferage. Can an editor farmilar with this artilce explain the relevance?TIA -- Tom 18:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Gratzer is noted to have said something six times in this article. This is pretty unusual for Wikipedia articles in general and FA articles in particular. I would only expect such disclamatory statements to litter the article if nobody is able to find a corroborating legitimate source, and if the source that's used is questionable. Is that what's going on here? Is there only a single source for all this stuff, and he's not considered a trustworthy source? Otherwise the "According to Gratzer" in-text mentions should be eliminated, except probably the first one. Tempshill ( talk) 22:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed some of the details of the second vivisection. [12] I doubt that the work of Keith Mann is fully reliable and neutral in this aspect (if nothing else it probably draws from non-neutral sources itself), and it also seems to contradict other sources. The process still seems cruel enough... / SvNH 14:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Sigh... please read what I wrote above and in the edit summary instead. / SvNH 15:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Certain parts of this article, most notably the section beginning at "Vivisection of the brown dog", ending at "Involvement of the National Anti-Vivisection Society", portrays language that is biased towards the Anti-Vivisection or Animal Rights movements, describing the researchers as brutal and inhumane, whilst glorifying the Swedish activists.
Examples of such language include:
The dog was handed over to a student, Henry Dale, a future Nobel laureate, who removed the dog's pancreas, then killed him with a knife. - The language here implies that the pancreas was removed with no specific scientific intent, and that Dale executed the dog for no apparent reason.
and
The book was reportedly a bombshell, receiving 200 reviews in four months. (Referring to Louise Lind-af-Hageby's The Shambles of Science) - The citation, [28], leads to an Animal Rights book, "Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism".
A re-write of this section with unbiased language is strongly recommended.
Valedict ( talk) 21:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Valedict ( talk) 03:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Referring to the first example, I do not take the same inference from it as Valedict. I take it as a factual reportage: he removed the pancreas and then killed the dog with a knife. You can presume this was for scientific reasons, or because he was a mad sadist. I do not agree at all that the words lead to one or other conclusion. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 12:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone supply the coordinates of the original location of the Brown Dog statue? I've wandered around the Latchmere part of Battersea without being able to locate it. thanks -- Tagishsimon (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I visited both locations earlier this evening. Light was not great, but I've updated the statue image & added a close-up of the coquettish dog. (Which others can delete if they think it's too much). And to the right there's an image of the location of the original statue in Latchmere Park. Much thanks to Crum375 for pointing me to the location; I had figured, incorrectly, that if I cycled around vaguely for long enough, I'd stumble across it.
The Battersea Park statue is tucked away in a woodland walk, meaning that it'll be seen by a small fraction of a percent of the people who ever visit the park. But the dog looks happy enough, and other than the fencing, it's a pleasant enough location. I'm guessing the dog spends his time wondering what the squirrels are up to. Someone seems to have added a means of holding a flower on the front of the plinth, which as you'll see has a reasonably fresh daffodil in it.
The circular fencing at Latchmere Park is still extant, but there's no obvious indication of exactly where the statue stood. It's a smaller enclosure than I had thought from seeing the old b&w photo ... maybe they made policemen smaller in those days? It is surrounded on three sides by the terraced houses of the Latchmere estate, which look as solid today as they must have done when the Board of Works erected them in 1903. The circle forms the middle of an alleyway which would be (and is) presumably used as a short-cut by residents, as well as affording entrance through gates to the park proper. I can see why the residents would quickly come to be protective of "their" dog in their park. But I'm guessing that the scale of the original plinth was, again, smaller than I had thought, or else it would surely have got in the way. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 20:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
What difference does it make that Dickens was the founder of a radical paper several decades back, before publication of the story in it about this series of events. You could equally put his name in for everything the paper every published a story of. it would only make sense for those stories which he had a role in connection with, which is not in any possible way relevant here. Its just an attempt to get an impressive name listed. It would make every bit as much sense to say the event was at University college, founded by Jeremy Bentham and the riot was in Trafalfar Square,named after the victory by Nelson, or that the statue was in Battersea Park, designed by James Pennethorne. DGG ( talk) 23:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
In the section "Infiltration by Swedish activists", the second sentence is incomplete, and seems slightly unsatisfactory in other ways.
I can't fix it because I don't know quite what it's trying to say. Perhaps it should be part of the first sentence, with a comma or a dash? Apart from that, can the information that Louise was a countess be balanced by information about Leisa, or left out? And did they both visit the Pasteur Institute, or was that just Leisa? The "were appalled" suggests both, but the (incomplete) sentence is written as if the information that Leisa visited the institute balances the info that Louise was a countess. Ashton1983 ( talk) 01:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I've started a rewrite and expansion of this page, which may look a bit lopsided in places until the first draft is done. I also moved it to Brown Dog riots, as they represent the key incident that seemed shocking at the time (hundreds of medical researchers and their supporters fighting with the police in Trafalgar Square), but it can always be moved back to Brown Dog affair if the riots title seems inappropriate after the re-write. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 03:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Google books has a listing for TSOS, but there's no preview available in the UK. It might be that a USian can see a PDF where I can see nothing. if so, there might be something interesting in the book. (I'm presupposing, SV, that you don't have a dusty copy of it on your desk right now. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 23:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I hesitate to suggest new sections which I'm not prepared to write myself, but taking account of the Steve Jones telegraph article, the prominence of the DB in NAVS publicity, this, and (long shot) articles such as this which look back to Hageby's work, is a section on the relevance of the DBA today worth a candle? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 23:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
It might make it a bit long. I'd love to keep this under the length that triggers the warning. Remember we still have to fill out bits about the trial and the riots.
Then check this out An Exploration of the Sculptures of Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Brown Dog, Battersea, South London, England
Physiological Society academics celebrate the BDA to this day! Also relevant to the idea of a contemporary resonance type section. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the New York Times archive under Lind-af-Hageby, it seems she had another run-in with Bayliss and Starling, in yet another libel trial over vivisection, in 1913. According to the NYT articles, she had some exhibits set up in London to promote anti-vivisection, and a doctor disparaged her and/or her work. She sued him and his publication for libel, and by this time she was apparently an attorney, representing herself. She apparently made news by breaking records in the length of her verbal presentations during the trial, one lasting 9 hours. It seems both Starling and Bayliss participated as witnesses, along with many other eminent scientists in different disciplines. She lost the case, though the judge ended up commending her on her demeanor and abilities, and she had to start another fund raiser to cover her costs. I wonder if all of this merits any mention here, or only in her own article. Crum375 ( talk) 02:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking of nominating this very soon, just to make sure there's plenty of time for people to judge it before the 10th. Any thoughts about whether it's ready? SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I've just printer the DBA article, and the Acol article, one after another; same browser, same printer. DBA comes out in a tiny font. Acol in a larger font. What's all that about, then? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 10:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Its a minor point, I know, but the seminal experiment published by Starling and Bayliss actually used a ligated and denervated section of jejunum, not duodenum. The section has been edited to remove the mention of jejunum from the text. Rockpocke t 20:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The evidence of the vivisectors themselves, in the trial of Bayliss v. Coleridge, proved that a deep wound was made in the body of the dog in December, and a duct in its inside was tied up so as to deprive it of the proper use of one of its internal organs. The wound was then sewn up and the dog having recovered from anaesthetics it was kept in a cage from December to February. Then a fresh wound was made to ascertain whether the tying of the duct had produced inflammation or not. This was done under anaesthetics, then the dog, with this wound clamped together with iron forceps, was handed over to another vivisector, who fastened it down to a board and made another severe wound in its neck, exposing a gland; he fixed little pipes to the end of its arteries, he attached electrodes to its dissected-out nerves, he put a tube into its severed windpipe which was connected under the floor to an automatic pump in another room, in the charge of a laboratory boy, supplying artificial respiratory of anaesthetics, on which apparatus depended the dog’s insensibility. After about an hour on that board the dog was finally handed over to a third operator, who killed it. [1]
I'm thinking this is starting to get too long. I was hoping to keep it at around 30 kilbytes, just so that it's readable, but it's up to 40, so I may go in later and try to tighten it, if that's all right with everyone. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 05:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
We said that the women enrolled in 1902, but Richard Ryder says they studied for two years before publishing in 1903, which suggests they enrolled in 1901. I've tweaked the writing to get rid of the inconsistency, but it would be good if we could check the enrollment date. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 07:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
TS, I reverted your recent additions because of the level of detail. I'm sorry for doing a wholesale revert. It's just easier than trying to keep some and remove other bits. Details like the loony left aren't really appropriate, especially for 1903, and most readers won't know what it refers to. Also, Mason is mentioned a few times without saying who he is, and the two antivivisection societies are mentioned, without saying which ones. We don't say who Louise Woodward is, we don't know why Mason thinks she is the author etc. I'll restore some of the other details later, once I've had a chance to read through for flow, if that's all right. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm still unclear about when the main riots were, and I'm getting the sense we're describing the same night (the big Strand/Trafalgar Square march and riots), but attributing it to two different nights. Not our fault, because it's what the sources do, but I wish we could pin things down. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone with sources know why there were apparently 14 months of calm, with no demonstrations or riots, from the time the memorial was unveiled on September 15, 1906, to when the first demonstrations started in November 1907? Why did it take so long for the students to read the plaque and react? Crum375 05:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Would the text of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 be useful and acceptable on this private site as external link? It is the only place I've been able to find this text online so far. It is also on archive.org here, if needed for stability. Crum375 03:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hey, we've got FA status! Thanks to everyone who collaborated on this article. It was great teamwork. :-)
I've add it as a main-page suggestion here. We have some competition for December 10, it seems, from a very worthy opponent. SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 06:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
1. We seem to have some redundancy of information in Notes. Each time Mason is cited in Notes, we get the full book title. Compare with California Condor#References.
2. We seem to have some redundancy of information between Notes and References. Compare with Night of the Long Knives#Footnotes & References
3. What's the criteria for inclusion in Further reading. Should Mason not be in there? -- Tagishsimon (talk) 21:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I think there are some open issues with the book. I tried adding an image of the front page for discussion (with another placement possibility here). What do people think? After all, this book was to a large extent behind the original controversy, and it seems to be hard to get. The page also gives us some useful information: it confirms the fifth edition in 1913, and shows the publisher of this edition was the "Animal Defense & Anti-vivisection Society". Also, per NAVS here. the 'Fun' chapter in the original version was not removed, but was simply retitled to "The Vivisections of the Brown Dog." Crum375 ( talk) 16:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Coleridge examined their material and was particularly struck by the evidence presented in a chapter entitled ‘Fun’ - in a later edition of ‘The Shambles of Science’ it was given the heading ‘The Vivisections of the Brown Dog’. It described how the supposedly serious business of vivisection demonstrations in medical schools were often no more than entertainments.
No, I mean who are the sources for the other changes. I'm getting very confused by some of the alterations. MAterial that is accurate is being removed, and other material that I can't find sources for is being added e.g.
"The Animal Defense and Anti-vivisection Society, founded by Lind-af-Hageby in 1903, [1] republished the book, printing a fifth edition by 1913."<ref name=Kalechofsky/> Where does K say this? That the BUAV republished it was removed, which is in Mason. Was there a reason for that removal? SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 21:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
We're on the main page for the 10th!
Kudos to SlimVirgin for her remarkable rush-job achievement. Crum375 ( talk) 17:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a bad idea. Every April Fools' Day there's a big debate over which article to feature, and you decide to run this one in the middle of December? It would have been perfect! Lampman ( talk) 00:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
"It" should be used as the pronoun when referring to the brown dog, as it's the standard grammatical convention to use non-gendered pronouns when referring to animals. The primary sources also use such conventions, the text should be kept consistent. 67.159.70.74 ( talk)
Used to refer to that one previously mentioned. Used of a nonhuman entity; an animate being whose sex is unspecified, unknown, or irrelevant; a group of objects or individuals; an action; or an abstraction: polished the table until it shone; couldn't find out who it was; opened the meeting by calling it to order.
Or Wiktionary
it (subjective and objective it, reflexive and intensive itself, possessive adjective and noun its) The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a non-human entity, to an inanimate thing with no or unknown sex or gender.
Or Encarta http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861622690/it.html
it [ it ] CORE MEANING: a pronoun used to refer to an object or an animal, and sometimes a baby It's a lovely baby. They've had the dog a week, and they still haven't thought of a name for it.
Sooo that would be support for the existence of any convention. Two things each definition have in common is that they establish a set of sufficient, but not neccessary condition, for the use of the term, most of which are met here: Nonhuman entity--a dog is not a human Unspecified/Unknown sex--The sex is unknown in this case, I think SlimVirgin pointed that out. Irrelevant Sex--Whether or not vivisection on a dog is wrong or right does not seem to be contingent upon the sex of the animal. While it may be true that some (or many) anti-vivisection activists prefer to refer to animals with the same linguistic conventions as humans, that's not out of absolute neccessity, as there is plenty of rooms for a neutrally-connotated version of "it" in the English language.
All of the above isn't of course to say that there aren't times when "it" can be a term with specific baggage, but here it seems that to say he/she would be much more deliberately aligned with a particular perspective. Imagine how out-of-place/awkwardly biased the article would look if instances of the word "he" in question were replaced with "he or she." It seems like using "it" would be a more appropriate resolution of this issue than picking a gender arbitrarily. Balonkey ( talk) 06:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually on consideration we already have a reliable source for the claim that the dog is male namely that the comments from the Swedish witnesses referred to the dog as he. As they witnessed the operations and observed the dog prior, it's not really OR to presume they knew the sex of the dog. It seems unlikely they would have referred to the dog as a he if it was female especially as they were feminists (this is speculatory obviously but it doesn't really matter since we can presuppose the dog is male based on their comments in the absence of reliable sources which differ) Indeed (while I admit again that this is completely speculatory) it seems if the dog was female and they were calling it a he, this would have been used as evidence by those who carried out the experiments that they clearly hadn't observed the dog or experiments very well. Therefore, it seems deferring to the original author would be fine and from what I can tell, SlimVirgin was the first to establish a clearcut preference in this area Nil Einne ( talk) 09:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The animal exhibits all the signs of intense suffering; in his struggles, he again and again lifts his body from the board, and makes powerful attempts to get free.
Referring to the dog as "he" or "it" is pushing either a pro or anti animal rights view. I've fixed the article to always refer to the dog as "the dog". Opinions may differ on whether this dog should be referred to as an "it" or "he" (or even possibly "she") but there is no doubt that we can refer to this dog using "the dog".
V ( talk) 09:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Aha! I've found supporting evidence that the dog was indeed male it's veering into original research though.
If you look at a 1902 experiment conducted by Bayliss and Starling on this page you'll find that they refer to the female dog the experiment was conducted on as a "bitch". [8]
"On January 16th 1902, a bitch of about 6 kilos weight ..."
If you look at Bayliss and Starlings report that I believe, based on the date mentioned and the similarity in the procedure described, is the vivisection that prompted this affair: The oxygen exchange of the pancreas J. Barcroft and E. H. Starling J. Physiol. 1904;31;491-496 [9]
The text is on 1904 so should be public domain so I'm going to quote the relevant paragraphs. (Page 4 of the linked PDF, page 492 of Physiol. 1904;31)
An experiment which we performed on February 5, 1903 may serve as a sample of the whole series. The dog was ansesthetised with morphia and subseqtuently with A.C.E. mixture. Tracheotomny was performed and the abdomen was opened. The vein leading from the tail of the pancreas (which amounts to about one-sixth of the whole organ) was dissected out and ligatures were so placed that a cannula might be rapidly inserted into the vein at a later stage of the operation. A cannula was put into the pancreatic duct and the abdomen was closed up. The blood-pressure was taken from the carotid artery. Cannulm were placed in the femoral artery and jugular vein: the former for the abstraction of samples of arterial blood, the latter in order to return whipped blood into the dog. It is necessary at this point to render the dog's blood non-coagulable. In a few of our earlier experiments we used leech extract for this purpose, but we soon adopted the method of defibrinating, the animal. Before the beginning of the defibrination the dog was placed in a bath of warm salt solution where it remained for the rest of the experiment. When the blood wvas sufficiently free from fibrin the cannula was placed in the vein leading from the pancreas. The blood which flowed from this cannula, other than that which was used for analysis, was collected and injected into the jugular vein.
Assuming this is the procedure in question it strongly suggests that the dog was male given that Bayliss and Starling specifically refer to a female dog as a "bitch" rather than a dog in their earlier report. It also gives us a precise date for the event; February 5, 1903. Unfortunately although the descriptions match Bayliss' description of what occurred according to this wikipedia article, so far I haven't found a source that confirms that this is describing the same event leaving the sex of the dog unconfirmed by this source. I'll be researching more on this topic and see whether I can find a reference that links them. V ( talk) 11:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Some of these claims [10]
"Starling was the first witness. He admitted that he had broken the law by using the dog twice, but said in his defence that he had done so to avoid sacrificing two dogs.[4] The court accepted Bayliss's statement that the brown dog had been anaesthetized with one-and-a-half grains of morphia and six ounces of alcohol, chloroform, and ether. He further stated that the dog had been suffering from chorea, a disease involving involuntary spasm, meaning that any movement the women had witnessed was not purposive. In addition, Bayliss testified that a tracheotomy had been performed, and that it was therefore impossible for the women to have heard the dog crying and whining, as they had claimed."
Sourced to what I assume is Gratzer, Walter. Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 225. are directly contradicted by a paper published in Advances in Physiology Education 274:18-33, 1998.
THE QUEEN HAS BEEN DREADFULLY SHOCKED’’: ASPECTS OF TEACHING EXPERIMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY USING ANIMALS IN BRITAIN, 1876 – 1986 [11](PDF) Page S23 Libel And Law Breaking: The Brown Dog Affair of 1903 (Page 7 of the PDF)
From this source what I'm garnering is something along these lines:
"Although the two Swedish women suggested that the dogs vocal cords had been cut to prevent it crying out, and insisted that the dog had not been anesthetized. Henry Dale, the aforementioned student who had assisted in the demonstration confirmed in his testimony that the dog was moribund from anesthetics when passed to him to kill."
The first paragraph from the wikipedia article says that the two Swedish women heard the dog crying and whining, and that Bayliss was the one who claimed it was impossible for them to have heard any crying. According to the second source it's the two women who claimed that the dogs vocal cords had been cut to prevent the dog from crying out. As far as I can tell these claims directly contradict each other.
Is there anyway to harmonize this conflict between the two narratives or incorporate them both into the article contradiction and all? V ( talk) 14:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The info pane under the first photo has been vandalised. If someone with more time than me would care to repair this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 ( talk) 14:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
The restriction on multiple uses of an animal continues to this day. I'm curious - what motivated animal-rights proponents to favor this policy? It must considerably increase the number of animals killed to accomplish the same amount of research. 70.15.116.59 ( talk) 17:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the article about women's sufferage. Can an editor farmilar with this artilce explain the relevance?TIA -- Tom 18:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Gratzer is noted to have said something six times in this article. This is pretty unusual for Wikipedia articles in general and FA articles in particular. I would only expect such disclamatory statements to litter the article if nobody is able to find a corroborating legitimate source, and if the source that's used is questionable. Is that what's going on here? Is there only a single source for all this stuff, and he's not considered a trustworthy source? Otherwise the "According to Gratzer" in-text mentions should be eliminated, except probably the first one. Tempshill ( talk) 22:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed some of the details of the second vivisection. [12] I doubt that the work of Keith Mann is fully reliable and neutral in this aspect (if nothing else it probably draws from non-neutral sources itself), and it also seems to contradict other sources. The process still seems cruel enough... / SvNH 14:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Sigh... please read what I wrote above and in the edit summary instead. / SvNH 15:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Certain parts of this article, most notably the section beginning at "Vivisection of the brown dog", ending at "Involvement of the National Anti-Vivisection Society", portrays language that is biased towards the Anti-Vivisection or Animal Rights movements, describing the researchers as brutal and inhumane, whilst glorifying the Swedish activists.
Examples of such language include:
The dog was handed over to a student, Henry Dale, a future Nobel laureate, who removed the dog's pancreas, then killed him with a knife. - The language here implies that the pancreas was removed with no specific scientific intent, and that Dale executed the dog for no apparent reason.
and
The book was reportedly a bombshell, receiving 200 reviews in four months. (Referring to Louise Lind-af-Hageby's The Shambles of Science) - The citation, [28], leads to an Animal Rights book, "Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism".
A re-write of this section with unbiased language is strongly recommended.
Valedict ( talk) 21:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Valedict ( talk) 03:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Referring to the first example, I do not take the same inference from it as Valedict. I take it as a factual reportage: he removed the pancreas and then killed the dog with a knife. You can presume this was for scientific reasons, or because he was a mad sadist. I do not agree at all that the words lead to one or other conclusion. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 12:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone supply the coordinates of the original location of the Brown Dog statue? I've wandered around the Latchmere part of Battersea without being able to locate it. thanks -- Tagishsimon (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I visited both locations earlier this evening. Light was not great, but I've updated the statue image & added a close-up of the coquettish dog. (Which others can delete if they think it's too much). And to the right there's an image of the location of the original statue in Latchmere Park. Much thanks to Crum375 for pointing me to the location; I had figured, incorrectly, that if I cycled around vaguely for long enough, I'd stumble across it.
The Battersea Park statue is tucked away in a woodland walk, meaning that it'll be seen by a small fraction of a percent of the people who ever visit the park. But the dog looks happy enough, and other than the fencing, it's a pleasant enough location. I'm guessing the dog spends his time wondering what the squirrels are up to. Someone seems to have added a means of holding a flower on the front of the plinth, which as you'll see has a reasonably fresh daffodil in it.
The circular fencing at Latchmere Park is still extant, but there's no obvious indication of exactly where the statue stood. It's a smaller enclosure than I had thought from seeing the old b&w photo ... maybe they made policemen smaller in those days? It is surrounded on three sides by the terraced houses of the Latchmere estate, which look as solid today as they must have done when the Board of Works erected them in 1903. The circle forms the middle of an alleyway which would be (and is) presumably used as a short-cut by residents, as well as affording entrance through gates to the park proper. I can see why the residents would quickly come to be protective of "their" dog in their park. But I'm guessing that the scale of the original plinth was, again, smaller than I had thought, or else it would surely have got in the way. -- Tagishsimon (talk) 20:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
What difference does it make that Dickens was the founder of a radical paper several decades back, before publication of the story in it about this series of events. You could equally put his name in for everything the paper every published a story of. it would only make sense for those stories which he had a role in connection with, which is not in any possible way relevant here. Its just an attempt to get an impressive name listed. It would make every bit as much sense to say the event was at University college, founded by Jeremy Bentham and the riot was in Trafalfar Square,named after the victory by Nelson, or that the statue was in Battersea Park, designed by James Pennethorne. DGG ( talk) 23:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
In the section "Infiltration by Swedish activists", the second sentence is incomplete, and seems slightly unsatisfactory in other ways.
I can't fix it because I don't know quite what it's trying to say. Perhaps it should be part of the first sentence, with a comma or a dash? Apart from that, can the information that Louise was a countess be balanced by information about Leisa, or left out? And did they both visit the Pasteur Institute, or was that just Leisa? The "were appalled" suggests both, but the (incomplete) sentence is written as if the information that Leisa visited the institute balances the info that Louise was a countess. Ashton1983 ( talk) 01:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)