Humane Professions
The Defence of Experimental Medicine, 1876–1914

Rob Boddice explores the transnational defence of medical experimentation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Rob Boddice (Author)

9781108748032, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 October 2022

214 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.297 kg

'This is a book written with micro-surgical precision resulting in a high efficacy … In other words, a book that transcends the boundaries of space and time.' Alain Touwaide, Doody's Reviews

In this compelling history of the co-ordinated, transnational defence of medical experimentation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Rob Boddice explores the experience of vivisection as humanitarian practice. He captures the rise of the professional and specialist medical scientist, whose métier was animal experimentation, and whose guiding principle was 'humanity' or the reduction of the aggregate of suffering in the world. He also highlights the rhetorical rehearsal of scientific practices as humane and humanitarian, and connects these often defensive professions to meaningful changes in the experience of doing science. Humane Professions examines the strategies employed by the medical establishment to try to cement an idea in the public consciousness: that the blood spilt in medical laboratories served a far-reaching human good.

Introduction: Experior
1. Darwin's compromise
2. Medical monsters? 3. Of laboratories and legislatures
4. Paget's public
5. Cannon fire
Epilogue: Humanity and human experimentation.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], History of medicine [MBX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL]