Hobday (1869–1939)

The veterinary surgeon Sir Frederick Hobday arguably established veterinary anaesthesia as a specialty for purposes beyond the laboratory. In 1906, he published "Surgical diseases of the dog and cat: with chapters on anaesthetics and obstetrics". Chapter 4, entitled, "The administration of anaesthetics" was 23 pages long, with five pages devoted to local anaesthesia, 16 pages to general anaesthesia and two pages to morphia and chloral (hydrate) [44]. In 1915, Hobday published the first book dedicated to the subject, "Anaesthesia & Narcosis of Animals and Birds". In describing the use of chloroform, ether, ACE mixture (alcohol, chloroform, ether) ethyl chloride and nitrous oxide for use in horses, oxen, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, cats, monkeys, wild and semi-domesticated animals and birds, Hobday provided information of potential value for improving laboratory animal anaesthesia.

### Starling, Bayliss, Dale, Coleridge, Lind-af-Hageby and the brown dog (1902–1910) [45]

Starling (Professor of Physiology at University College London) conducted pancreatic surgery on a small brown terrier in December 1902. He re-opened the dog's abdomen in February 1903 before a class of medical students. On completing the second operation, Starling handed the animal to Bayliss, who, in making a new wound, contravened the "no re-use" principle extant in the 1876 Act. During the third operation, the animal "su ffered greatly" and made purposeful movements, indicating inadequate anaesthesia. The dog was finally given to Henry Dale, an unlicensed research student, who killed the animal. Louise Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa Schartau observed and recorded the events in, *"The Shambles of Science: Extracts from the Diary of Two Students of Physiology".* Stephen Coleridge, NAVS secretary, read the book and after recognising breaches of the 1876 Act, made a public statement against Bayliss, who issued a libel suit. Bayliss won the ensuing case but Coleridge won the public: £5735 was collected and partly paid for a statue of the brown dog which was unveiled in Battersea Park on 15 September 1906. Medical students vandalized the statue and it became the focus of fighting between medical pro-vivisectionists, the police, anti-vivisectionists and the locals—who had developed a fondness for the e ffigy. The statue's removal on 10 March 1910 provoked further anger: nine days later, more than 3000 people marched from Hyde Park Corner to Trafalgar Square, where a public meeting was held. Politically relevant public unrest had originated from the mismanagement of the small dog's anaesthetic.

Public reaction to the brown dog a ffair encouraged the appointment of a second Royal Commission on Vivisection in 1906. Amongst other matters, Stephen Coleridge proposed that the use of curare should be entirely prohibited in animal experiments. The Commission eventually recommended that the use of curare in experiments required special certification, that animals in such experiments must be anaesthetized before the operation and kept anaesthetized until death. They also recommended that a Home O ffice appointee should be present during experiments in which curare was used.
