The Dead Dog Wars

What do you get when you mix Swedish feminists, English medical students, anti-vivisectionists, a dead terrier, and crowd-funded memorials?

Answer: Some Strange Company-level mayhem.

Our story begins in 1903, with two Swedish anti-vivisectionists, Louise Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa Schartau.  Since 1876, England had strict regulations regarding the use of animals for scientific experiments, so the two activists enrolled in the London School of Medicine for Women to make sure the institution was following the rules.

One day, the pair attended a lecture by Dr. William Bayliss, where the aim was to show that salivary pressure was unconnected to blood pressure.  To demonstrate this, Dr. Bayliss electrically stimulated a living dog’s salivary gland.  In order for this to be legal, the dog would have to be anesthetized, and could not be experimented on more than once.  According to the two Swedes, these rules were flagrantly ignored.  They claimed that the dog--a small brown terrier--was conscious during the procedure, and a scar on his body proved he had previously been operated upon.  They added with righteous disgust that when the poor dog tried to escape, the other medical students burst into laughter.

The Swedes brought their charges to a prominent anti-vivisectionist lawyer, Stephen Coleridge, who repeated their allegations in a public speech which was widely reported in the newspapers.  "If this is not torture,” Coleridge thundered, “let Mr. Bayliss and his friends...tell us in Heaven's name what torture is."  When Bayliss heard of this, he sued Coleridge for libel.  The four-day trial opened on November 11, 1903.

One of the witnesses, a professor at University College London named Ernest Starling, admitted that he too had performed a demonstration on the terrier, but he insisted that the dog had been anesthetized during both procedures.  It would, he stated, have been impossible to perform these demonstrations on a conscious animal.  It was also learned that the unfortunate terrier was later killed by a medical student who did not have a license to perform euthanizations.  (A particularly horrific detail: the student had not even bothered to chloroform the dog to death, instead dispatching the animal with a knife through the heart.)

Despite these damaging admissions, the defense was doomed when Coleridge admitted under oath that he had not made any attempt to verify the women’s accusations before making them public.  The jury ruled in favor of Dr. Bayliss, awarding him damages equivalent to over five hundred thousand dollars in modern U.S. currency.  However,  this was hardly the end of the controversy.  Rather, you could say it was merely the beginning.

Coleridge set up the early 20th century version of a GoFundMe to raise the court-ordered payment, which was wildly successful.  (Bayliss donated it all to his university for medical research, which must have irritated Coleridge and his supporters no end.)

The anti-vivisectionists then decided there should be a memorial to the dead terrier.  They planned to build a fountain with a statue of the martyred pup, with the inscription, “In memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903, having endured Vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one Vivisecteur to another till Death came to his Release.  Also in Memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902.  Men and Women of England, how long shall these things be?”

In other words, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bayliss.

These activists had a hard time finding a local council willing to take such a controversial monument, but in 1906, Battersea, famed for its dogs’ home, agreed to host the statue.  Among the guests at the great unveiling was George Bernard Shaw.

Via Wikipedia

Local medical students--perceiving, quite correctly, that they were being insulted to their faces--did not take this quietly.  Night after night, bands of medical students would try to destroy the monument, only to be confronted by equally angry crowds of trade unionists, feminists, and animal lovers, all of whom identified with the helpless, abused terrier.  Confrontations between the two sides grew so violent that a standing police guard was assigned to the statue.

More and more people joined the sides either supporting or opposing the statue.  The climax was reached on December 10, 1907, when hundreds of pro and anti-canine forces clashed in Trafalgar Square, in what has gone down in history as the Brown Dog Riots.  400 police were needed to quell the battle.

Following the melee, Battersea Council decided the statue was more trouble than it was worth.  In 1910, they had the monument destroyed.  (Public sentiment was still so strong that it was thought necessary to deploy a guard of 120 police to protect the workmen.)  Today, all that remains of one of England’s more unusual statues is a sad little mound and a nearby sign that reads--accurately enough--”No dogs.”  The lingering effects of this canine cause célèbre are illustrated by the fact that as late as 1985, a new statue of the dog was erected in Battersea Park, paid for by anti-vivisection groups.  (The British Medical Journal condemned the memorial as “libelous.”)

Dog Memorial 2.0, via Wikipedia

RIP, nameless little brown terrier.  Although all earthly trace of you is gone, you certainly have not been forgotten.