The untold history of women fighting for animal ethics
Remembering Fanny Martin, Maria Deraismes and other forgotten pioneers
French medicine has many male heroes. One of them is Claude Bernard, remembered as the father of physiology. In this essay, however, I will not dwell too long on his arguments on animal ethics; they are lacking in several ways. Instead, I will turn my attention to Marie-Françoise Bernard, also known as Fanny Martin, Bernard’s estranged wife, as well as his daughters. For them and other women in the 19th century, animal ethics was personally, scientifically and philosophically important. Let us remember the voices of these pioneers.
Animal ethics, a problem for medical experimentation
A few years ago, I was teaching philosophy at the medical faculty named after Claude Bernard in Lyon. In the philosophy of medicine community, Bernard is recognised for his book published in 1865, Introduction à l’étude de la médecine expérimentale. He defended the idea that medical knowledge should be based on the study of living bodies, as opposed to anatomy, which dealt with dead bodies, and as opposed to statistics, which he considered too uncertain to produce knowledge. His preferred method was vivisection, i.e. dissecting an animal while it was still alive, and by extension animal experimentation. The idea was to trigger in these animals some dysfunctions in order to determine, by comparison, the mechanism of normal physiological functions:
to learn how man and animals live, we cannot avoid seeing great numbers of them die (…). (Bernard, [1865] 1949, p. 99)
There is, of course, an important ethical question at the heart of this method: is vivisection morally acceptable? Claude Bernard did not avoid the question. First, he ruled out experimentation on human beings when that experiment could harm them in any way. He also ruled out experimentation on those condemned to death (unlike another French hero, Louis Pasteur). Finally, he turned to the question of the moral acceptability of experimentation on (non-human) animals: “Have we the right to make experiments on animals and vivisect them?” (Bernard, [1865] 1949, p. 103)
As for me, I think we have this right, wholly and absolutely. […] it is essentially moral to make experiments on an animal, even though painful and dangerous to him, if they may be useful to man. (Bernard, [1865] 1949, p. 103)
What are Bernard’s arguments? For human beings, he dismissed the argument of scientific utility: increasing knowledge cannot justify torturing our fellow creatures. In contrast, Bernard thought the suffering and lives of (non-human) animals were morally insignificant. It should be noted that he did not defend the idea that animals did not feel pain or suffer. On the contrary, the physiological continuity between all animals, human and non-human, was crucial in defending his method: it is scientifically valid to experiment on animals such as dogs or cats to find out how the human body works, only because they are biologically similar to us: the “vital properties of our tissues […] are the same in all animals, without distinction of class, genus or species” (Bernard, [1865] 1949, p. 109). Acknowledging a biological similarity while drawing a moral difference: this is what we would call speciesism today, i.e. the unjustified moral preference for members of our own species. Bernard did not acknowledge the issue. In his view, further discussion would be “idle or absurd”, and he concluded that the scientist should not concern himself with the “sensitive cries of people of fashion or by the objections of men unfamiliar with scientific ideas.” Instead, he should attend “only with the opinion of men of science who understand him” (Bernard, [1865] 1949, p. 103).
Fanny Martin and history’s inescapable sexism
These last sentences were perhaps a dig at his wife Marie-Françoise Bernard, also known as Fanny Martin, whom he married in 1843 and whose dowry was used to finance his research (Debray-Ritzen, 1992, p. 38; Virtanen, 2022). Vivisection was a point of contention between the couple, who ended up divorcing. Fanny Martin was committed to the animal cause, joining the Société protectrice des animaux (Society for the Protection of Animals), which was founded in 1846. According to Anita Guerrini, she was also a long-standing member of Société française contre la vivisection (French Society against Vivisection) (Guerrini, 2003, p. 91). Fanny Martin and her daughters opened and run an animal shelter where they would rescue dogs and cats (Lalouette, 1990, p. 163). Her youngest daughter is said to have helped in creating the Dog Cemetery in Asnières with the feminist and journalist Marguerite Durand (Debray-Ritzen, 1992, p. 98). Unfortunately, historians have shown little interest in the life of Fanny Martin other than through the prism of her marriage to Claude Bernard. We have little information on the activism of Fanny Martin or her daughters. Some anecdotes are difficult to verify — did one of the couple’s daughters really found her friend’s pet dog on her father’s vivisection table? In any case, the marriage was unhappy. History is not neutral and Claude Bernard’s biographers have regularly tainted Fanny Martin’s posterity. One of these biographers described her as follows:
Under thin eyebrows: small dark eyes, a slightly trumpet-shaped nose, thin lips… There is nothing in her vague gaze to indicate the persecuting energy that for twenty-five years would make this couple’s life a nightmare (…). (Debray-Ritzen, 1992, p. 38) Once again, for this bitter woman, this obsessive Christian who confused experimental science with atheistic materialism, her husband’s horrible profession and monstrous vivisection were, for twenty years and even during her widowhood, her best ammunition for quarrelling and defamation. Throughout her life, she tirelessly portrayed her husband as a bloodthirsty sadist. She used every means at her disposal to sabotage his scientific work. (Debray-Ritzen, 1992, p. 98).
The biographer does not, of course, give evidence for these comments. Another biographer, in the preface of a play written in Bernard’s youth, published posthumously, described “the cruel abandonment in which his wife and two daughters left him one sad morning in 1869” (Barra 1887, xvi).
What history retains is sometimes distorted by the sexism of those who write it. Despite what these biographers imply, Fanny Martin’s anti-vivisectionism was not just the work of a “bitter” wife disappointed from her arranged marriage organised to fund her husband’s career. It was clearly a deep-seated moral conviction that led her to radically transgress social norms of her time. In fact, contrary to Claude Bernard’s accusation, anti-vivisectionism was not only voiced by gentlemen and ladies outside of the scientific community; it was simply not an ‘idle’ preoccupation.
Feminism, science and anti-vivisection
First, it is wrong to confine 19th-century anti-vivisectionism to an “obsessive” religious belief. At the time, there were many anti-vivisectionists among atheists, theists, or pantheistic materialists and, conversely, fierce vivisectionists among the Catholic Church. In fact, as researcher Jacqueline Lalouette notes, the “issue of vivisection occupied a cross-cutting position within political families” (Lalouette, 1990, p. 163).
Maria Deraismes (1828–1894), a feminist writer who fought for women’s rights, was both anti-clerical, a Freemason and an anti-vivisectionist. In 1883, she gave the inaugural speech at the conference of the Ligue populaire contre l’abus de la vivisection (People’s League against the Excess of Vivisection). She opened her speech to make it clear that she came to speak against vivisection altogether, and not just against its excess — a jab at the League’s chosen name. She came to protest “without passion” (Deraismes, 1884, p. 6). Her first argument was based on a materialistic philosophy of life, in which “there is no human kingdom, but an animal kingdom with an ascending progression”(Deraismes, 1884, p. 8). She insisted on the tension between the philosophical foundation of physiology —the physiological similarity of all living beings — and physiologists’ ethical position:
Nowhere in the human body have any of them been able to grasp the faintest trace, the slightest vestige of an exceptional principle, a special transcendent and immaterial force that could distinguish the life of man from the life of the beast: in both, the animic cause is the same. (Deraismes, 1884, p. 8)
Making a reference to the theory of evolution — Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species a few years earlier, in 1859 — Maria Deraismes commented with irony on her fellow “materialistic scientists”:
I am surprised, I repeat, that they are not more circumspect with those whom they call their ancestors and who should deserve more consideration (Deraismes, 1884, p. 10).
All of these arguments or versions of these arguments will be made by contemporary animal ethicists. Yet, in his “short history of speciesism”, Peter Singer — one of the most famous animal ethicists — failed to recognise pioneers like Maria Deraismes (Singer 1975). In fact, he does not acknowledge any feminist activism in that part of his book. In any case, the tension between the similarity between all living beings and the question of the morality of animal experimentation still remains unresolved. Far from being an “idle” matter for squeamish gentlemen and ladies, the problem of speciesism is still today at the heart of concerns in applied ethics.
Second, it should be said that the scale of the anti-vivisectionist movements in the 19th century should not be underestimated. Even though animal protection movements existed in France and even succeeded in obtaining the first law to protect domesticated animals in 1850 — the Grammont law[1] — it was Great Britain who pioneered the animal protection movement. Maria Deraismes indeed opened her speech by noting that Great Britain had taken the lead on these issues (Deraismes, 1884, p. 3). In fact, vivisections carried out on animals by Claude Bernard and his French colleagues were so appalling that British doctors, scientists and politicians took offence. Bernard’s master, François Magendie, visited London in 1824 and caused a stir. In 1825, the Irish parliamentarian Richard Martin gave a detailed presentation to the House of Commons of the vivisections carried out in public by Magendie on a female greyhound. Martin’s aim was to get a more restrictive animal protection law voted, after his first success on the matter in 1822:
There was a Frenchman of the name of Majendie, whom he [Richard Martin] considered a disgrace to society. In the course of last year, this man, at one of the anatomical theatres, exhibited a series of experiments so atrocious as almost to shock belief. (Bear-Baiting Prevention Bill. (House of Commons Hansard), 1825)
The female greyhound, nailed alive to a support, was dissected live in front of the audience to demonstrate the action of the nerves in the dog’s face. The House of Commons’ archives record that “great disgust at the statement of this cruel experiment was manifested by the House.” Cries of “shame! “Hear!” were heard in parliament. Martin reported that the dog was left alive to continue the vivisection the next day on the other side of its face. In the rest of his speech, Martin presented letters from British medical professors criticising the unnecessary suffering created by animal vivisections. Magendie’s mocking comments during the dissection — “the dog would be calmer if he understood French” — were reported with indignation in British newspapers (Guerrini, 2003, p. 74).
The fight against scalpels
Many women became involved in animal protection movements. According to Guerrini, in Great Britain at the time, half of those fighting against vivisection were women (Guerrini, 2003, p. 91). At a time when women had no place in politics — they did not have the right to vote — these figures are remarkable. It was a woman, Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904), who spearheaded the movement against vivisection in Great Britain. A prolific Irish author, she published numerous essays on animal ethics and feminist philosophy. In 1875, she founded the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals against Vivisection. In one of her books, she reproduced illustrations of experiments carried out on dogs, taken from a physiology textbook published by Claude Bernard (Cobbe, 1883). Queen Victoria herself is said to have been sensitive to the animal cause (Guerrini, 2003, pp. 87–90).
In France, it was also a woman, Marie Huot (1846–1930), who founded and acted as general secretary of the Ligue populaire contre les abus de la vivisection (Demeulenaere-Douyère, 2021, p. 3). She offered the honorary presidency to Victor Hugo, a renowned French poet and writer. It was probably Marie Huot who invited Maria Deraismes to give her speech when the Ligue was created. There were 9 women among the 35 who signed the founding programme (Lalouette, 1990, p. 163), which was quite remarkable for the time. The Ligue populaire contre les abus de la vivisection was also close to internationalist revolutionary circles, as researcher Christiane Demeulenaere Douyère reports: “Louise Michel, whose love for the feline species is well known, and whose Huot family looked after her cats when she was in prison” regularly attended its meetings (Demeulenaere-Douyère, 2021, p. 3). A whole network of activists — women of letters, women involved in politics, but also scientists organised itself. In her speech, Maria Deraismes praised one of these scientists:
An eminent woman, Mistress Anna Kingsford, Doctor of Medicine at the Faculty of Paris, has published a number of remarkable and well-received pamphlets on this subject. (Deraismes, 1884, p. 6)
Deraismes was referring here to the scientific publications against vivisection published by Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) (Kingsford, 1882). Kingsford was initially involved in the fight for women’s rights in England and was acquainted with feminists such as Cobbe, whose essays she published in her newspaper. In 1874, Kingsford decided to study medicine in Paris — it was impossible in Great Britain because of her gender at the time. Her motivation was to prove that it was possible to study medicine without experimenting on animals. The year she began her studies, only 18 other women were attending the medical faculty (Pert, 2006, p. 59). During her training, she refused to attend vivisection classes out of conviction. She became Doctor of Medicine in 1880, publishing the first medical thesis on vegetarianism in France.
It should come as no surprise that biographers dismissed the activism and commitments of Fanny Martin and her daughters with ad hominem attacks. Women activists — fighting against vivisection or for the right to vote — have regularly been ridiculed by their contemporaries. One of Claude Bernard’s students, Paul Bert, described these committed women as
a whole batch of barren [infertile] women, pouring out their overflowing hearts and their unused love onto the dogs (Lalouette, 1990, p. 163).
But these animal ethics activists did not recoil. They organised conferences, distributed pamphlets, set up societies and did not hesitate to speak up during medical courses where animal vivisection was taking place. One anecdote about Marie Huot remained famous — although sources differ. She is said to have physically intervened during a vivisection carried out by one of Claude Bernard’s students, Charles Brown Séquart. According to one source, as he was starting to dissect an unanaesthetised monkey in front a class, Huot tried to knock the doctor unconscious (Demeulenaere-Douyère, 2021, p. 3). According to another source, the animal was a puppy and this time the “English” lady knocked the scalpel out of the doctor’s hands:
In yesterday’s lecture at the Collège de France, Mr Brown-Séquart was preparing to cut a charming little doggie’s throat with a scalpel, in order to cut its vocal cords and render it as speechless as Paul Bert’s famous watchdog. A lady rushed up to him and sent his scalpel flying with a stroke of her sunshade; Brown tried to get her out, but she held on tightly to her bench, and it took armed force to expel her (…). The anti-vivisectress was taken to the police commissioner, but she had to be released, as she pointed out forcefully that Mr Brown Séquart alone should have been taken to the station as he was breaking Grammont law (Dabot, 1888, pp. 245–246).
I wrote this small essay at the end of 2022; it was initially part of my book Pilules roses, but did not make the final cut, as it was taking me too far from the book’s main topic. Still wanted to publish it somewhere.
Additional readings
Sylvain Wagnon, Marie Huot, Libertaire, néomalthusienne, antispéciste, théosophe…, 2023, Atelier de création libertaire. [The book was published after I wrote this text, in late 2022, I am very much looking forward to read it].
Leila Mcneill, “Women, Animals, and the Poetry of Activism”, 2016, Nursing Clio: https://nursingclio.org/2016/03/08/women-animals-and-the-poetry-of-activism/
References
Bear-baiting prevention bill. (House of Commons Hansard), House of Commons (1825). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1825/feb/24/bear-bating-prevention-bill
Bernard, C. (1949). Introduction to the study of experimental medicine (Henry Copley Geene, Trans.; Henry Schuman, Inc).
Bernard, C. (1813–1878) A. du texte. (1887). Arthur de Bretagne: Drame inédit en cinq actes et en prose, avec un chant, publié avec deux portraits et une lettre autographe de Claude Bernard / Claude Bernard ; précédé d’une préface historique de M. Georges Barra. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5775148b
Cobbe, F. P. (1883). Light in dark places. Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection, united with the International Association for the Total Suppression of Vivisection. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/kfycavbh
Dabot, H. (1888). Calendriers d’un bourgeois du quartier latin, 1er janvier 1872 -1er janvier 1888. Société d’Histoire de Paris.
Debray-Ritzen, P. (1992). Claude Bernard ou un nouvel état de l’humaine raison. Albin Michel.
Demeulenaere-Douyère, C. (2021). Défendre la cause animale: La Ligue populaire contre la vivisection et sa créatrice Marie Huot — Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques. In A.-M. Flambard-Héricher & F. Blary (Eds.), L’animal et l’homme: De l’exploitation à la sauvegarde (Éditions du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques). https://books.openedition.org/cths/15685?lang=fr
Deraismes, M. (1884). Ligue populaire contre l’abus de la vivisection. Discours prononcé par Mlle Maria Deraismes,… À la conférence donnée, le… 23 septembre 1883, au Théâtre des Nations… https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k932965v
Guerrini, A. (2003). Experimenting with Humans and Animals: From Galen to Animal Rights. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kingsford, A. (1882). The Uselessness of Vivisection. Nineteenth Century, February, 171–183.
Lalouette, J. (1990). Vivisection et antivivisection en France au XIX e siècle. Ethnologie Française, 20(2), 156–165.
Singer, P. (1975) Animal liberation: a New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. HapperCollins. New york.
Pert, A. (2006). Red Cactus: The Life of Anna Kingsford. Alan Pert.
Virtanen, R. (2022). Claude Bernard. In Encylopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Bernard
[1] « Seront punis d’une amende de cinq à quinze francs, et pourront l’être d’un à cinq jours de prison, ceux qui auront exercé publiquement et abusivement de mauvais traitements envers les animaux domestiques. »
