The ‘Dangerous’ Women of Animal Welfare: How British Veterinary Medicine Went to the Dogs
- ↵*Andrew Gardiner BVM&S, Cert SAS, MSc, PhD, MRCVS, Veterinary Medical Education Development, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9RG, UK. Email: Andrew.Gardiner@ed.ac.uk.
Abstract
This paper examines the turn toward the
small companion animal that occurred in British veterinary medicine in
the twentieth
century. The change in species emphasis is usually
attributed to post-war socioeconomic factors, however this explanation
ignores the extensive small animal treatment that
was occurring outwith the veterinary profession in the interwar period.
The success of this unqualified practice caused the
veterinary profession to rethink attitudes to small animals (dogs
initially,
later cats) upon the decline of horse practice.
This paper argues that a shift toward seeing the small animal as a
legitimate
veterinary patient was necessary before the
specialty could become mainstream in the post-war years, and that this
occurred
between the wars as a result of the activities of
British animal welfare charities, especially the People's Dispensary for
Sick Animals of the Poor.
Key words
You will perhaps fathom what I mean when I say Mrs Wilberforce can be a dangerous woman.
J. W. Proctor MRCVS to the Secretary of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 26 February 19311
The lady [Maria Dickin] is dangerous and energetic; the RSPCA is timid and apathetic.
Warwick Fowle MRCVS to the Secretary of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 23 May 19312
Introduction
In the second half of the twentieth
century, a significant shift in emphasis occurred in British veterinary
medicine. Before
1950, most veterinarians worked in mixed general
practice where they treated a variety of domestic animals, and
veterinary
training placed a special emphasis on the diseases
of the horse. By the 1990s, the treatment of companion animals (dogs,
cats,
small mammals and birds) occupied the majority of
professional time.3
Explanations for this change usually focus
on post-war socioeconomic factors such as increasing wealth, human
social isolation
caused by the breakdown of the traditional extended
family, and a desire to ‘reconnect with nature’ as agriculture
intensified
and led to more people living in urban areas.4
All of these can be said to have influenced people's wish to keep and
care for companion animals, and to pay for an ever-increasing
repertoire of veterinary medical interventions.
Such an explanation is also how the veterinary profession itself
understands
the rise of small animal practice. The British
Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA), now the largest veterinary
association
in Britain, was founded in 1957.5
In examining the small animal turn in
British veterinary practice, this paper inverts the accepted
socioeconomic explanation.
Instead of arising out of post-war economic
recovery and increasing wealth, I will show that the key changes which
led to
veterinary medicine's re-orientation occurred
during the period of interwar poverty, driven by forces external to the
profession.
In the clinics of lay animal welfare charities,
especially those of the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals of the Poor
(PDSA),
vast numbers of animals were treated in a care
system operating outwith veterinary professional jurisdiction. The
success
of such work and its acceptance and support across
all strata of British society, in the face of great hostility from the
veterinary profession, led to a reframing of small
companion animals (initially dogs, later cats) as legitimate veterinary
patients. This was key to the profession eventually
turning towards this patient group following the decline of horse
transport.
It is important to note that this was not
the direction that had been intended for British veterinarians. The
expectation,
as detailed in two influential government reports
of 1938 and 1944 on the future of British veterinary education, was that
in a world where horses were vanishing,
veterinarians would become ‘physicians of the farm’ and find their main
professional
role and purpose in the territory where animal and
public health overlapped. Government funding for all Britain's
veterinary
schools was made on this basis. This was also the
impetus behind the second Veterinary Surgeons Act of 1948.6
The birth of the small animal clinic
instead transformed veterinary general practice. Amongst other things,
it allowed for
the development of the multiple clinical
specialties characteristic of small animal medicine and surgery today,
which resemble
human medical specialties. At the beginning of the
twentieth century, the term ‘dog doctor’ was considered a professional
insult; by the end, this branch of veterinary
medicine was the prestigious norm.
Companion animal practice and its
development have received relatively little attention in the emerging
veterinary historiography.
Most of the key works in recent years have focused
on diseases, veterinary public health and the livestock economy.7
Jones' discussion on companion animals in her book on the development
of the American profession is closest in content and
approach to this paper, and comparison of the
American and British contexts will be important in future work in this
area.8
However, here I am as much concerned with practice outside the
profession as within it, and how this shaped the British veterinary
profession's response to the treatment of pets. The
same author's earlier paper on feline urological syndrome explores
veterinary
nosology in the creation of a new treatable entity
which binds owner, animal and veterinarian into a tight therapeutic
relationship.9
This paper is concerned with an earlier stage in the development of
such a therapeutic relationship, before it became the
exclusive province of the veterinarian. Recent
publications on rabies and distemper in dogs have also made significant
contributions
to the history of companion animal disease but
these works are not intended to be histories of practice.10
There exists a sizeable literature on anti-vivisectionism and animal rights, but the emergence of charity animal clinics and
the consequences that followed have been ignored in histories of animal welfare movements.11 A rather simplistic narrative line is given in the historical introduction to the second edition of the Animal Ethics Reader:
After World War I the animal welfare movement seemed to lose its mass appeal in both the US and Britain. There were undoubtedly several reasons for this decline. It may be that incorporating meat into the diet during periods of disease and war was thought to be important for human health. Ryder comments that wars tend to revive the view that worrying about suffering is cowardly; compassion is dismissed as weakness and effeminacy. In any case, those who called for bans on the exploitation of animals tended to be regarded as cranks or extremists. Animal welfare organizations in Britain and America declined into charities for lost or abandoned dogs and cats …12
My argument in this paper is that the
period between the wars is more interesting than this. It represents an
important gap
in the history of British animal welfare and
veterinary practice. The gap exists between what might be called ‘long
nineteenth
century’ animal protectionism, mediated mainly by
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), and
late twentieth-century animal rights: the ideas
that emerged from the ‘Oxford group’ of philosophers following the
publication
of first Animals, Men and Morals in 1971 and then Peter Singer's canonical Animal Liberation in 1975.13
Filling in the gap links these movements to the modernisation of the
British veterinary profession and its turn towards the
small companion animal. Between the periods of
protection and rights was one of practical animal welfare, but this
amounted
to more than opening homes for strays.
This is not a paper about women
veterinary surgeons; the ‘danger’ I refer to did not come from within
the veterinary profession.
The entry of women into the veterinary profession
is a separate area of study, and a neglected one. Claims that
feminisation
of the profession caused companion animal practice, or that women were attracted because of
the sentimental basis of companion animal medicine, are not
evidence-based. The arguments in this paper also problematise
the chronology of such explanations. The British
Small Animal Veterinary Association was formed in 1957 by a group of
ambitious
men who saw the small animal (dog first, then cat)
as a suitable recipient for a new type of scientifically driven
veterinary
medicine, where cost was not always a limiting
factor in deciding upon treatment, as it was with livestock. The new
branch
of veterinary medicine was a promising business
opportunity. In addition, early women practitioners do not seem to have
been
particularly focused on small animals. The first
British woman veterinary surgeon identified herself as a farm and horse
practitioner,
and adverts placed by women looking for work
indicated they sought opportunities where they could treat all species.
If they
eventually found themselves working with companion
animals, it was for reasons still to be fully elucidated. The gendered
nature of veterinary practice in relation to
patient species is not straightforward.14
The discussion of gender in this paper
relates to one individual (though there were many others like her) and
to the interplay
between gender, class and professional expertise
which was played out within British veterinary medicine in the interwar
years.
The Victorian predecessors of my ‘dangerous’ women
of animal welfare had their roots in animal protection and the
anti-vivisection,
anti-vaccination and sanitarian movements. After
the First World War, it seems that these concerns morphed into
activities
less rhetorical and more preoccupied with
practical, hands-on care in the form of providing medical treatment.
The Problem of the Poor Animal
It is mainly because there are so many cranks on these [animal welfare] committees that our relations have not always been of the best. All of us who have had experience in dog practice, know that there are ladies (generally childless) who have to turn their attention to something, and nearly always they turn to dogs.15
G. H. Livesey to the Central Veterinary Society, London, 3 June 1926
The mood at the Central Veterinary
Society's meeting in London, on the evening of 3 June 1926, was
evidently one of frustration.
‘The Central’ was the Surrey and Metropolitan
division of the National Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA), an
organisation
formed in 1919 with the aim of representing the
interests of Britain's veterinary surgeons, most of whom worked
individually
or in small practices scattered up and down the
country.16 The Central was the oldest and largest NVMA division. Its members, especially, were confronted with a problem: what to do
about the animals of the poor.
It was a problem that was both old and
new: old in the sense that veterinary surgeons, like medical
practitioners, resided
and worked in communities and made their livings
from the sick and injured upon whom they were called to attend.
Variability
in fees and charging was commonplace in both
professions, with the individual practitioner deciding who was in need
of medical
charity and then dispensing it as they saw fit in
terms of reduced or waived fees.17
For urban veterinarians in the 1920s,
what was new was an emerging aspect of animal welfarism: charity animal
clinics designed
to treat large numbers of animals, and staffed by
unqualified practitioners, that is individuals who were not members of
the
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS).
Veterinary professional territory was being encroached upon. At first,
when the
clinic numbers were small and the clinics
themselves inconspicuous, the veterinary profession ignored them. These
places were
not poaching clients who would have been able to
pay for professional services. Indeed, the clinics actually removed some
of the burden of charity from veterinary surgeons,
most of whom were working hard to run small businesses.
It was only when it became apparent that
the new clinics represented something significant, something that
signalled a changed
orientation towards the animal patient, and when
the number of clinics increased dramatically, that the profession sat up
and took notice. A new territory of animal care was
opening up. By the time the veterinary profession realised that things
were moving beyond its control, it was almost too
late.
The most problematic organisation by far
was the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals of the Poor. The name does
have a revolutionary
ring to it. For the veterinary profession, the
threat was personified in the Dispensary's founder, Maria Dickin. Dickin
had
no background in medicine or animal care. As a
young woman, she had run a voice production studio in Wimpole Street,
London,
before marrying a successful accountant and moving
to Hampstead. She undertook social work in the East End where she was
appalled
by the poverty and human and animal suffering she
witnessed there. She was in her forties when she founded the PDSA in
November
1917, initially operating out of a Whitechapel
cellar owned by a clergyman friend who was ‘doing a good work destroying
stray
cats’. She put out a sign that read: ‘Bring your
sick animals! Do not let them suffer! All animals treated. All treatment
free.’18
Critics who maintained that the poor would not bring their animals,
either because they did not care or because they were
too busy trying to take care of themselves, were
proved wrong. People came in large numbers and queued for hours at
Dickin's
free clinic.
From these inauspicious beginnings,
Dickin developed what would amount to an alternative veterinary
profession. Under her
leadership, the Dispensary became an expansive,
international and somewhat confrontational organisation and a major
problem
for the British veterinary profession as it
struggled to come to terms with the decline of horse transport and
altered professional
role and purpose.
By 1926–27, the PDSA was operating 57 clinics and three travelling caravans, and had treated almost 410,000 patients in a
year at a cost of £43,085 at its various premises in Britain.19
The organisation was continuing to expand rapidly, had opened
facilities in Paris and Tangier and was also active in Romania,
Greece and Egypt. A photograph of the hospital
building in Paris depicted large, modern premises resembling a human
hospital.
It had been built following a bequest from a
wealthy American animal lover who lived in Paris.20 Furthermore, in 1926 the organisation had received a legacy of £50,000 from the estate of a wealthy British animal lover,
Sarah Martha Grove Hardy.21
Sensing danger, the RCVS had tried to gain some control over the
legacy, claiming that the funds constituted a public trust
and that the profession should therefore oversee
any projects directly connected with animal care. The move was
unsuccessful
and relations between Dickin and the veterinary
profession plummeted.22
Dickin was not at the Central Veterinary
Society meeting in June 1926. She had been invited, albeit in a
circuitous way. A
message informing her of the meeting was sent via a
woman who was a helper at one of her London clinics. This was necessary
because of the intensity of feelings towards Dickin
by 1926: the vets could not bear to speak to her directly. Within
veterinary
circles, she was described in various unflattering
ways: an abscess in need of lancing, a thorn in the side of the
veterinary
profession, or simply that woman.
Dickin later sent a letter to the Veterinary Record,
the house journal of the NVMA. She made the point in her usual direct
way: ‘I may perhaps be permitted to say that to claim
that knowledge of and capacity to treat ailments of
animals are possessed by veterinary surgeons alone is as ridiculous as
to suggest that none but an admitted solicitor or
barrister has any knowledge of the law’.23
She had hit on the nub of the matter.
There was nothing to stop any individual undertaking the treatment of
animals. The Veterinary
Surgeons Act of 1881 made it illegal falsely to
claim the title of ‘veterinary surgeon’; it did not make it illegal to
carry
out animal treatment. This loophole allowed for a
diverse veterinary medical marketplace, with many individuals providing
treatment across all animal species. Some of these
unqualified practitioners functioned very effectively in terms of
clinical
results, client satisfaction and business success.
Dickin's own first employee had been called upon to treat Royal animals.
Speaking at the Central's meeting,
Captain R. Cornish-Bowden MRCVS defended an unqualified practitioner he
had seen working
at the London headquarters of the PDSA in
Commercial Street. On the day of his visit, there were more than 100
people and
animals waiting to be seen. Cornish-Bowden's
impression was favourable: ‘The gentleman I saw alleviating the
suffering of
these animals was a “quack”, but he had a better
means of studying the sickness of animals than was ever accorded to me
at
the Royal Veterinary College (RVC). He had 30
years’ experience attending small animals; the work he was doing was
excellent;
he handled his animals with a great deal more care
and skill than many veterinary surgeons I have seen'.24
The exposure to so much injury and
disease was in itself educational. For a receptive individual, it could
transcend any formal
veterinary qualification. Such awareness coincided
with concerns that veterinary training was becoming too theoretical and
that newly qualified veterinary surgeons lacked
practical animal handling, communication and observational skills.25⇓
Fig. 1
Maria Dickin, founder of the PDSA (copyright PDSA, reproduced with permission)
Interestingly, oral testimony suggests
that it need not have been this way. Dickin initially approached the
veterinary profession
with her idea for a network of national small
animal clinics. She reportedly turned up, not at the RCVS, the licensing
and
regulatory body, but at the RVC, the teaching
institution. It would have been an easy mistake to make. The story was
that
she was given short shrift and dismissed as another
sentimental ‘animal nut’. She did go on to employ two veterinary
surgeons,
but then dismissed them and decided to train her
own staff with the help of a sympathetic Harley Street doctor. By 1928,
she
was effectively running her own private veterinary
school.26
The Ilford Sanatorium
The Grove Hardy bequest allowed Dickin to
fulfil her ambition to build a teaching hospital in Britain along the
lines of that
constructed by the PDSA in Paris. She used the
money to secure a 30-acre estate in Ilford, Essex, and opened a
Sanatorium.
This was soon developed into a comprehensive
treatment, training and headquarters complex with numerous wards,
stables and
kennels, X-ray and UV light treatment facilities
and a spacious operating theatre. Educational facilities included
lecture
rooms and a library. In an article entitled ‘A
day's work at the PDSA Sanatorium’, which was printed in the
Dispensary's house
magazine, The Animals' Advocate, in September 1928, the daily routine was described.27
It was one modelled on an efficient human teaching hospital, with ward
rounds, admission of emergency cases delivered by
ambulances, and the scheduling and performance of
surgical operations. An all-day out-patient clinic dealt with those
animals
not requiring admission.
The Sanatorium was staffed by senior
technical officers; only one veterinary surgeon was involved. The
veterinary surgeon
may have been A. A. Wilson, who was listed as
‘Honorary Consulting Veterinary Surgeon’ on appeal forms in 1925. The
RCVS considered
prosecuting him for ‘quack covering’, but did not
proceed in order to avoid embarrassing the Prince of Wales, who was
Patron
of the PDSA. It is possible Wilson did not perform
clinical work, but was retained so that Dickin could say she had
veterinary
input.28
The Sanatorium fulfilled an important
teaching role and junior technical assistants from outlying dispensaries
attended for
classes. Training took three to five years in total
and involved theoretical spells at the Sanatorium in between practical
work in the dispensaries in the regions. This
block-release format probably provided more ‘hands-on’ training than any
of
Britain's veterinary colleges, with extensive
clinical exposure from the outset.⇓
Fig. 2
Trainee technical officers at the PDSA Sanatorium. This type of ‘hospital medicine’ was not seen within British veterinary
practice at this time (copyright PDSA, reproduced with permission)
The opening of the Ilford Sanatorium
marked a turning point in the attitude of the veterinary profession
towards the welfare
work being carried out by Dickin in her
Dispensaries. The Sanatorium fulfilled most of the criteria of a general
teaching
hospital for animals and was unlike anything
available in veterinary practices of the time. Whilst some practices
operated
‘canine infirmaries’, in effect this often meant a
few kennels for hospitalisation, if needed, coupled with a general
willingness
to see dog and cat patients if they were presented.29
The institutional and hospital nature of the Sanatorium could only be
compared to the veterinary colleges and to the Brown
Animal Sanatory Institute in London, but it
exceeded even these facilities in scope and outlook, and in patient
throughput.30
Dickin's Sanatorium was also wholly geared to the welfare of animals.
The Brown also undertook some animal experimentation,
a fact that was probably known to some of the
people taking their pets there for treatment. The PDSA did not present
confusing
messages about the status of animals: it was there
for the sole purpose of giving free treatment to patients in need. It
was
therefore more in keeping with the humanistic
intent of the voluntary hospital.
Especially worrying to the veterinary
profession was Dickin's national, and indeed international, ambitions.
Even before the
Ilford Sanatorium had opened its doors in 1928,
practitioners in Glasgow had been complaining about the charity's
activities
in that city, and in 1927 a meeting of the Royal
(Dick) Veterinary College's Education Committee took place to discuss
the
possible ‘invasion’ of the PDSA into Edinburgh. The
threat was discussed by clinical staff, the College Board and local
veterinary
surgeons on 21 December.31
In 1930, the main valuer and selling agent for veterinary practices, Charles H. Huish, wrote to Henry Gray, the small animal
specialist in Earls Court:⇓
I wonder if you are afflicted with one of those dreadful ‘People's Animal Dispensaries’ in your neighbourhood which are conducted by White-Smocked unqualified men in dozens of towns in the Southern Counties with disastrous results to many veterinary surgeons; and within the present month I know for a fact that the receipts of two of my clients in Kent are down close to £400 for the year.
Before these establishments [the Dispensaries] were open both of them took £1 a day cash for treatment of dogs and cats and now they don't take a pound a week. In one of the towns (Sittingbourne) there are boxes in every shop and public house and of course the proprietors get free attention for their animals from having the collecting boxes on their counters. Vans with White-Smocked men in charge also daily scour the surrounding villages for patients.32
Fig. 3
Part of the fleet of PDSA ambulances that scoured the countryside for patients, according the practice sales agent, Charles
Huish (copyright PDSA, reproduced with permission)
In the same year, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Dispensary's motto was: ‘We help—the poor man. We care—for the animal if it has been mistreated. We teach—as we work’.33
As her organisation surged from strength
to strength, Dickin grew more belligerent. In 1931, she blasted the
veterinary profession
and the RSPCA in a pamphlet:
If you are so concerned about the proper treatment of Sick Animals of the Poor, open your own dispensaries; open them everywhere for there are vast factory, mining, manufacturing and dockland areas where nothing at all exists to help the Sick Animal. … Live among it as we do. … Do the same work we are doing. Instead of spending your energy and time in hindering us, spend it in dealing with this mass of misery.34
Unwelcome proof of just how successful
she had become was made clear in the run up to Christmas. Dickin's
seasonal publicity
coup involved the creation of a 10-ton Christmas
pudding, the largest in the world, in the Albert Hall, London. The
ingredients
used had all come from the British Empire and it
became known as the Prince of Wales' Empire Christmas Pudding. The
pudding
was part of the PDSA's annual Christmas Bazaar,
which was attended by many public and titled figures. They arrived to
take
a turn in ‘stirring the pudding’, whilst fanfares
and patriotic music was played. Dickin was quoted as saying that the
idea
had come to her when working in poor industrial
areas. Once finished, the pudding was to be divided up and sent to
22,000
poor families. It was reported in the Glasgow Herald
that the Prince of Wales immediately gave his support and, being
Patron, was to receive a small piece of the pudding himself
for his Christmas dinner. Other national newspapers
carried the story and also the good news that the PDSA had treated
nearly
one million animals that year.35
A copy of this story found its way to the RCVS with a short note added: ‘Attached from The Times today. Cases treated, say, 3000 a day throughout the year. As we appear to be “stuck” cannot a question be asked in the House?’36 The word ‘stuck’ would have carried more than one meaning for its veterinary audience and the metaphor of the profession
having its throat cut by the PDSA was one that would recur.
In 1932, the PDSA's values became enshrined in a chant-like acronym:
Pity draws us like a magnet to suffering that is cryingDuty compels us to right the wrongs of the oppressedService implies responsibility to our lesser brethrenAction—prompt and ready is our motto37
Class, Charity and the Profession
The situation with respect to poor
animals and their treatment did not occur in isolation. It was set
against a broader question
about the future role and purpose of the British
veterinary profession. By the 1930s, the profession's totemic animal was
becoming a rare sight on the streets. The horse
represented veterinary medicine; professional education was founded on
it,
the horse being the type species in all veterinary
teaching and the most prestigious domesticated animal.38
As a species, horses cut across all strata of society. The equine class
structure mirrored the human one: from blue-blooded
thoroughbreds, through fashionable ‘middle class’
hacks and courageous war horses, to lowly commercial and draught
animals—horses
were both noble and useful. A noble and useful
animal symbolised a noble and useful profession. It is not surprising
that
the threatened disappearance of the horse elicited
responses of first denial, then anger and fear in a profession that
lagged
behind medicine in terms of prestige and influence.39
The latter was making enormous strides forward as doctors grew in
social status and professional authority. As the sound
of horses grew ever fainter in towns and cities,
the veterinary profession's future role in society looked increasingly
unclear.
Against this background of professional
insecurity, Maria Dickin's attitude in setting up her free clinics added
insult to
injury. Between the wars, the profession did not
regard dogs as their primary patient group—indeed individual veterinary
surgeons
restricting themselves to pet animals were mostly
seen as ‘below the salt’—but Dickin's assault on veterinary professional
territory came at a sensitive time.40
Her motivation to help animals may not have been driven by the
over-sentimentality and anthropomorphism that was imputed
by critics, including veterinary surgeons, to
satirize her and other women who worked for animal welfare. A
significant proportion
of the work of animal welfare societies in the
1920s and 1930s was euthanasia of healthy stray animals or those
belonging
to owners who could no longer afford to feed them.
So-called ‘destruction clinics’ were a common occurrence.41
In her insistence that animal treatment did not require a veterinary qualification, Dickin was, in one sense, de-anthropomorphising
animals. There were not close similarities with human beings and they
did not need highly trained doctors
because their needs were more basic. This not only
put animals in their place, it did the same to veterinary surgeons, by
suggesting that automatic comparisons with the aims
and exclusive status of medicine were inappropriate. This assumption
concerning
the linked status of animals and the profession was
picked up and used as part of the propaganda against Dickin's
dispensaries,
especially by the Veterinary Journal, which addressed the issue in editorials, such as this one from 1932:
The public should know that at the present time there are certain dispensaries whose ruling body is obviously of the opinion that the dumb animal does not require as much consideration in the matter of skilled treatment as man. One would expect that a Society whose aim is essentially that of relieving suffering in animals would provide the best skilled treatment possible, and not offer ‘quack’ treatment for the thousands of pounds it collects from the animal lovers of Great Britain.
Thousands of dogs are destroyed each year by this Society on the advice of its attendants. There are times when a veterinary surgeon of long practical experience cannot decide whether a suffering animal is beyond the sphere of treatment, but these unqualified attendants have the courage to sit in judgement whether a suffering animal should be put in the lethal chamber or not.42
The profession was saying that veterinary
medicine should be seen on a par with human medicine in its orientation
to patients
and in their necessary protection from the
‘quacks’. However, it was the PDSA that was providing the facilities
that most
closely resembled hospitals. The vulnerability of
the veterinary profession, the difficulty it had in speaking with one
voice
(it effectively existed as a loose association of
small business owners), and the public's demonstrably favourable
response
toward an organisation which appeared to be doing
good and necessary work, meant that a full frontal attack on Dickin
carried
significant risks. Veterinary leaders began to
recognise that another battleground had to be found.
A Call to Action
On 25 February 1932, the Veterinary Record's
editorial leader was titled ‘A Call to Action’. The piece outlined the
outcome of discussions between the RSPCA and the
NVMA that had taken place under the auspices of The
University of London Animal Welfare Society. The president of the NVMA
had given an address on ‘The Problem of the Poor
Animal Owner’.43
What emerged from the meeting was a working relationship between the
NVMA and the RSPCA that became known as ‘the joint scheme’
or ‘the joint agreement’. The aim was to halt
further expansion of the PDSA and had been summed up in a letter written
by
the President of the London Animal Welfare Society
to members the previous year. The letter made reference to Dickin's
difficult
temperament and suggested: ‘[I]f she will not adopt
a more reasonable attitude, the efforts of Animal-lovers ought to be
directed
towards the destruction of her Organisation and its
replacement by another, in imitation of it, but run on lines from which
personal pique has been eliminated as a guiding
principle’.44
The essence of the joint scheme was a
network of ‘centralised’ facilities in large towns and cities, in the
manner of the
larger hospitals of the PDSA, and a ‘decentralised’
system operating in less populous areas whereby animals of the poor
would
be treated by private veterinary surgeons for
reduced fees. The scheme had some administrative and practical problems.
There
was going to be variation between local RSPCA
branches issues over scope of treatment, and potential problems if some
veterinary
surgeons in a locality participated and others did
not. The scheme would not have the unified and organised approach
possible
at the centrally administered PDSA. Nevertheless,
the joint scheme was seen as an important step. Significantly, it placed
the RSPCA and the veterinary profession in a closer
relationship with regard to treatment, even if the two organisations were at times competing as to which had most authority to speak on general animal welfare.45
The joint scheme also went some way to
tackling the issue of ‘hospital’ facilities and the impression this
generated in the
minds of the animal-owning public. The PDSA had
created clinical environments that were visible and obvious places of
animal
treatment. The centralised scheme with the RSPCA
would do likewise. However, it was also recognised within the profession
that private practitioners would have to do more if
they wanted to compete effectively for small animals. The idea of
clinics
and hospitals for animals, and what they should
look like, began to receive more attention.
The Christmas 1933 edition of the Veterinary Record
editorialised at length on the facilities required for small animal
work, even suggesting that providing ‘imposing’ surroundings
was a moral issue for the profession.46 Despite the impression given in the editorial, however, ‘kitchen table’ small animal surgery was alive and well in the 1930s,
even if it was supposed to be deprecated by the progressive practitioner.47 What was changing was a growing awareness that small animals (dogs principally) could support a clinic dedicated to their
own needs on a scale much larger than had previously been envisioned.
From the veterinary point of view, the
1930s saw a clear move away from attempts at invoking a deficient law
(the ineffective
Veterinary Surgeons Act of 1881, which did not
secure a professional monopoly on animal treatment) to constructing a
strong
moral argument against unqualified practice. Using
the Veterinary Surgeons Act against the PDSA always risked creating the
impression that the vets were acting out of
self-interest, even if, within the profession, it was widely believed
that many
people attending PDSA clinics could afford to pay
for treatment. Reports of middle or upper class companion animals
attending
clinics accompanied by domestic staff, and being
observed taken away in chauffeur-driven vehicles, circulated within the
profession.
Others reportedly paid obviously poor-looking
people, ‘who are often half-witted, deaf, or stammer to a painful
extent’, to
attend the clinic on their behalf. Writing on the
problems of such charity abusers, who became known as ‘conductors’, R.
Isherwood,
the veterinary surgeon in charge of a clinic
attached to the University of Liverpool, noted that they could be
unmasked by
their lack of essential knowledge about the patient
or by their failure to answer correctly when tested with a map of the
local poor area served by the clinic.48
It is likely that some animals of a better class were sent to the large
charity hospitals not just because the owner was
intent on saving money, but because it was judged
that a higher quality of animal treatment or more humane consideration
were
on offer there, and this as a result of the greater
awareness that the PDSA had generated in the creation of recognisable
places of compassionate animal treatment.
However, publically branding even some
PDSA clients as charity abusers was potentially damaging given the scale
of animal
welfare issues revealed by the PDSA and its very
effective practical actions to address them. The new approach, as
indicated
in editorials like that of December 1933, was to
encourage veterinary surgeons to ‘up their game’ in small animal work.
One
way was to improve their clinical furniture.
Additionally, and more importantly, a very clear case had to be made
that veterinary
supervision of the treatment of small animals was
in the animals' best interests. Thus the animals entered the argument in a way they had not done before as the emphasis changed from legality
to morality.
In 1934, the number of free treatments
administered annually at the PDSA was in excess of one million. Dickin
had founded
a ‘Busy Bees’ club, which soon saw tens of
thousands of children (50,000 by 1941) the length and breadth of the
country learning
how to look after their dogs, cats and rabbits
better—whilst also being hard at work raising funds for the
ever-expanding
network of dispensaries. In 1935, an animal
cemetery was opened at the Ilford Sanatorium; there were 71
dispensaries, now
backed by five regional hospitals, and 11 touring
motor-caravan dispensaries. International work continued with further
facilities
in Egypt, Greece, South Africa, Syria, the Dutch
East Indies and Palestine. The organisation was widely recognised for
doing
valuable work.49
A significant event in the fight back by
the veterinary profession was the re-opening of the RSPCA's Liverpool
Animal Clinic,
in April 1935. This followed an extensive rebuild
and was attended by public and veterinary dignitaries. Frederick Hobday,
in his capacity as Principal and Dean of the RVC,
and knighted for services to veterinary medicine, gave the opening
speech.
His words emphasised the moral frame in which
unqualified treatment was now being cast: ‘We assert emphatically that
the animal
of a poor man when ill has just as much moral right
to proper diagnosis and treatment of its ailment as the animal of the
rich; and to have it experimented upon (for that is
what it amounts to) by any Tom, Dick or Harry, even if he has
previously
been a groom or kennel man, is wrong, and should be
stopped by the laws of the land’.50
The NVMA stepped up its programme of
press releases attacking animal clinics in general and PDSA dispensaries
in particular.
Items were placed in national newspapers under
headings such as ‘Poor People's Sick Animals: Protest Against
Unqualified Treatment’.
At an extraordinary general meeting of the Central
Division of the NVMA held at the RVC in Camden in January 1936, the
committee
approved a resolution to be used as the basis of
further advertisements in national newspapers. Humane sentiment was
aroused
by the notions of equality of care for the
vulnerable and vague hints of anti-vivisectionist sympathy by suggesting
that unqualified
practitioners were ‘experimenting’.51
Care was usually taken not to attack the PDSA by name; the organisation, affectionately known to many as the Poor Doggers
Salvation Army, was too large and well-known for that.52
Instead, criticism was directed at unqualified practitioners in general
by encouraging animal owners to ask whether or not
the person attending to their animal was an MRCVS.
By 1937, there was growing confidence that progress in the propaganda
war
surrounding poor animals was being made. The
profession's position was also being bolstered by initial enquiries made
in connection
with the Loveday Committee, which had been set up
by the government in October 1936 to review veterinary education and
practice.
Change was in the air.
Rapprochement53
The PDSA was Maria Dickin's organisation.
She had created the charity's unique ethos and its very favourable
public image.
Eschewing the policing and prosecuting approach of
the RSPCA, the PDSA worked non-judgementally in the poorest areas and
provided
free treatment for those who appeared to need it.
Instead of an assumption that animals required protection from their
ignorant
or wilfully cruel owners, neglect and suffering
were framed primarily in the context of social disadvantage. Dickin had
also
set the tone for the charity's difficult relations
with the veterinary profession, mainly through her uncompromising stance
on employing unqualified staff and training them
internally.
By the late 1930s, the PDSA was a large and an increasingly complex institution. It managed very substantial bequests, trust
deeds and charitable income. The annual spend on animal treatment in 1937 was £76,504 15s 5d.54
Dickin, approaching seventy and still the figurehead, began to take
less direct involvement in day-to-day operations. A Council
of Management was established and the General
Secretary, Mr E. Bridges Webb, was given full executive powers.
The government-appointed Loveday
Committee was due to report in 1938. This committee had been making
wide-ranging investigations
into British veterinary education and the future
role and purpose of the profession. A review of the Veterinary Surgeons
Act
was considered to be an inevitable recommendation. A
key part of that would undoubtedly be to establish professional
closure:
animal treatment would become ‘disciplined’ and
unqualified practice banned. Such a move would have very serious
implications
for the PDSA. It was not, however, a
straightforward thing. If unqualified treatment was stopped overnight,
the veterinary
profession would be unable to staff the PDSA's many
clinics—there were not the numbers of veterinary surgeons for one
thing.55 Additionally, no one could be compelled to work there and many would not wish to. It was therefore not a simple matter of
replacing every PDSA technical officer with an MRCVS, at least not in the short term.
It was in the context of these anticipated changes that Bridges Webb made informal contact with the President of the RCVS,
G. H. Livesey.56 He did so initially through an intermediary with whom he was acquainted, the influential veterinarian and professional leader
Sir Frederick Hobday.57
Neither Dickin nor the PDSA Council of Management knew of this approach
and the initial letters between Bridges Webb and
Livesey are all marked ‘strictly personal’. In an
untitled typescript, seemingly part of an account of how the
negotiations
proceeded, Bridges Webb set out his reasons for
making the approach to the RCVS:
Year after year when new Presidents were elected to the College [RCVS] I have considered whether we could make any approach, but I have found always a reason why it could not be done. Some Presidents showed very definite prejudice, thereby giving me the impression that they would be unwilling to listen to my suggestions on behalf of the PDSA with complete impartiality. Other Presidents were tied by association with other charitable organisations. It was not until Mr Livesey was appointed and I heard of his character through mutual friends, that I felt I could take a ‘chance’.58
Bridges Webb and Livesey soon established
congenial relations and the former appeared sympathetic to many of the
profession's
concerns. From an early stage, Bridges Webb proved
himself willing to act where necessary. For example, he offered to
change
the title of staff working in the PDSA's clinics to
emphasise the distinction between unqualified practitioners and members
of the RCVS.59
In September 1938, Livesey felt confident enough to approach the RCVS Council to recommend that formal negotiations be started
with the PDSA in order to find a way for the two bodies to cooperate with each other in the future.60
A subcommittee of the Registration Committee was formed to discuss the
issue of relations with the PDSA. On 25 October, the
subcommittee unanimously agreed to work formally
with Bridges Webb. A proposal was developed whereby all members of the
RCVS
practising within the vicinity of a PDSA dispensary
would be invited to undertake work for the PDSA. None would be
‘embarrassed’
if they refused. Animals and their owners would be
sent to the veterinary surgeon's practice when the PDSA technical
officer
recognised that the individual case fell into
certain still-to-be agreed categories. The receiving veterinary surgeon
would
be paid a fee. Where there were full-time
hospitals, the PDSA would employ a veterinary surgeon of their own, who
would be
placed in charge.61
In drafting these proposals, the RCVS
took a very pragmatic view of its strict byelaws on ‘quack covering’—the
involvement
of an MRCVS in a case already being treated by an
unqualified person. This potential stumbling block was removed and it
was
decided that no change in the RCVS byelaws would be
needed: the RCVS would interpret them in the spirit of the new
cooperation
being envisaged.
Bridges Webb successfully persuaded Maria Dickin of the need to cooperate with the RCVS, and once the PDSA Council of Management
became involved, there is no evidence of significant on-going objections arising from within the charity.62
The most likely explanation for the volte-face on the part of Dickin
was that she was persuaded by Bridges Webb and her Council
that change was inevitable, that it would soon be
legally imposed, and that the best chance for the charity was to work
with
a sympathetic President of the RCVS. The report
formalising the arrangements to work with the RCVS was approved on 24
November
1938 at a meeting chaired by Dickin herself.63
The first that rank and file veterinary
surgeons heard of the PDSA negotiations was when all those on the RCVS
Register received
a lengthy letter from the President, dated 6 March
1939. In outlining proposals for cooperation, Livesey noted that the
PDSA
now had more than one hundred dispensaries,
hospitals and caravans operating in Britain, that it worked in eight
foreign countries,
and that it attracted great public sympathy and was
supported by many eminent people. Livesey presented the proposals as
they
had been agreed by the RCVS Subcommittee and the
PDSA Council of Management. The central point was that veterinary
surgeons
receiving cases from PDSA technical officers would
not be considered to be in breach of RCVS by-laws on ‘quack covering’.
Alongside the letter to members, the RCVS
immediately issued a press release, which gained national newspaper
coverage. The
release said that the scheme would benefit poor
owners and their animals throughout the country. It also stated that the
arrangement
in no way affected the policy or administration of
the PDSA.64
Letting the Cat out of the Bag
The profession's regulatory body (RCVS) and the membership association (NVMA) were not always in agreement. A frequent bone
of contention was the strict regulations imposed on advertising by the RCVS.65
The NVMA had long felt that this placed the profession at a
disadvantage, especially when compared to the very effective
use of publicity made by the PDSA. In making its
own announcements to the press in connection with the new PDSA scheme,
the
RCVS had pointedly by-passed the ‘National’.66
The NVMA's initial response, expressed in Veterinary Record
editorials of 11 and 18 March, was to criticise the timing of the press
release and to sympathise with the surprise of its
members on receiving such a letter from the RCVS.
However, the overall idea of cooperation with what it now described as
‘this
important animal welfare society’ was met with
conditional approval. In the words of one correspondent, the main
feature of
the NVMA's first response in its own journal was a
‘non-committal expression of philosophical doubt. Presumably they had
let
the cat out of the bag, and were waiting to see
which way it jumped …’.67
The direction of the ‘jump’ soon became clear as the RCVS was savaged in the Record's
correspondence pages. One correspondent considered that ‘the PDSA,
having arranged to cut the practitioner's throat, is
blandly asking him to lend a scalpel for the
purpose.’ There were calls for resignations from RCVS office holders.68
T. A. R. Chipperfield, Honorary Secretary of The Society of Veterinary
Practitioners, demanded that members be informed of
the exact sequence of events that led to the
agreement and urged ‘utmost frankness … never before in its history has
the veterinary
profession been so interested in its destiny’.69
Meanwhile, it was reported in The Times
that Bridges Webb had journeyed to Paris to visit the Duke of Windsor, a
PDSA supporter. The Duke was informed of the ‘recent
arrangement between the RCVS and the Society for
giving a more widespread service for the sick animals of the poor’. This
further press coverage was cited in the Record and reinforced the notion of a fait accompli engineered by the RCVS. Within veterinary circles, in the language of threat that was everywhere in 1939, it led to predictable
accusations of ‘appeasement’.70
The case for the RCVS/PDSA alliance was helped when two highly respected teachers from the RVC wrote long, supportive letters
to the Veterinary Record. J. G. Wright,
known affectionately in the profession as ‘John George’, had legendary
clinical and teaching abilities, and
J. McCunn, a colleague of Wright's, wrote in the
same issue. Although McCunn had suffered at the hands of the PDSA whilst
in practice, he claimed to have come to realise
that the Society was inspired by the best of motives. He wrote: ‘The
British
public has a kind heart and the ordinary man will,
and justly so, look with favour upon any person or body whose actions
are
actuated by the spirit of kindness and charity. … I
have always hoped that the day would come when this great society would
recognise the value of qualified service. … I
presume that those whom the scheme most closely affects, namely, the
animals
of the poor, would if it were within their power,
vote for collaboration’.71
The two letters drew a satirical reply from K. G. Morgan, an ex-student of both Wright and McCunn:
[S]ome of us youngsters said, as soon as we read the President's letter, ‘John George will not stand for this’. Then mirabile dictu, our anti-quack, our professional paragon, is found to be singing in chorus with the others. I would like to point out to Professor McCunn that the ‘dear little doggy’ stuff is quite a futile line to take with our profession. Some of us, thank goodness, have a real job of work to do. He mentions little doggies and pussies having a vote in the matter. Believe me, if this were the case, the cats would be too occupied in passing anti-castration laws to worry about the PDSA.72
McCunn replied that Morgan, ‘during his
post-graduate adolescence, has developed a “He-man” complex’ because of a
suggestion
that small animal practice was somehow not a worthy
occupation for the professional man. It was an interesting point that
would also feature in the post-war years—that the
specialty was effete and trivial—and represents how patient species was
‘gendered’ within the veterinary profession.73
RCVS Secretary and Registrar, Fred Bullock, who had been closely involved in the discussions with Bridges Webb, watched the
bickering with mounting frustration. The correspondence in the Veterinary Record was in danger of damaging the RCVS's good relations with the PDSA. The profession's other, but less frequently read periodical,
the Veterinary Journal, had now taken a much warmer line toward the PDSA, abandoning previous criticism in the light of the RCVS proposals.74
Bullock received supportive as well as critical letters from practitioners. To one he replied: ‘The profession as a whole
should be more careful before it cries out so loudly against the quackery of the PDSA.’75
He was aware that some veterinary surgeons employed unqualified staff
to make their on-call working lives more bearable,
and that certain of the activities of even quite
prominent members of the RCVS were considered ‘quackery’ by their peers.
As war brewed and then finally broke out,
professional hostilities were superseded by national ones and the PDSA
debate was
put on hold. However, a very important shift in
attitude had occurred. Further developments would now have to wait until
1945,
when fresh negotiations would resume in the very
different world that emerged. That period would see another animal, the
humble
cow, walk into the argument as the future role and
purpose of the profession would once again be debated. Dogs, cows,
politics,
education and professional identity would feature
in an on-going debate that would continue to shape the British
veterinary
profession and the new Veterinary Surgeons Act it
so badly wanted.76
Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that in order
to understand the most significant change that took place within the
British veterinary
profession in the twentieth century, close analysis
must begin in the interwar period. This revises the accepted narrative,
which says that the turn to companion animal
veterinary medicine arose out of socioeconomic changes taking place from
the
1950s.
Historical evidence demonstrates that the
shift towards the small animal began earlier. It started in the 1920s
and 1930s
and is seen in the veterinary profession's response
to the network of clinics established by the People's Dispensary for
Sick
Animals of the Poor, an organisation that operated
beyond veterinary jurisdiction and indeed actively challenged this in
almost
every way. My argument is that the profession's
attitude toward the small animal patient and to the kind of medicine
practised
was materially shaped by these clinics. The
veterinary profession watched and learned that dogs and later cats could
be legitimate
patients, that their treatment could command
professional and social respect, and that small animals afforded
opportunities
that the livestock economy would never match in
terms of development and use of the diagnostic and clinical sciences.
This
prepared the way for the foundation of the British
Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) in 1957.
The history passed through two distinct
phases in the interwar period. Initial attempts to solve the problem of
the poor animal
through legal means—the workings of the 1881
Veterinary Surgeons Act—were abandoned quite quickly. The profession
found it
difficult to make a convincing case against the
PDSA and its pioneering clinics for small animals. One reason was
because
of problems surrounding the legal definition of
veterinary surgery. Equally important, however, was the fact that
veterinarians
had not imagined such a system of medicine until it
had taken substantial hold within British society, and that happened
out
with the profession itself. The scale of the
Dispensary's operation, its mode of working and its overwhelmingly
favourable
public reception wrong-footed the veterinary
profession, while it was still trying to come to terms with the
disappearance
of the horse. The veterinary profession as a whole
was reluctant to embrace an animal that to the majority suggested
‘pandering’
and effeminacy, ideas that were said to hark back
to the sentimental excesses of the Victorian period.
By refocusing the debate on moral
grounds, which took place from the early 1930s, the profession was
beginning tacitly to
acknowledge the value of the dog, both as a
companion species deserving of expert (that is, qualified) care, and
also as a
species which could potentially serve as a focus
for a new branch of veterinary medicine, one that was modelled on the
scientific
and sentimental aims of human medicine. This was
the key development that, in the post-war years, would allow the
discipline
to develop into a kind of ‘human medicine for
animals’. The dog would prove to be a very responsive recipient of
medical advances,
some of which had been developed by this species
fulfilling another role in medicine, that of the model human.77
The role of Maria Dickin and the PDSA has
been marginalised within the history of British veterinary medicine.
This interesting
phase of the development of British practice has
been subject to internal, progressivist treatment, which privileges the
role
of the veterinary profession and categorises
unqualified practice as a scourge that was (eventually) stamped out. The
PDSA
itself is now fully integrated into British
veterinary medicine and as successful as ever, with an annual charitable
income
in 2011 topping £85 million. The charity no longer
has the words ‘of the Poor’ in its name, but provides free treatment to
animal owners receiving means-tested state
benefits. One could say that the PDSA has shown a classic move from
periphery to
centre, but an equally valid interpretation based
on this paper is that the centre (organised veterinary medicine) shifted
out to meet the periphery.
The women of practical animal welfare,
dangerous or not, of whom Maria Dickin was one, mostly worked in the
middle decades
of the twentieth century and were mostly
middle-class and middle aged. They exemplify an approach to animal
welfare which
placed the suffering animal at the centre of a
system of hands-on care and which, in this case, validated the small
companion
animal as a veterinary patient.78 Middle-class approval for the treatment of working-class pet animals opened up a field of practice that would later grow
exponentially as a highly successful branch of private medicine—the birth of the small animal clinic.
Funding
This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Programme Grant (grant number 096571).
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the three anonymous
referees for their insightful comments on earlier drafts on this paper,
as well
as Michael Worboys, Iain Robbé and Carol Gray.
Clare Boulton, RCVS Knowledge, and Elaine Pendlebury, PDSA, provided me
with
archive assistance.
Footnotes
-
Andrew Gardiner is a Clinical Lecturer at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on interdisciplinary and historical studies of human–animal relations and veterinary education.
- © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine
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