1881

International Medical Congress in Britain where negative impact of the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876 on experimental medicine was a theme taken up by all the keynote speakers (French, 198-199). Epic confrontation between brain localization and equipotentiality took place between their leading champions, David Ferrier and Friedrich Goltz at Congress (French, 199, 311; Finger, 155-158). In aftermath of Congress, antivivisectionist “Victoria Street Society” prosecuted Ferrier under the 1876 Act for operatively induced cerebral lesions on monkeys. Prosecution failed (the surgery turned out to have been performed by G. F. Yeo, who was appropriately licensed and certificated by the Home Office), but it succeeded in mobilizing the British medical community on behalf of experimental medicine. This led to the founding, in 1881, of the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research (A.A.M.R.), which represented experimental medicine with the Home Secretary (out of the public eye), and led to a dramatic increase in granting of vivisection licenses, from 42 in 1892 to 639 in 1913 (French, 200ff.; Finger, 158-159, 169-172).