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DATE: 1938 LENGTH: 12 min CATEGORY: Educational & Instructional, Silent, Black & White |
CREATOR: Orval Hobart (O.H.) Mowrer PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: Department of Psychology, Institute of Human Relations, Yale University |
Summary
The history of animal testing and the history of the life sciences go hand in hand. Yet as Ben Schultz-Figueroa argues in this essay, these experiments were always fraught, as scientists had to manage their own emotional entanglement with their animal subjects, who often were killed or maimed in the process of the experiment. This is the “shared suffering” of the lab, and Schultz-Figueroa’s work prompts us to think about it not only as a guidepost for understanding the ethics of animal experiments but also as a methodological tool to understand visual images, specifically films, from the history of science. Mowrer’s films contain traces of the burdened relationship between him and his rodent test subjects….Read The Essay
Warning: These films contain explicit images of disease and intrusive medical treatment. Viewer discretion advised.
Supplementary Materials
Stills from Animal Studies in the Social Modification of Organically Motivated Behavior
Other Films Featured in the Essay “Shared Suffering Onscreen: Animal Experiments and Emotional Investment in the Films of O.H. Mowrer”
In the Collections of the National Library of Medicine
NLM Historical Audiovisuals Collection
The Falls of 1972: This Medicine on Screen essay by Edmund Ramsden explores a filmed experiment by John B. Calhoun, a research psychologist for 40 years at the National Institute of Mental Health. One of Calhoun’s areas of study was the effects of overcrowding. He constructed mouse colony “universes” where rodent residents had plenty of food and water, and were safe from predators. What they didn’t have was space. In this film Dr. Calhoun explains, and the viewer sees, the effects on the animals of sustained overcrowding. The resulting “behavioral sink” shows the mice engaged in aberrant actions such as hyperaggression, compulsive grooming, failure to reproduce, and infant cannibalism.
Vulnerability to Covert Attack: This Cold War film documents tests conducted near a coastal airbase—exact location not disclosed—in which possible covert attack scenarios are enacted. The film aims to show how chemical agents, such as nerve toxins, could be delivered with a variety of weapons. The camera documents the precise physical effects, relying on footage of animal experiments which may be disturbing to some.
NLM Prints & Photographs Collection
National Library of Medicine #101410821
National Library of Medicine #101436908
National Library of Medicine #101447252
National Library of Medicine #101446732
National Library of Medicine #101453878
National Library of Medicine #101450305
National Library of Medicine #101438471
NLM Rare Book & Early Manuscripts Collection
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872 by Charles Darwin
National Library of Medicine #1267767
Darwin had explored the emotional life of humans and animals in The Descent of Man. He expanded his considerations in The Expression of the Emotions, produced from materials originally intended for that first work. Pioneering its use of photographs in science, Darwin relied on the images of artist Oscar Rejlander (1813–1875) to show the continuity of emotional life in the higher animals. By means of side-by-side pictures, Darwin was able to correlate human emotions with those shown by primates and other mammals. In doing so, he discredited the claim that humans had a distinctly different from the animals: the differences were ones of degree, not kind. Learn more about Darwin’s books in Rewriting the Book of Nature.
Animal Experimentation in Medicine through the 18th Century: an exhibition at the Nation Library of Medicine, 1 July–30 October, 1965
National Library of Medicine #101260723
This exhibit shows some contributions to medical knowledge through such investigations, from ancient times through the eighteenth century. Not all are monuments in the history of biomedical research: included are several lesser works. View full text in NLM Digital Collections.
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