Animal Study and Experimentation

Abstract

The study of animals as accounted for in Classical texts takes two forms, which are broadly similar to the ways they are studied in the modern era: there is some evidence for bodily experimentation in the forms of dissection and vivisection; and several texts describe animal behaviour (some of which were seen above, Chapter 4). The evidence for bodily experimentation is quite fragmentary, but there is no doubt that dissection took place on a large scale, particularly in the Roman period: several anatomical treatises survive, most notably those of Aristotle, but other works are preserved in the Galenic corpus.¹ Evidence from Galen confirms that vivisection took place (see below), and although the extent of ancient vivisection is not clear, it seems likely that vivisection was widespread, and the promotion of vivisection by seventeenth- century doctors and philosophers including Descartes probably offers a parallel for the sort of intellectual and ethical boundaries of their ancient counterparts.