United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service National Agricultural Library Animal Welfare Information Center

Information Resources on Human-Animal Relationships Past and Present AWIC Resource Series No. 30 March 2005 Compiled by: Judith Ho Animal Welfare Information Center National Agricultural Library U.S. Department of Agriculture Published by: U. S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service National Agricultural Library Animal Welfare Information Center Beltsville, Maryland 20705 Contact us: http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/contact.php Web site: http://awic.nal.usda.gov Policies and Links

---

Contents

Introduction | Bibliography

---

Introduction 

Ancient Times

 

     The use of animals by humans goes back to dawn of human development.  Certainly by the time Homo sapiens developed, there is evidence that humans were sophisticated in their use of animals for food, fiber, clothing, building materials, medicines, and host of other uses.  During the Pleistocene era humans were accomplished hunters.   It is most probable that the Aflight distance@ between human hunters and their potential prey in the pre-historic period was quite short, and humans were intimately associated with the activities and behavior of all the animals in the environment.  Today we can see the evidence of such relationships in the European Paleolithic rock art that portrays the Ice Age mammals of Europe with such precision and empathy.

 

      As mammals, we have been predators on humans, and humans have been predators on other mammals.  We humans share many diseases with our animal kin.  In addition, we have placed our fellow mammals in useful categories, useless categories, sources of inspiration and beauty, miracles of life forces, etc.  They have been deified in some cultures.  There obviously existed a close association between the early hunter-gather societies and all other animals within their environment.  They have been symbols for deities and bestowed with human characteristics.  They have been parts of religious ceremonies.  They have been used to predict the future, carry people and trade goods, etc.  It is probably not incorrect to postulate that humans developed in concert with the animal life that surrounded them.

 

      The first surge in human population occurred when the emerging humans learned to make tools and manipulate fire.  Effective tools and fire were two important cultural advancements which enabled humans to survive in the pre-glacial conditions of northern Europe and America during the last glaciations. It was probably during this period in Europe that man first began to associate with some members of the local wolves.  Perhaps they even cooperated while hunting.  This association gradually led to the closer dependent relationship between some wolves and humans that in turn led to the domestication of tractable canines that included the purposeful breeding of individuals that eventually developed incredible variety of domesticated dogs that exist today.

 

      About 10,000 years ago, man assumed the habit of living in more or less permanent settlements, and his relationships to the animal world began to undergo profound changes.  At the same time, great climatic changes, and perhaps human activities, as well, had reduced many larger mammalian species, especially those used as food, to very small populations.  Major extinction events began to occur.  In response to dwindling and/or unreliable resources, human agricultural technology developed. Humans began to move from hunter/gather mode to a mode of actively domesticating plants and animals for food resources.   The second great surge in human progress with its ensuing increase in population occurred when man learned how to cultivate plants and tame and domesticate animals at levels that allowed for the development of larger settlements.  Human plant gathering activities had led to intimate knowledge of plant productivity cycles, and human hunters undoubtedly had often taken young canine animals into their camps as pets and companions. They would have become familiar with the animal growth and breeding cycles, diseases and behaviors of these young animals.  The animals would have benefited from the availability of food and shelter.   It seems safe to speculate that they would have bonded and grew to be hunting assistants to their human companions as they would have in the progenitor’s pack.  Other animals such as cattle and equines began to be managed in herds close to the human settlements.  Eventually, oxen were developed for pulling heavy objects.  The breeding of mules was understood in Roman times and they became an essential part of the Roman world.  They were used for riding, by farmers for ploughing and for drawing carts, and by the army for carrying baggage.  According to Richard W. Bulliet, in AThe Camel and the Wheel@, there seemed to be no mention of wheeled vehicles in medieval Islamic source material.  However, we know from the Bible, if nowhere else, that chariots, and carts and wagons had existed in the Middle East in ancient times.   

 

     During the Roman period, approximately from the beginning of the Christian era up to A.D. 400, the Dutch Eastern River Area formed part of the far northern border region with the Roman Empire.  Archeological remains in this area show us that animals were a vital part of the life and times of the people at that time.  The research shows that farm animals eaten included: cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, domestic fowl, geese and pigeons.  Wild animals included: aurochs, elk, red deer, roe deer, wild boar, and hare.  Interestingly, although domesticated, the horse and dog do not seem to have been eaten.  Fish remains that were found included: pike, rudd, orf or chub, perch, allis shad, or thwaite shad, eel, salmon, and catfish. 

 

     In the ancient world, humans believed in the close proximity of humans and animals, and that they were closely related.  This pagan view was rejected by the early Christian thinkers who established definite differences between humans and animals.  The influential 4^th century church father Augustine was adamant about this separation.  A characteristic behavioral difference assigned to animals repeatedly throughout the middle ages was their violence. 

 

       During the thousand years we consider the Middle Ages, from about A.D. 400 to about A.D. 1400; early thinkers shifted their view from the idea that humans were definitely different (Augustine's view) to the idea that humans have much in common with animals, noted by the 13^th century chronicler, Gerald of Wales.  On the other hand, Christian writers such as Albert the Great in the 13^th century noted and cataloged many differences.  Thomas Aquinas wrote of animal savagery and brutality.  Animal savagery was seen as irrational and lacking in reason.  This irrationality was the final and most important difference between animals and humans for the medieval thinkers, starting with Ambrose in the 4^th century and moving through Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in the 13^th century.  By the 12^th century, the early Christian idea of separation between humans and animals began breaking down.  Some 12^th century European thinkers discovered Anature@ and the physical world as something worth studying.  Also, in the 12^th century, the animal stories that had been developed in the early classical Greek and Roman times became popular again.  Metaphors used in the 12^th century stories began to cause people to see the “animal” within themselves and probably led to changing the way people looked at themselves in their relationship to the animal world.  Many of the boundaries between the human and animal world began to disappear or merge.  Many of our controversial animal rights issues come from this blurring of the boundaries between humans and animals.  For example, if there is little difference, should we eat animals?  If humans and animals share feelings in common, should we hunt and trap animals?  Should we use animals in medical experiments when we would not use humans?    

 

Animals as Symbols

 

      Europeans have received in dreams, myths and folktales the qualities of horses, oxen, goats, pigs, hares, and most other animals, and have been enriched.  According to E. L. Grant Watson, AThe animal has existed in the human, and the human in the animal.@ And, he says, this inter-relationship still exists.  Animal images have been projected into the heavens as Zodiacal signs, and humans and animals have grown close in the association between them caused by their use in agriculture and war.

 

        For many situations, humans use symbols to express meaning.  A symbol is defined as a concrete representation of a complex, abstract or invisible reality.  Religion uses many animals as symbols as a way to convey invisible realities and give them meaning.  For example, the image of the lamb is old and varied.  It represents a living thing that is innocent, gentle, meek, pure, and humble.  In the ancient Near East, the fish symbolized divine life.  In museums, you see images of goddesses and gods shaped like fish.  In the apocryphal story of Tobit, the angel Michael heals Tobit=s blindness with a fish.  Jewish legend said that at the end of time, the main course at the messianic banquet would be the leviathan, that is, the evil fish-monster cut up and served for supper.  The early Christian church pictured Jesus both as a fish and a lamb.  The Greek noun for Afish@ is an acronym for Jesus.  Medieval Christian churches were filled with many fabricated animal images from the Bible and church history.  The Bible also has a holy image of a chicken.  In the Bible, in Luke (13:34) and Matthew ( 23: 37), the hen is Jesus= choice to represent his great tenderness and love for the people of Jerusalem.  Before Jesus= time, hens symbolized procreation and care for children.  Baby chicks represented advent of spring and new life.  In ancient Greece, the rooster was a symbol of the god Apollo, and his crowing was thought to be a salute to the sun.  In Christian teaching, the rooster shows up before Jesus= death and resurrection, crowing three times when Peter denies Jesus.  During Medieval times, roosters were symbols of resurrection.  Later, roosters appeared in weather vanes on church steeples, representing Jesus as a mother hen, gathering and protecting his children together in faith.  (Luke, 13: 34).   

 

Animal Diversity

 

      Humans have always been interested and interconnected with animal life in their location.  That curiosity regarding animals has been reflected through the ages from the descriptions that travelers have written.  Often in addition to what the traveler sees, experiences and records about human cultural habits, landscapes, etc., the traveler often includes many passages and drawings of animals seen along the way.  The animals may include descriptions of domesticated species, wild animals kept as pets, and wild animals seen in their natural habitats.  You will find a number of old texts, listed in this document, that include physical descriptions, habits, behaviors, uses and habitats of the animals observed.  Often the authors/travelers have obviously spent considerable time and energy illustrating travel logs with pictures of those animals described. 

 

         As the Europeans began to travel via sea voyages to far away places around the world, there were often naturalists included as members of the crew.   Their job was to record and collect plants, insects, animal skins, etc.  One such renowned naturalist who sailed on the HMS Beagle was Charles Darwin.  As a result of his observations of natural life such as the divergence of birds and turtles of the individual islands comprising the Galapagos Islands, he proposed the theory of evolution.  

         Since there were animals at diverse locations that seemed to be similar (e.g. cat like animals—lions, tigers, puma, leopards), naturalists became aware that the use of local names for animals that were similar was confusing and did not identify organisms adequately.  It became obvious that there needed to be a systematic approach to naming individual types.  As more and more organisms were discovered and described, it became obvious that the taxonomic system would need to be in a universal language with universal rules that would give individual organisms a unique name but also show relationships to all the other organisms.  Although there were systems proposed and developed by various naturalists, in the middle 1700’s, the Swedish botanist Linnaeus developed the taxonomic classification system that seemed to meet the needs of naming   a type specimen and showing its relationship to all others organisms.  To this day, scientists still use the Linnaeus’s very complicated set of rules for the naming and indicating the relationships for every plant, and animal organism known in the world today.   

 

     One way that humans have appreciated the diversity of animals and plants is by maintaining exotic species in “living collections.”  It is known from early writings, that exotic animals have been maintained by royalty and other wealthy individuals for many centuries.  Expeditionary crews often returned with interesting animals, plants and insects that were exhibited in various ways.  The modern zoo and botanical garden are the current versions of this long tradition.  Sadly, due to the human destruction of so many natural places on the earth, such collections may now have an additional role--that of preserving remnant populations of animals and other organisms that have lost their habitats in the natural world.

 

     Also, many non-living specimens were brought back by explorers in parts or were preserved in some fashion.  Many of these preserved specimens formed the basis for natural history collections and museums where they serve as study collections or as educational experiences for the public.  There are several famous natural history museums in Europe, the United States of America, Canada , etc. that are still important to our society today.  

 

Animals as a Way to Understand Life Processes

 

         The use of animals in the life sciences can also be traced back to the beginnings of

Western medicine in ancient Greece and Rome, where vivisection was practiced according to Nicolaas Rupke.  For example, the Hippocratic treatise “On the Heart” (ca. 300 B.C.) describes cutting the throat of a pig drinking to study the act of swallowing, and also cutting open the chest of a living animal to observe how the auricles and ventricles of the heart were beating alternately.  The German historians Maehle and Trohler, in their study of animal experimentation through the eighteenth century, noted that it seemed obvious to these ancient physicians that knowledge of bodily functions could best be obtained by studying the interior of living organisms. 

 

         In the second century A.D., the Greek physician Galen, who practiced in Rome, significantly improved the techniques of dissecting live animals.  Galen recognized that vivisection could be disturbing to the experimenter or the audience, and recommended the use of pigs and goats rather than apes to avoid seeing the Aunpleasant expression@ of the ape, and not to be discouraged by such factors as the amount of bleeding that might occur. 

 

         Animal experimentation seems to have played little role in the philosophy of the Middle Ages, but resurfaced in the works of the Renaissance anatomists.  For example, Vesalius used living animals in his anatomical demonstrations at Padua and Bologna in Italy.  He argued that vivisection was necessary because of its usefulness in acquiring knowledge, and the surgical practice that it provided. 

 

          Most animal experimentation in the 17^th and 18^th centuries did little to advance the understanding of structure, disease and physiology of the time.  However, the study of toxicity began during this period.  Some scientists such as those of John Jacob Wepfer and Felice Fontana did help to advance the science of pharmacology.  It is interesting to note that Christian dogma offered no objection to animal experimentation through the ages.  However, the subject of animal use and vivisection was a philosophical topic of discussion the 17^th century.  The philosopher Descartes offered the concept of the Abeast machine@.  Descartes argued that both humans and animals could be compared with machines, yet he distinguished man from beasts because of man=s ability to speak, and because he possessed a rational, imperishable soul.  He believed that animals were unable to feel real pain--they just went through the motions.  Not everyone agreed however.  Some who raised their voices against vivisection were literary figures of stature in their day, such as Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson. Johnson was concerned that cruelty to animals would foster cruelty to man, a view that many others have shared and continue to share in the 21^st century.  At the end of the eighteenth century, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham said that man did not have the right to inflict pain on animals just because the animals lacked the faculties of reason and speech. 

 

         The science of vivisection continued to be practiced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  In the nineteenth century, Claude Bernard, one of the leading figures in the field, said that it was vivisection that raised the subject of physiology to the status of a true science because it brought speculations of physiologists under some form of experimental control. 

 

         It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that Charles Darwin=s discovery of the principle of evolution upset the prevailing concepts of human superiority.  Humans have depended on animals as an important source of food and other products, to be our pets in the home, our servants in the fields, and our prey during hunting season, and to be essential in furthering scientific, especially medical, knowledge through observation and experimentation.

 

         As other biomedical sciences were established in the nineteenth century, such as bacteriology and immunology, biological products were developed based on these sciences, such as Louis Pasteur=s vaccine for rabies and Emil von Behring=s diphtheria antitoxin.  These discoveries provided support for the claims of medical scientists that animal research would provide practical benefits to both animals and man.    

 

Regulation of Animal Use by Laws

 

         According to Leavitt and Halverson in Animals and Their Legal Rights p. 1,  “America has the distinction of being the first country to acknowledge the rights of animals by enacting statutory legislation to protect them from cruel treatment.” In 1641, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to have printed in first legal code, “The Body of Liberties.”  There are 100 liberties listed.  Liberty 92 is as follows:  “No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man’s use.”  Liberty # 93  deals with animals in transit.  It states that if someone is driving cattle to a far away place, that “ it shall be lawful to rest or refresh them for a competent time in any open space that is not Corne, meadow or inclosed for some peculiar use.”  These liberties were to be considered to be law.  For example, there is a case written in “Records of Quarterly Courts of Essex County, III, 305” where an individual was condemned for cruelty to an ox. 

 

         After the American Revolution, the first anti-cruelty state laws were passed by New York State.  Section 26 deals with malicious treatment of cattle or sheep which is considered a misdemeanor.  Gradually, the other States began to pass their own protective laws.  The process was not complete until the early 1900s.  By 1921 all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands had anti-cruelty statutes in their laws.  

 

         Under the 1876 British Cruelty to Animals Act, anyone carrying out animal experiments had to obtain a license to do so.  By the end of the nineteenth century, a number of pharmaceutical companies, here and abroad, were beginning to establish research laboratories of their own.  Private industry thus began to join universities and government research institutes in research involving animals, and biomedical research expanded rapidly in the twentieth century. 

Before the twentieth century, the frog played a major role in the history of research in the life sciences.  In the twentieth century, small laboratory animals, especially the rat and mouse, dogs, cats, hamsters and gerbils began to replace the frog in research experiments.

 

         In the United States of America, the first law that related to the care of laboratory animals was passed in 1966—The Animal Welfare Act.  The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 was passed to require humane treatment of animals in biomedical research and to protect dogs from being stolen for sale for research protocols.  The regulatory authority for the Animal Welfare Act was placed in the U.S Department of Agriculture where it still resides today.  The Act has been updated numerous times.   It now provides for greater regulatory oversight, mandated approaches to how animals are housed, handled, treated, cared for and requires justification of their use in biomedical research protocols.   The Act currently covers animals when they are used for toxicity testing, courses in higher education, in exhibits in zoos and circuses, and those marine mammals on exhibit in aquaria.  For more information on the legislation, visit the following Web sites:

 

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/regsqa.htm

 

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm

 

         In the past few years, many countries in the world have slowly added animal welfare related laws to their federal statutes.  There still are many countries that do not provide protections. However, globally there is a growing awareness and respect for the role animals that share the planet--their sensitivities, the remarkableness of their lives, and their unique abilities, are being appreciated.   With such appreciation, come societal pressures to insure that animals are respected, cared for and properly treated. 

 

Animal Health

 

         Animals in the United States and other developed countries are now among the healthiest in the world.  We can look back briefly to some additional positive historical acts that have led to the animal health conditions we enjoy today.  In 1862, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was established.  In 1863, the American Veterinary Medical Association was formed.  The first graduate Veterinary Medical School was established at Iowa State University in 1879.  The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) was established within USDA in 1884.  Congress created the Bureau in response to the petitions of frustrated farmers and ranchers whose livestock were so plagued with disease that overseas markets were refusing to buy from this country.  Today the work of the original BAI is divided among several other USDA agencies, such as APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) and ARS (Agricultural Research Service).  

 

         Since 1884, many supportive private organizations have been established over the years and include organizations such as the U.S. Livestock Sanitary Association in 1897 (now the U.S. Animal Health Association), and many livestock and poultry associations around the country.  Today, other sources of information include your State Cooperative Extension Service, and a variety of publications put out by the local State University and State Experiment Station.  Feed suppliers, manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and veterinary products also publish information on the care of pets, livestock and poultry.  Government, veterinarians, private associations, and animal owners all acting together has helped assure better health for all types of animals. 

 

         Our ideas about animals were not uniformly acquired, and they have not remained constant over time.  During the Age of Reason, some anatomists who followed Descartes administered beatings to dogs and made fun of those who pitied the animals, insisting that animals could feel no pain.  This 17^th century attitude towards animals emphasized the differences between humans and animals, as did the views of early Christian thinkers in the first centuries after the birth of Christ.   Only in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries did we decide that humans and animals share feelings, and conclude that humans should be careful of the feelings of animals.  

 

In Summary

 

         Today our definition of animal is probably broader and certainly more biologically based.  Animals are all things organic that are not plants.  Although some may have reservations about this definition, most accept the idea that humans are animals, topping a Darwinian ladder that ranks everything from the smallest protozoa to the largest whale.  As humans accept that people are animals, and we know more about the complexity of animals, we have a greater appreciation of how we share many of the same qualities and characteristics.   Admittedly the media has changed, but today we carry on the long tradition of endowing animals with human characteristics.  They are portrayed in cartoons, television and films in ways that are definitely human, endowed with human characteristics.  We acknowledge in our treatment of animals that our kinship with them, is no longer so separate.  

 

      Although the ways we interact with animals in some ways has changed through the ages, in other ways, we interact with them in ways that the early humans did.   We enjoy them; we hunt them; we keep them as pets; we depend on them for food, fiber and leather; we have fun with them; we use them as examples of behavior; and we just enjoy watching them; we are inspired by them; we use them to understand ourselves, etc.  As humans, we should protect them; realize their value; appreciate them; ensure that they have places to live in the wild, etc. Last but not least, we should all silently thank them for all they contribute to our lives.  They truly enrich  and nourish our human experience.

 

Sources

 

Animal Welfare Institute.  Animals and Their Legal Rights. 4^th edition,  The Institute. Washington, D.C.  1990.  NAL Call Number:  HV4725.U5L4  1990

 

Baky, John S., ed.  Humans and Animals.  The Reference Shelf;  vol. 52, no. 4.  H.W. Wilson Company.  205 p.,  c1980.  NAL Call Number:  QL85.H85 

 

Bulliet, Richard W.  The Camel and the Wheel.  pp. 2-4.  Harvard University Press.  Cambridge,  Massachusetts, xiv, 327 p., ill., 1975.  NAL Call Number:  SF401.C2B84 

 

Caras, Roger A.  A Perfect Harmony; the Intertwining of Lives of Animals and Humans throughout History. p. 19.  Simon and Schuster.  New York, NY, 271 p.,  1996.  NAL Call Number:  QL85.C37 1996 

 

Clutton-Brock, Juliet A.  A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals.  British Museum (Natural History), London, [Great Britain], 208 p., ill., 1989.  NAL Call Number:  SF41.C58 1989 

 

Grant Watson, E.L. (Elliot).  Animals in Splendour.  Pref.  Horizon Press, New York, [New York], 158 p., [c1967].  NAL Call Number:   QL85.G7 

 

Kleinman, Devra G.; Mary E. Allen; Katerina V. Thompson; Susan Lumpkin, eds. 

Holly Harris, Managing Editor.  Wild Mammals in Captivity; Principles and Techniques.  University of Chicago Press.  Chicago, [Illinois], 583 p., 1996.  NAL Call Number:  SF408.W55 1996  

 

Lauwerier, Roel C.G.M.  Animals in Roman Times in the Dutch Eastern River Area.  Amersfort, [Netherlands]: ROB, 227 p., ill., 1988.  NAL Call Number:  DJ411.N6L38 

 

Mason, Richard.  The Gentleman=s New Pocket Farrier: A General Description of the Noble and Useful Animal, the Horse; with Modes of Management in all Cases, and Treatment in Disease, to which is Added, a Prize Essay on Mules: An Appendix, Containing Recipes for Diseases of Horses, Oxen, Cows, Calves, Sheep, Dogs, Swine, etc., etc. ...  Philadelphia, [Pennsylvania].  Claxton, Remsen & Haftefinger, [673 p.], 1873.  NAL Call Number:  42 M38 

 

Moe, Dean L.  Christian Symbols Handbook. Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  1985.  (In compiler’s personal collection.)

 

Parascandola, John. The history of animal use in the life sciences.  From: Goldberg, Alan M., and L.F.M. Zutphen, eds.  The World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences: Education, Research, Testing.  Vol. 11.  Pt. 1-B.  Plenary Lectures.  pp.  11-21, bibl. pp. 19-21.  Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers, 738 p., 1995.  NAL Call Number:  RA1199.A49 v. 11 

 

Rupke, Nicholaas A.  Vivisection in Historical Perspective.  Edited by Nicholaas, A. Rupke.  London; New York.  Croom Helm, x, 373 p.,  c1987.  The Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine.  NAL Call Number:  HV4915.V58 

 

Salisbury, Joyce E.  The Beast Within; Animals in the Middle Ages.  pp. 1-11.  Routledge.  New York, and London ,  238 p., ill., 1994.  NAL Call Number:  QL85.S25  1994 

 

United States Department of Agriculture.  Yearbook of Agriculture, 1984;  Animal Health; Livestock and Pets.  USDA, GPO, Washington, D.C., 646 p., 1984.  NAL Call Number:  1.Ag84 1984 

 

Zeuner, Frederick E.  A History of Domesticated Animals.  New York, [New York].  Harper & Row, 560 p., ill., [1963].  NAL Call Number:  SF41.Z4 

 

How To Use This Document

 

     This bibliography lists some of the current, historical, and very early works on animals.  Except where indicated in the reference section of the introduction, all items are part of the National Agricultural Library (NAL).  Some of these selected rare historical works are available through the Special Collections section of the Library (NAL), and can often be identified by the capital R at the end of the call number.  These may be used at NAL by appointment only.  The other documents are in the general collection and available via inter-library loan. 

 

     The items are grouped first by the date of publication and then in alphabetical order by the first author.

Acknowledgments

     The compiler would like to thank Jean Larson for her role in creating the introduction and editing the document and to Barbara Buchanan for final editing, formatting and the development of the web version of this document. 

     A special thank you to Carey T. Smith for translating several Latin citations in this document.

---

Bibliography

1100-1699 | 1700-1799 | 1800-1899 | 1900-present