Reviews
I was impressed by Guerrini's vast knowledge of the historical development of biomedical science, including the events that matter to ethical issues around use of animal and human subjects in research.
...a valuable, insightful, and useful book, covering a vast time span and a weighty theme.
Unique, succinct, and informative... It is rare to mix the stories of animal and human research together, and this joint history has been little understood and appreciated among even modern day discussants... The history is well drawn and accurate. Inserts illustrating important historical documents provide a feel of the times and thinking under discussion. The mixture of history and ethics makes this appropriate both for mentors and young Martin Arrowsmiths.
Within its confines, the author presented a balanced review of historical highlights (perhaps also lowlifes depending on perspective) surrounding animal and human vivisection and use in research... This was a great read and I recommend it to all.
A compelling and engaging account of the ways experiments have been conducted on animals and humans from the time of Galen to the present. [Guerrini's] book is crucial not only for understanding the changing value placed on experiments over time but also because it deepens our knowledge of the history of medicine.
The selected historical episodes involve individuals who are so eccentric... and experiments that are so shocking... that Guerrini's book reads like a work of historical fiction and, in turn, is highly engaging. This, or course, is not to be understood as a challenge to the work's historical veracity; rather, it is to be understood as a tribute to the captivating nature of the subject matter as well as the way in which that subject matter is presented... one cannot help but find Experimenting to be highly engaging... But being engaging isn't the book's only virtue. It also reminds us of and underscores a number of important issues closely tied to the contemporary debate on human and nonhuman animal experimentation... Guerrini's highly engaging, informative treatment on the history of the Western world's experimentation with humans and nonhuman animals is strongly recommended.
Guerrini does a fine job of putting the anatomy and physiology studies of Galen, Harvey and Vesalius, and the vaccination work of Jenner, Pasteur, Koch and Salk in historical context.
Well-written, highly accessible, and highlighting the major trends, events, and people in the history of Western medicine, experimental biology, and physiology, Experimenting with Humans and Animals is an excellent introductory text in the history of science or medicine.
A fascinating tour through the history of animal experimentation, with reference to human experimentation for perspective.
An excellent survey of human experimentation on both humans and animals. Her attention to interactions between experimenters and the societies in which they live offers a valuable sociohistorical context for understanding today's ethical debates over cloning, genetic engineering, and the breeding of animals to supply human body parts... A fine interdisciplinary work.
Guerrini applies a new prism to the history of human and animal experimentation, refracting important narrative lines of sight. By connecting cases of prisoners, children, and enslaved persons, all as unwilling subjects, to CRISPR-edited rats and DNA-rich museum specimens, this book illuminates even further scientific research's ethical and cultural legacies in the post-COVID world.
Guerrini's compelling history of our experimentation on humans and other animals is also an interrogation of experimental practice itself, examining the ideals and standards of science in a range of eras and settings. Fine-tuned and expanded to include more content on human experimentation and on animals outside the laboratory, this essential text for scholars, teachers, and students is now even more useful.
An accessible and engaging overview of efforts to understand how bodies work. By treating histories of medicine and animal experimentation together, Guerrini reunites stories that are too often told separately, giving us a far richer account of how our own health is linked to that of the animals around us.
In revising what remains the best historical introduction to the use of animals in scientific and medical research, attentive to how the experimental use of animals reflects wider societal values, Guerrini extends her study to include a timely reflection on how the COVID-19 pandemic brought human-animal relations back to the center of public debate. A concise, balanced account of a challenging topic that serves as an ideal departure point for anybody interested in better understanding this complex and often contested subject.
In 2003, Experimenting with Humans and Animals was a gift to those of us working to tether what seemed to be two distinct disciplines: animal studies and the medical humanities. This updated edition introduces the multispecies nature of public health to a new generation of scholars. From the perspective of another zoonotic global pandemic, Guerrini's historical book now looks prescient.
Book Details
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Bodies of Evidence: Experimentation and Philosophical Debate in Premodern Europe
Chapter 2. Animals, Machines, and Morals
Chapter 3. Disrupting God's Plan
Chapter 4
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Bodies of Evidence: Experimentation and Philosophical Debate in Premodern Europe
Chapter 2. Animals, Machines, and Morals
Chapter 3. Disrupting God's Plan
Chapter 4. Cruelty and Kindness
Chapter 5. The Microbe Hunters
Chapter 6. Polio and Primates
Chapter 7. From Nuremberg to CRISPR: New Rules and New Sciences
Conclusion
Suggested Further Reading
Notes
Index