Lizzy Lind af Hageby Biography
Influential Animal Right Activist
Lizzy Lind af Hageby
Born: 20 September 1878 (Jönköping, Sweden)
Occupation: Writer | Anti-vivisectionist
Organization: Animal Defence | Anti-Vivisection Society
Known for: Brown Dog affair
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Who is...
Emilie Augusta Louise "Lizzy" Lind af Hageby (20 September 1878 – 26 December 1963) was a Swedish-British feminist and animal rights advocate who became a prominent anti-vivisection activist in England in the early 20th century.
Born to a distinguished Swedish family, Lind af Hageby and another Swedish activist enrolled at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1902 to advance their anti-vivisectionist education. The women attended vivisections at University College London, and in 1903 published their diary, The Shambles of Science: Extracts from the Diary of Two Students of Physiology, which accused researchers of having vivisected a dog without adequate anaesthesia. The ensuing scandal, known as the Brown Dog affair, included a libel trial, damages for one of the researchers, and rioting in London by medical students.
Brown Dog Affair...
Lind af Hageby and Schartau began their studies at the London School of Medicine for Women in late 1902. The women's college did not perform vivisection, but its students had visiting rights at other London colleges, so Lind af Hageby and Schartau attended demonstrations at King's College and University College, the latter a centre of animal experimentation.
The women kept a diary and in April 1903 showed it to Stephen Coleridge, secretary of the British National Anti-Vivisection Society. The 200-page manuscript contained one allegation, in a chapter called "Fun," that caught his eye, namely that a brown terrier dog had been operated on multiple times over a two-month period by several researchers, then dissected – without anaesthesia, according to the diary – in front of an audience of laughing medical students:
