Edward Collis Berdoe (7 March 1836 – 2 March 1916) was an English
physician, anti-
vivisectionist and writer. He studied and wrote on the works of
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings ...
. He also campaigned against medical experiments on human patients and animals.
Medical career
Born in
St Pancras, London
St Pancras () is a district in north London. It was originally a medieval ancient parish and subsequently became a metropolitan borough. The metropolitan borough then merged with neighbouring boroughs and the area it covered now forms around ...
on 7 March 1836, Berdoe was educated at
Regent's Park College
Regent's Park College (known colloquially within the university as Regent's) is a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford, situated in central Oxford, just off St Giles'.
Founded in 1810, the college moved to its present site in ...
,
presumably as a lay student rather than a candidate for the
Baptist ministry. While working in an apothecary's shop in
Reading, he took up photography. There is an Edward Berdoe recorded as serving in a medical capacity during the
Crimean War and later in the
American Civil War, which ended in 1865, but this is likely to be a namesake, as the physician Edward Berdoe was developing his career in pharmacy and raising a family in England in those times.
Berdoe gained medical qualifications at the
Royal London Hospital and was admitted as an LRCPE (Licentiate of the
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) is a medical royal college in Scotland. It is one of three organisations that sets the specialty training standards for physicians in the United Kingdom. It was established by Royal charter ...
), an LSA (Licentiate of the
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries) in 1876, and an MRCS (
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons) in 1877. He spent the rest of his life as a
general practitioner in
Hackney, where he died on 2 March 1916, just before his 80th birthday.
[
]
Literary researches
In the 1880s, Berdoe became a prominent student of the works of Robert Browning, sitting on the committee of the London Browning Society from its foundation in 1881 to its dissolution in 1894. Over the years he published a series of works to help readers understand the poet's ideas, such as ''The Browning Cyclopaedia'', which was to be reprinted in England and the United States in the 20th century.
Patient and animal welfare
Two aspects of medical practice in Berdoe's time drew him into campaigning for change in the treatment of patients and animals. One was the use for experiments in teaching hospitals of poor patients unable to afford private treatment. This he viewed as callous and cruel, and wrote a novel against it under the pseudonym Aesculapius Scalpel. A follow-up exposed the abuses dramatically.[
An allied subject on which he wrote extensively was ]animal welfare
Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...
, notably vivisection. He served as editor of a magazine, ''The Zoophilist'', published by what became the National Anti-Vivisection Society
The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) is an international not-for-profit animal protection group, based in London, working to end animal testing, and focused on the replacement of animals in research with advanced, scientific techniques. S ...
. Among other works, he collaborated in 1893 with the Society's founder, Frances Power Cobbe,[ on an exposé entitled ''Nine Circles, or The Torture of the Innocent''.]
Family
In 1858 Berdoe was married in Hastings to Mary Inskipp. They had two sons and four daughters. A lifelong teetotaller and vegetarian, his immersion in Browning's writings led him to seek greater knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church, which he joined in 1890.[
]
Selected publications
''St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student''
(1888)
''Dying Scientifically: A Key to St. Bernard's''
(1888)
''The Futility of Experiments With Drugs on Animals''
(1889)
*''The Healing Art and the Claims of Vivisection'' (1890)
''The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art''
(1893)
*''Browning's Message to His Time: His Religion, Philosophy, and Science'' (1893)
*''The Browning Cyclopædia, A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning'' (1897)
''A Catechism of Vivisection''
(1903)
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Berdoe
1836 births
1916 deaths
19th-century English medical doctors
19th-century English writers
20th-century English writers
20th-century English male writers
British animal welfare scholars
Anti-vivisectionists