Tough but essential reading for this animal lover: @PratikChakrab's chapter 3 on the history of animal experimentation in colonial India in his excellent book, Bacteriology in British India: Lab Medicine in the Tropics https://boydellandbrewer.com/bacteriology-in-british-india.html (1/x)

Lots here for legal historians! Anti-vivisectionist movement was strong enough in GB to get an 1876 Act passed. It restricted how animals could be treated in scientific experiments. Nothing like it was passed in India. Some scientists even relocated from GB to India...(2/x)

...so that they could do animal testing in unrestricted fashion. For ex., Brunton and Fayrer (author of Thanatophidia) had their work on venom interrupted in London by 1876 Act. So they moved to India so they could experiment on 200 dogs...(3/x) https://archive.org/details/thanatophidiain00fayr

...either bitten by cobras thrown into their pen or injected w venom. Chakrabarti's chapter also shows that British made a big distinction between Indian street dogs (=prime for experimentation) and fancy breeds brought over by Europeans (=beloved pets). (4/4)

PS: The snoozing sun pup in my banner photo is an Indian street dog I once spotted in Kachchh.