ABSTRACT
Nineteenth-century scientists were much more comfortable with the literal meaning of ‘scientist’ than many who currently practice under that term. Humane Professions continues the theme of Science of Sympathy, but limits the focus, dealing with an international network of medical scientists and their allies in their defence of the practice of vivisection as a means of producing new knowledge and new medical therapies. The insistence on experimental practices of knowledge production occurs at slightly different moments in different fields of expertise, but there are certain structural similarities that tend to repeat. The reality, of course, is that many of their endeavours produced untruths that were, nonetheless, clothed in the garb of natural law. From matters of public health to common beliefs, the scientist increasingly took the role of expert commentator, but with an authority seated not in privilege or faith or tradition, but in the rigours of knowledge and its pursuit.
