A Brave New Animal for a Brave New World
The British Laboratory Animals Bureau and the Constitution of International Standards of Laboratory Animal Production and Use, circa 1947-1968
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3224832 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert G W Kirk (0000-0002-6541-5915, University of Manchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 62-94 |
| Publication date | 2010-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/652689 |
| PMID | 20575490 |
| OpenAlex | W2282720312 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 33 |
| References cited | 51 |
In 1947 the Medical Research Council of Britain established the Laboratory Animals Bureau in order to develop national standards of animal production that would enable commercial producers better to provide for the needs of laboratory animal users. Under the directorship of William Lane-Petter, the bureau expanded well beyond this remit, pioneering a new discipline of "laboratory animal science" and becoming internationally known as a producer of pathogenically and genetically standardized laboratory animals. The work of this organization, later renamed the Laboratory Animals Centre, and of Lane-Petter did much to systematize worldwide standards for laboratory animal production and provision--for example, by prompting the formation of the International Committee on Laboratory Animals. This essay reconstructs how the bureau became an internationally recognized center of expertise and argues that standardization discourses within science are inherently internationalizing. It traces the dynamic co-constitution of standard laboratory animals alongside that of the identities of the users, producers, and regulators of laboratory animals. This process is shown to have brought into being a transnational community with shared conceptual understandings and material practices grounded in the materiality of the laboratory animal, conceived as an instrumental technology
Constitution · Materiality (auditing · Political science · Sociology · Standardization · Animal testing and alternatives · Historical Medical Research and Treatments · Law
Securing the Monkey Supply Chain
To Place or Not to Place
Pest Control and Ecology
A Woman's Right to Know
Figuring the ‘cynical scientist’ in British animal science
Ferreting things out
It is what it eats
Managing the future
The demand for pregnancy testing
A Hierarchy of Deaths
Ratifying frailty
Laboratory animal strain mobilities
Critical Periods in Science and the Science of Critical Periods
Governance, expertise, and the ‘culture of care’
What’s so special about model organisms
Edge cases in animal research law
Transposing bodies of knowledge and technique
Standardization through Mechanization
Animal research nexus
Vermin, Victims and Disease
Of Mice, Monkeys, and Better Science
Gender and Animals in History
Cultures of care? Animals and science in Britain
The Shadow Bodies of Mice
"Skilled Care" and the Making of Good Science
Making Organisms Model Human Behavior
How do scientists model humanness? A qualitative study of human organoids in biomedical research
Building Transnational Bodies
Communicative patterns and social networks between scientists and technicians in a culture of care
Intimate entanglements in the animal house
Over Spilt Milk
A Neurotic Dog's Life
Entanglements in Health and Well-being
The Invisible Industrialist
Biocapital
The Right Tools for the Job
Dolly Mixtures
How Users Matter
Technology and Culture
Science for imperial efficiency and social change
The Politics of Life Itself
Wanted—standard guinea pigs’
On writing the Histor(ies) of modern Medicine
In the Silence of the Laboratory
Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects
Models Of and Models For
An approach to the central planning of British science
Inventions, patents and commercial development from governmentally financed research in Great Britain
C'est un malade ”
Species of Biocapital
Triangulating Clinical and Basic Research
"History and Technology in an Age of "Grand Challenges
The Dynamics ofWertbestimmung
Locating Therapeutic Vaccines in Nineteenth-Century History
Monitoring the Stable at the Pasteur Institute
Innovation as a Social Process
| Unique citing works | 33 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,2 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 31 |