The anatomy theatre and the slaughterhouse: emotion, vivisection, and the disciplines of medicine in the experimental practices of Charles Bell

This article examines Charles Bell's experimental practices by drawing historiographical attention away from the priority disputes over the spinal nerve functions for which he was most famous. I argue that Bell's primary research interest was the expression of emotions. To this end, he developed a programme of vivisection that explored the underlying mechanisms of emotion. However, this also resulted in a profound contradiction between his experimental practices and his worldview - conducting painful experiments on beloved animals despite moral revulsion towards animal experimentation. This opens up three interconnected areas. Firstly, it allows an exploration of disciplinary identity in medicine, particularly the way that disciplines demanded specific practices and behaviours. Secondly, vivisection more generally required methods and ethics that opposed the growing anti-cruelty voice. Here, a combination of animal choice and the importation of techniques from the slaughterhouses was critical. Thirdly, vivisectors navigated a complex emotional landscape between their professional obligations and broader cultural sensibilities. These three areas are linked together using Boddice's concept of moral economies, the affective frameworks that structured feelings. Particularly important were the sentimental and Romantic economies, both of which impacted Bell and his research. At the same time, Bell always struggled to reconcile the tensions between his disciplinary identity and his sentimental and Romantic beliefs, ultimately leading him to abandon experimentation after his assistant John Shaw's death. I conclude by identifying the guarantees provided by character for licensing ostensibly cruel behaviours, thus allowing for the maintenance of probity within competing moral economies.