Maurice Beddow Bayly

Maurice Beddow Bayly MRCS LRCP (26 March 1887 – 22 June 1961) was an English physician, anti-vivisection and anti-vaccination activist, and Theosophist, best known for his opposition to animal experimentation.

Maurice Beddow Bayly MRCS LRCP
Born	(1887-03-26)26 March 1887 Woolwich, London, England
Died	22 June 1961(1961-06-22) (aged 74)
Occupation(s)	Physician, activist

Biography

Bayly was born in Woolwich, London. He was educated at St Dunstan's College, London University and Charing Cross Hospital.^[1] He was one of the few prominent doctors advocating anti-vivisection in the post-war period.^[2]

He worked at the National Anti-Vivisection Hospital with excellent conduct until an incident in 1912 when he was reprimanded for carrying out an unnecessary operation on a terminally ill breast cancer patient.^[3] The patient had not suffered during the operation nor did the family make a complaint. Bayly admitted that he had operated not for the patient’s benefit but because he was "anxious to perform the operation". He resigned shortly afterwards.^[3]

He was a member of the National Anti-Vaccination League, the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, and the English section of the Theosophical Society.^[4]

Bayly opposed antitoxin treatment of Diphtheria cases as the research had been based on animal experiments.^[5] In 1934, he alleged that the antitoxin does not work as Diphtheria is not caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae but by "drain poison".^[5] This opinion wasn't accepted by the medical community.^[5]

Bayly contributed a chapter on medicine to the 1938 book Where Theosophy and Science Meet, edited by D. D. Kanga.^[6]

Vegetarianism

Bayly was an activist for vegetarianism. He was a speaker at the 15th World Vegetarian Congress in 1957.^[7] He contributed to Geoffrey Rudd's magazine Vegetarian World Forum.^[8]

Selected publications

• The Schick Inoculation Against Diphtheria (1927)
• Cancer the Failure of Modern Research: A Survey (1936)
• Diet in Relation to Disease: The Case for Vegetarianism (1936)
• The Case AGAINST Vaccination (1936)
• Medicine, in Where Theosophy and Science Meet (1938)^[9]
• The Taxpayer and Experiments on Living Animals: With Special Reference to the Work of the Medical Research Council (1938)
• Suffering Caused to Horses in the Manufacture of Anititoxic Serums (1940)^[10]
• Inoculation Against Typhoid Fever - A Criticism of its Value and Scientific Basis (1941)
• Spotlights on Vivisection (1946)
• B.C.G. Vaccination (1952)
• The Futility of Experiments on Animals (1956)
• The Story of the Salk Anti-Poliomyelitis Vaccine (1958)
• More Spotlights on Vivisection (1960)
• Clinical Medical Discoveries (1961)
• Vivisection: The Futility of Experiments on Living Animals (1962)

See also

• List of vaccine topics
• Vaccine controversy