When did animal rights activism begin?
It goes back at least to the time of Joseph Lister. During his career there was a practice called vivisection. It was a process in which an animal was dissected alive so that scientist could see the organs at work. Queen Victoria asked Lister to put an end to animal testing. Lister still felt there was a need for testing, but he did campaign for better treatment of lab animals. The Cruelty to Animals Act passed in 1876. For this service and others, Queen Victoria knighted Joseph Lister in 1883.
