Emanuel Edward Klein

Emanuel Edward Klein (October 31, 1844 at Osijek – February 9, 1925 at Hove) was a bacteriologist who was born in Croatia and educated in Austria before settling in Britain. He is sometimes known as the father of British microbiology, but most of his work in microbiology and bacteriology was overshadowed during his life by his use of and outspoken support for animal vivisection in physiological and medical experiments.

Klein was born on October 31, 1844 at Osijek in a German speaking non-practicing Jewish home. After graduating in the local school, he went to study medicine at Vienna and obtained an M.D. in 1869. In 1871 he visited England to help in the translation of a German work Handbuch der Lehre von den Geweben des Menschen und der Thiere by his Viennese teachers Salomon Stricker (1834-1898). The hosts, John Burdon Sanderson and John Simon were impressed by his knowledge and they invited Klein to work in London in 1871. Klein moved to the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution and in 1873, became a professor of comparative pathology. He also worked at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital where he was made a joint professor of general anatomy and physiology. His work on animal physiology was published in Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory in 1873, along with Burdon Sanderson, Thomas Lauder Brunton and Michael Foster and they made use of experimental methods on living animals, something that were considered acceptable in the Vienna Medical School. The anti-vivisection movement protested the methods described in their textbook and in 1875, after he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Commission on Vivisection for Scientific Purposes held its hearings and although Foster, Brunton and Burdon Sanderson were careful in responding to the queries, Klein responded without any apparent remorse. Klein tried to provide a revised text of his responses but the Royal Commission rejected this. Klein was made into a monster by the media, and he became the main target of the anti-vivisectionists and the case led to the establishment of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.

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