Dr. Bernard Rollin was a distinguished professor at Colorado State University 1 and its website claims “some have said he has alleviated more animal pain than anyone else in history.” 2 They may be biased, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right.
He “earned an international reputation as the father of veterinary medical ethics”
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and taught the first university course on the subject.
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He worked tirelessly to improve the welfare of animals in part by discussing animal ethics with thousands of diverse audiences
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, many of them initially hostile.
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He also helped establish revolutionary laws in the US that alleviated the suffering of animals used in research.
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He has helped make veterinary education drastically more humane.
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He has helped countless animals immeasurably and dedicated his life to creatures that could never thank him.
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sources and footnotes:
[1] “His title is Professor of Philosophy, Animal Sciences and Biomedical Sciences.”
-Guiden, Mary. “Bernard Rollin Lauded with Lifetime Achievement Award.” SOURCE, Colorado State University, 11 Apr. 2019, source.colostate.edu/bernard-rollin-lauded-lifetime-achievement-award/.
[2] “Bernie, a University Distinguished Professor, earned an international reputation as the father of veterinary medical ethics, and some have said he has alleviated more animal pain than anyone else in history. He has lectured all over the world, and is credited with elevating the profile of the philosophy department as well as the entire University. In addition to the philosophy department, he was rostered in the Animal Sciences and Biomedical Sciences departments.”
-Dodge, Jeff. “Bernie and Linda Rollin Reflect on Their Five Decades at CSU.” SOURCE of College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University, 28 Feb. 2021, libarts.source.colostate.edu/bernie-and-linda-rollin-reflect-on-their-five-decades-at-csu/?fbclid=IwAR1Fyy_k7E-zuQRWoi2xAy1ZGuyyvT8IwGA1mOKkIvQktdpsK6dz0VSP8xk.
[3] Prof. Rollin recounts: “On the practical level, I had been asked in the mid-1970s by faculty members of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University (CSU) to develop the first course ever taught in the world on veterinary medical ethics – in essence, to create the field.”
-Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.
[4] Prof. Rollin recounts: “My work for animals spans more than three decades. During that period, I have lectured more than a thousand times in thirty countries on six continents and in forty-five U.S. states. I have written hundreds of papers and popular articles and seventeen books, and I have consulted for industry and government all over the world.”
-Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.
[5] Prof. Rollin recounts: “Things did not get better as I entered the high school and confronted 150 unsmiling ranchers and their wives. ‘Hi,’ I said idiotically. No one responded—just stared… I chatted with Melissa, and time passed. She stood up and introduced me—as ‘the man who teaches animal rights in the vet school.’ I had just begun to entertain the thought that this was not the most politic introduction when the audience began to boo, hiss, catcall, and stomp their feet. And it continued. Stunned (nothing like this had ever happened before), I glanced at my watch, seized by an inexplicable desire to know how long they would boo. The ruckus continued for one minute and thirty-eight seconds, roughly the time it takes to read a typewritten page out loud.” Prof. Rollin talked with this crowd for about five hours and afterwards a group of men even told him “‘We’re sorry, Doc. We had no call to boo you before you even said anything,’ he said. ‘Thanks for not walking out on us. We learned a lot from your talk.’”
-Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.
[6] Prof Rollin recounts: “Some years after Fred graduated, he became a manager at the Excel slaughterhouse and packing plant in Fort Morgan in eastern Colorado. He invited me there to lecture on animal ethics. I drove out and was met by Fred at the entrance to the facility. He had changed his mind, he said, because “some of the workers said they were going to ‘get you.’ ‘Physically or intellectually?’ I asked. ‘Because if it is intellectually, I’m not worried. And if it’s physically, tell them I’ll meet them outside after the talk, one at a time. In any case, I’m not turning tail and running home’… I was there for three hours. It was a fine experience, and no one took me on physically or intellectually. I may be the only person in history to lecture on animal rights at a packing plant.”
-Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.
[7]”He was a major architect of the 1985 U.S. federal laws protecting laboratory animal”
-“Bernard Rollin.” Animal Legal Defense Fund, 8 Jan. 2019, aldf.org/person/bernard-rollin/. Accessed 06/15/21.
[8] Prof Rollin. was instrumental in passing groundbreaking U.S. federal laws protecting laboratory animals.
He recounts: “When the laws passed [in 1985], I received separate calls from both of them [the head of the Federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the head of the Research Resources Division of the National Institutes of Health]. They said essentially the same thing: ‘Congratulations. You’ve established the first rights for animals [in the US] in these laws.’”
-Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.
[9] “He was also instrumental in changing the way doctors thought about pain control for animals undergoing surgery.
‘Veterinarians didn’t routinely give pain control after surgery,’ said [veterinarian Dr. Lynne] Kesel. ‘One of the big things Bernie brought out in that class was sensitivity to pain control. He’ll say it’s one of the things that will keep him out of hell, the fact that now, virtually everyone is doing some kind of pain control.’
The changing landscape in pain control during this time is largely attributed to Rollin’s work and advocacy. ‘There were other people that got into the conversation, but Bernie was the loudest voice,’ Kesel said. He and two CSU veterinarians, Harry Gorman and David H. Neil, were responsible for building pain control for laboratory animals into federal law.”
-Guiden, Mary. “Bernard Rollin Lauded with Lifetime Achievement Award.” SOURCE, Colorado State University, 11 Apr. 2019, source.colostate.edu/bernard-rollin-lauded-lifetime-achievement-award/.
[10] While preparing his course on veterinary medical ethics, Prof. Rollin “learned of numerous atrocious laboratory exercises that students were compelled to perform during the first two years of their education – for example, being forced to bleed out dogs in order to learn that dogs without blood died of hemorrhagic shock… I immediately protested this outrageous state of affairs and was effective in putting a stop to it… But not before I learned that not only did these animals never receive analgesia (i.e. post-surgical pain control), but essentially no animals did in veterinary medicine. The protocol for teaching surgery was radically changed, with the animals being euthanized on the table after the first surgery, and similarly for each lab thereafter, thereby eliminating postsurgical pain”
It is difficult to express what an improvement this was without getting too gruesome. But interested readers can learn more by reading around this quote in the original source.
-Bernard E. Rollin. 11 Jul 2017, Animal Mind and Animal Ethics from: The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Routledge Accessed on: 28 May 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315742250.ch49
[11] Dr. Rollin states “I am often asked, “When will you retire?” My reply is “When they carry me out.” As long as I’m physically and mentally healthy (some may doubt the latter even now), I will continue my battle for what Gandhi called the ‘most disenfranchised members of society.’”
– Rollin, Bernard E. Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals. Temple University Press, 2011.