WEBVTT - Good Boy 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:23.996 Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the 0:00:24.076 --> 0:00:31.196 known things go. A library, a cabinet of curiosities, bookshelves, 0:00:31.596 --> 0:00:36.076 filing cabinets, old rules of film. The problem is my 0:00:36.196 --> 0:00:39.756 dogs have gotten in here, slavered all over my copies 0:00:39.796 --> 0:00:44.716 of Charles Darwin's books, completely chewed the cover off my 0:00:44.796 --> 0:00:49.516 first edition of the Story of Doctor Doolittle. What are 0:00:49.556 --> 0:00:54.076 they thinking, these dogs? Oh well, there they go out 0:00:54.116 --> 0:00:59.316 the door, Get out out. I'm gonna follow them over 0:00:59.356 --> 0:01:07.796 the threshold to the dog park. Good morning, the dog park. 0:01:08.036 --> 0:01:11.036 We're out every day today. It's with my producer Ben 0:01:11.436 --> 0:01:14.316 and of course my two Great Danes, Greta and Daisy. 0:01:15.956 --> 0:01:19.116 At seven am on a cold, icy winter morning at 0:01:19.156 --> 0:01:21.676 a park the size of a soccer field, but white 0:01:21.796 --> 0:01:24.676 with a blanket of snow. If you've ever been to 0:01:24.716 --> 0:01:27.356 a dog park, then you know the drill, the whole scene, 0:01:27.876 --> 0:01:31.636 gossiping with people about their dogs. Who's that dog? That's 0:01:31.596 --> 0:01:36.276 Stevie Stephen didn't like the ice or snow. People are 0:01:36.316 --> 0:01:39.836 doing the usual things, standing around, handing out treats, trying 0:01:39.876 --> 0:01:42.436 to read the minds of dogs. How do you know 0:01:42.516 --> 0:01:46.996 he doesn't like the ice of the snow? Um his 0:01:47.156 --> 0:01:49.236 owner just says like he just won't walk on it, 0:01:49.276 --> 0:01:53.516 like it's been a prop h is Davie, Hi, I 0:01:53.716 --> 0:01:57.276 know I keep this here? You are you? What are 0:01:57.316 --> 0:02:02.636 you thinking of? The smartest dog at the park is 0:02:02.636 --> 0:02:12.396 a little red, brown, foxy looking Retriever named Aila. Aila. 0:02:13.596 --> 0:02:19.996 Can I give her a treat every morning? Rain, snow 0:02:20.076 --> 0:02:23.276 or sleep. My dogs try to steal Isla's tennis ball. 0:02:23.876 --> 0:02:29.076 Sometimes they succeed, but Ila, she's really restrained. Yeah, I 0:02:29.276 --> 0:02:32.516 was very smart. Eilah knows she can't take Daisy's ball 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:38.636 because Daisy. Daisy would just need assistance with her distress. 0:02:39.356 --> 0:02:41.556 Eila figured out that there's a reason to be worried 0:02:41.556 --> 0:02:45.196 about both of my dogs, Daisy because she's so emotionally 0:02:45.236 --> 0:02:49.556 fragile and Greta because she's so sneaky. She's learning that. 0:02:49.876 --> 0:02:52.596 But but but Greta does not know that she should 0:02:52.596 --> 0:02:57.156 not eat Alla's balls because Greta well maybe Greta knows, 0:02:57.156 --> 0:03:02.916 but she doesn't care. How do I know what Greta knows? 0:03:03.636 --> 0:03:07.916 I don't, but I wish I did. Welcome to the 0:03:07.996 --> 0:03:10.356 Last Archive, the show about how we know things and 0:03:10.396 --> 0:03:12.756 why it's a hard lately to know anything at all. 0:03:13.236 --> 0:03:17.276 I'm Jill Lapour this episode, how to animals know things? 0:03:17.556 --> 0:03:19.516 And why is it so hard for us to know 0:03:19.596 --> 0:03:23.436 how much they know? And why it matters that we try? 0:03:25.516 --> 0:03:28.076 All over the world, for tens of thousands of years, 0:03:28.356 --> 0:03:32.516 people have believed that animals have minds and souls. This 0:03:32.596 --> 0:03:35.276 was a belief once so widely held that it amounted 0:03:35.316 --> 0:03:40.036 to common knowledge, nearly universal knowledge. Only very recently, around 0:03:40.036 --> 0:03:42.756 the beginning of the scientific revolution in the West, did 0:03:42.836 --> 0:03:47.356 animals come to be thought of as essentially machines. Lately, though, 0:03:47.676 --> 0:03:51.596 that's been changing as the study of animal cognition undergoes 0:03:51.796 --> 0:03:56.356 a revolution. Meanwhile, the rest of us, just regular people. 0:03:56.516 --> 0:04:00.036 We all have our theories about animal minds. Do you 0:04:00.076 --> 0:04:04.316 think that you understand allah Ah? Sometimes she has fouds brain, 0:04:04.356 --> 0:04:09.316 and I generally speaking, I think she's she's I went 0:04:09.356 --> 0:04:13.276 pretty clear about what she wants. What is what leads 0:04:13.276 --> 0:04:16.436 to fuzz brain? Fuzz? Right, she just sits there and 0:04:16.556 --> 0:04:21.476 stairs off into the world. He's actually just contemplating very deeply. Yeah, 0:04:21.596 --> 0:04:25.076 that might be the case. Eila is a dog that 0:04:25.196 --> 0:04:28.436 was bred for smarts, So they're like one of the 0:04:28.476 --> 0:04:31.116 smallest retrieving family and they're meant for like duck hunting, 0:04:31.196 --> 0:04:34.036 like a truffle hunting. Things like that. She knows how 0:04:34.076 --> 0:04:36.956 to get things for people, sort of like higher level 0:04:36.996 --> 0:04:40.236 fetch refer to something in the house, so she like, yeah, 0:04:40.276 --> 0:04:43.836 she's learned, like stickball, toybox, like a lot of the 0:04:43.836 --> 0:04:48.516 basics like not whether or not she always listens is 0:04:48.796 --> 0:04:52.516 mostly in her mood. But it is so tempting to 0:04:52.556 --> 0:04:55.476 bring triloquise for dogs. I do it all the time. 0:04:55.876 --> 0:04:58.436 I talk to them and then I fill in their responses, 0:04:59.076 --> 0:05:00.996 Like the other day it was raining and I wanted 0:05:00.996 --> 0:05:02.956 to let Greta out, but Greta was all, I want 0:05:02.996 --> 0:05:05.316 to go out, but not until it stops raining all 0:05:05.356 --> 0:05:07.036 or at least that's what I said on her behalf 0:05:07.076 --> 0:05:09.756 when I was answering my own question, and when I 0:05:09.876 --> 0:05:14.036 listened back to myself doing this, I think of Doctor Doolittle, 0:05:14.356 --> 0:05:17.956 the children's book character who can talk to the animals, 0:05:18.276 --> 0:05:21.316 or more to the point, he can listen to them. 0:05:21.516 --> 0:05:26.596 If people ask me, can you speak rhydoceros, I'd say. 0:05:28.196 --> 0:05:31.276 Rex Harrison played Doctor Doolittle in a musical from nineteen 0:05:31.316 --> 0:05:35.316 sixty seven. Eddie Murphy's played him Robert Downey Junior, but 0:05:35.436 --> 0:05:38.356 the first Doctor Doolittle book was published more than a 0:05:38.396 --> 0:05:41.476 century ago. To try to understand what people know about 0:05:41.476 --> 0:05:47.036 what animals know, I figured i'd better start with Doctor Doolittle. Sorry, 0:05:47.076 --> 0:05:49.196 Pups book, We've got to leave the dog park and 0:05:49.316 --> 0:05:53.236 go somewhere else, far away and long ago, to Flanders 0:05:53.236 --> 0:05:57.876 Fields on the Western Front. In nineteen fifteen, in the 0:05:57.916 --> 0:06:08.236 middle of unutterable devastation, a million soldiers died or were 0:06:08.276 --> 0:06:11.996 wounded or appeared in Flanders Fields fighting in the Great War, 0:06:12.236 --> 0:06:16.596 in the trenches in the mock. John McCrae, a Canadian doctor, 0:06:16.796 --> 0:06:20.756 soldier and poet, he was there. A year later he 0:06:20.876 --> 0:06:25.196 memorialized all that death in his poem in Flanders Fields. 0:06:26.156 --> 0:06:30.436 In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow between the crosses row 0:06:30.596 --> 0:06:34.556 on row that mark our place, and in the sky 0:06:35.316 --> 0:06:40.796 the larks still bravely singing fly scarce heard amid the 0:06:40.836 --> 0:06:46.156 guns below. But it wasn't just a million men who died. 0:06:46.956 --> 0:06:50.636 Untold numbers of animals died in Flanders Fields, and doctor 0:06:50.716 --> 0:06:55.876 John McCray loved animals, especially horses. McCray had sailed to 0:06:55.916 --> 0:06:59.116 Europe in nineteen fourteen in a military convoy with thirty 0:06:59.156 --> 0:07:03.396 thousand men, had eight thousand horses, including his own horse, Bonfire, 0:07:03.916 --> 0:07:07.556 bound for the front. McCray mentioned Bonfire and letters home 0:07:07.596 --> 0:07:10.716 to his sister. It was as if Bonfire could communicate. 0:07:11.556 --> 0:07:14.596 McCray wrote, I wish you could meet him. He puts 0:07:14.596 --> 0:07:16.716 his lips to your face and give us a kind 0:07:16.716 --> 0:07:21.476 of foolish waffle. McCray marched with nine hundred men and 0:07:21.596 --> 0:07:25.556 six hundred horses to Flanders Fields. The ensuing slaughter, the suffering, 0:07:26.076 --> 0:07:30.036 It was unfathomable. The staggering, needless loss of life, the maiming, 0:07:30.436 --> 0:07:35.516 the killing, and the anguished, tortured suffering of all those horses. 0:07:36.596 --> 0:07:39.316 Britain alone lost half a million horses in the war. 0:07:39.956 --> 0:07:42.916 One horse was killed for every two men. They died 0:07:42.956 --> 0:07:45.996 in the fighting where they died of starvation. They died 0:07:45.996 --> 0:07:50.316 of infection and of exhaustion. They fell into minds, they 0:07:50.316 --> 0:07:54.836 were shot, they died of poison, gas terrified. There is 0:07:54.956 --> 0:07:58.636 nothing I hated more than that horse scream, McCray wrote home, 0:07:59.556 --> 0:08:03.036 Bonfire's leg got infected. McCray was there to treat men, 0:08:03.596 --> 0:08:07.076 but he began mending animals. Somewhere along the way he 0:08:07.116 --> 0:08:09.836 acquired a dog. He wrote. He ran to me and 0:08:09.956 --> 0:08:13.316 pressed his head hard against my leg. He named him Fleabag. 0:08:13.876 --> 0:08:16.236 He wrote his poem, which went on to become the 0:08:16.276 --> 0:08:19.636 best known poem of the First World War, and McCray 0:08:19.716 --> 0:08:24.116 became the war's best known poet. Then, in nineteen eighteen, 0:08:24.196 --> 0:08:27.916 he contracted pneumonia and meningitis and died before peace came. 0:08:29.036 --> 0:08:32.836 At his funeral, bonfire followed the casket, carrying in his 0:08:32.916 --> 0:08:39.196 stirrups McCrae's empty boots. We are the dead. Short days 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:45.076 ago we lived, felt dull, saw sunset glow, loved and 0:08:45.156 --> 0:08:54.716 were loved, and now we lie in flanders Fields. I 0:08:54.756 --> 0:08:58.036 can't see that anyone's ever made this claim before, but 0:08:58.236 --> 0:09:02.156 I'm pretty sure Doctor John McCrae was the inspiration for 0:09:02.196 --> 0:09:06.396 the character of doctor John Doolittle, a character who was 0:09:06.396 --> 0:09:10.436 created by another soldier at flanders Field, a brit named 0:09:10.516 --> 0:09:14.636 Hugh Lofting. Lofting served in the Irish Guards, and he 0:09:14.716 --> 0:09:18.276 too wrote and spoke about animals just the same way 0:09:18.356 --> 0:09:22.396 McCray had. Certain horses that were attached to your own company. 0:09:22.796 --> 0:09:26.636 You became very fonder. It upset Hugh Lofting that the 0:09:26.676 --> 0:09:30.276 horses were left to die in flanders Field. There was 0:09:30.396 --> 0:09:34.356 very little you could do. Nearly all the horses that 0:09:34.396 --> 0:09:37.076 were injured had to be shot. If we were as 0:09:37.076 --> 0:09:39.996 far behind and medicine for ourselves as we were apparently 0:09:40.036 --> 0:09:43.196 for our beasts of burden, we would go around shooting 0:09:43.236 --> 0:09:46.356 all of our men. Lofting was supposed to be writing 0:09:46.436 --> 0:09:48.836 letters home from the front to his very little children, 0:09:49.796 --> 0:09:53.196 but what could he possibly write about? Everything was horrible, 0:09:54.116 --> 0:09:57.796 So instead he began drawing pictures and writing his children's 0:09:57.836 --> 0:10:04.076 stories about animals. Here are some animals playing ring a 0:10:04.156 --> 0:10:09.836 ring of roses, Peter Piglett, Timothy Turtle, Frederick Fish, Daniel Dog, 0:10:10.276 --> 0:10:14.916 Miss Catherine Cat, Miss Deborah Duck, Miss Melissent, Mouse, Master 0:10:15.076 --> 0:10:18.476 Teddy Bear, and Squire Squill. They have all been to 0:10:18.516 --> 0:10:23.716 the donkey's birthday party and have been enjoying themselves very much. Meanwhile, 0:10:23.796 --> 0:10:27.756 at the front, watching those horses suffer in the field, 0:10:28.516 --> 0:10:31.476 he kept thinking about them, and then it occurred to 0:10:31.516 --> 0:10:35.196 me that, of course, to treat a horse properly, we 0:10:35.276 --> 0:10:38.436 would have to have horse language. And then it occurred 0:10:38.436 --> 0:10:40.476 to me that, of course, to be a good animal 0:10:40.556 --> 0:10:44.796 doctor required a very much higher order of intelligence than 0:10:44.836 --> 0:10:48.036 it did to be a human doctor. In one of 0:10:48.116 --> 0:10:52.116 Laughting's letters home, he invented a fictional character, a man, 0:10:52.956 --> 0:10:58.076 the Story of Doctor Doolittle. Once upon a time, many 0:10:58.156 --> 0:11:02.556 years ago, when our grandfathers were little children, there was 0:11:02.596 --> 0:11:10.996 a doctor and his name was Duelittle. The name, well, Doolittle, 0:11:11.396 --> 0:11:14.516 was Lofting's nickname for his son Colin, who was lazy 0:11:15.036 --> 0:11:19.236 Dolittle get it. But the character he, I'm pretty sure 0:11:19.436 --> 0:11:22.996 was inspired by John McCray m d. The first patient 0:11:23.116 --> 0:11:25.876 doctor Dolittle treats is a horse who's going blind in 0:11:25.916 --> 0:11:29.916 one eye. The doctor gives him spectacles. I think Bonfire 0:11:29.916 --> 0:11:33.636 would have liked that. Hugh Lofting was wounded and left 0:11:33.636 --> 0:11:37.116 the service. He moved with his family to Killingworth, Connecticut, 0:11:37.156 --> 0:11:40.476 a little farming town, where he kept writing about doctor Doolittle. 0:11:41.036 --> 0:11:43.716 He lived in a little town called Puddleby on the 0:11:43.756 --> 0:11:47.876 marsh All. The folks young and old knew him well 0:11:47.916 --> 0:11:51.796 by sight. In nineteen twenty Lofting published a book, The 0:11:51.916 --> 0:11:55.156 Story of Doctor Doolittle, the first in a long series. 0:11:56.076 --> 0:12:00.356 One day, doctor Dolittle's parrot Polynesia scolds the doctor. He's 0:12:00.396 --> 0:12:04.036 a medical doctor, not a veterinarian. Remember about how stupid 0:12:04.076 --> 0:12:08.676 people are? People make me sick. I think they're so wonderful. 0:12:09.116 --> 0:12:11.796 A vote has been going on now for thousands of years, 0:12:11.996 --> 0:12:14.796 hasn't it? And the only thing in an animal language 0:12:14.836 --> 0:12:17.316 the people have learned to understand is that when a 0:12:17.396 --> 0:12:24.236 door quakes his tail, he means I'm glad. I happen 0:12:24.276 --> 0:12:26.556 to have a very good friend who writes children's books 0:12:26.556 --> 0:12:29.036 and who lives in a little farming town in Connecticut, 0:12:29.236 --> 0:12:33.156 just like Hugh Lofting. Her name's lis Broach. She's magic 0:12:33.196 --> 0:12:36.596 with animals. Actually, I believe she is my dog's very 0:12:36.636 --> 0:12:44.796 favorite person. Oh oh my god, this is Ben. So 0:12:44.836 --> 0:12:46.636 I asked Elsa if she'd be willing to join me 0:12:46.716 --> 0:12:50.436 and Ben on a search for Doctor Doolittle, because Lofting 0:12:50.476 --> 0:12:52.916 wound up publishing nearly a dozen do Little books in 0:12:52.956 --> 0:12:55.756 his lifetime. And I wondered if there wasn't some magic 0:12:55.836 --> 0:12:58.876 about the town of Killingworth that it helped Lofting, an 0:12:58.996 --> 0:13:02.836 Mit trained civil engineer, hold onto the belief that animals 0:13:02.836 --> 0:13:06.756 have minds and souls. She's a little trueman. She had 0:13:06.796 --> 0:13:09.596 a boxer growing up in Oh yeah, oh yeah, he's 0:13:09.636 --> 0:13:19.196 a foxy little I've known at least forever. We go 0:13:19.236 --> 0:13:21.716 on writing retreats with our friend Jane. We walk in 0:13:21.756 --> 0:13:23.556 the woods with our dogs and talk about the books 0:13:23.556 --> 0:13:26.396 we're writing. I don't know anybody who's thought more carefully 0:13:26.436 --> 0:13:30.796 about children's stories involving talking animals than at Lease. My 0:13:30.876 --> 0:13:34.236 favorite of Elise's books is called Masterpiece. It's about a boy, James, 0:13:34.436 --> 0:13:37.796 and a beatle named Marvin. There's a chapter book series 0:13:37.836 --> 0:13:40.636 two based on the same characters. In one story, they 0:13:40.676 --> 0:13:43.676 go to the country with Marvin's cousin, Elaine, another Beetle. 0:13:44.196 --> 0:13:47.116 They go to a town just like Killingworth. Later on, 0:13:47.156 --> 0:13:49.636 I asked Elise to read a little bit of the story. 0:13:50.356 --> 0:13:53.076 Elaine and Marvin sit on the rail of the fence 0:13:53.236 --> 0:13:58.716 in the warm sun, watching the animals. Isn't this nice? Marvin? 0:13:58.716 --> 0:14:01.756 Elaine asks, don't you think it would be fun to 0:14:01.836 --> 0:14:06.356 live here? All around them is the country, the big fields, 0:14:06.636 --> 0:14:11.036 the rushing creek, fences and trees, and wide blue sky. 0:14:12.036 --> 0:14:15.836 It's so different from the city. It is quiet, it 0:14:15.996 --> 0:14:22.596 is green, it is full of animals, not people. In 0:14:22.676 --> 0:14:26.196 Elisa's books, Marvin and Elaine, the Beatles, can understand everything 0:14:26.276 --> 0:14:30.556 James the boy says, but James can't understand them. So 0:14:30.716 --> 0:14:32.716 my point was just that I wanted kids to look 0:14:32.716 --> 0:14:34.956 at all beetles and think, oh, you know, they may 0:14:34.956 --> 0:14:36.556 be understanding what I say, and they may have these 0:14:36.676 --> 0:14:39.636 rich family relationships, and you know they may be afraid 0:14:39.836 --> 0:14:43.396 or the way that animals actually are. So I didn't 0:14:43.396 --> 0:14:45.716 want to have kids think oh, that was just a 0:14:45.756 --> 0:14:47.836 magic beatle. I wanted them to be able to see 0:14:47.876 --> 0:14:52.836 the world, you know what I mean. Our first up 0:14:52.916 --> 0:14:55.596 was the killing Worth Public Library. Elise and I talked 0:14:55.596 --> 0:14:58.476 to one of the librarians, Tammy Eustace. I asked her 0:14:58.476 --> 0:15:00.196 if there was anything about the town that made it 0:15:00.196 --> 0:15:02.156 the kind of place you might want to live if 0:15:02.156 --> 0:15:04.556 you were in the business of writing stories about animals. 0:15:05.196 --> 0:15:07.516 I think it's very much the place. I've read a 0:15:07.556 --> 0:15:10.516 lot of the history books, history essays, and people are 0:15:10.516 --> 0:15:15.236 always writing about their farm animals or you know, being 0:15:15.356 --> 0:15:19.076 even being on social media now everybody is posting pictures 0:15:19.076 --> 0:15:22.316 of their chickens, and you know, a dog gets lost 0:15:22.356 --> 0:15:25.236 and the town turns out to try and find the 0:15:25.276 --> 0:15:28.516 dog or the cat. They've they've grown so much, would 0:15:28.556 --> 0:15:33.476 be proud of what's happened here. I'd hope the library 0:15:33.556 --> 0:15:36.316 might have some of Hugh Lofting stuff or a statue 0:15:36.516 --> 0:15:39.836 something they didn't, but it turns out that Tammy, who 0:15:39.876 --> 0:15:43.316 didn't grow up here, is known for her way with animals, 0:15:43.316 --> 0:15:47.076 and everybody actually called me doctor Doolittle in college. That 0:15:47.196 --> 0:15:51.356 was my nickname. So small world. We got back in 0:15:51.356 --> 0:15:54.436 the car and headed for the Killingworth Historical Society. I 0:15:54.476 --> 0:15:59.036 wondered if maybe they would have Lofting's papers, diaries, photographs, something. 0:15:59.836 --> 0:16:04.796 It's housed in a nineteenth century farmhouse. So sweet. Unfortunately 0:16:04.876 --> 0:16:09.676 they did not have Hugh Lofting's papers, but visire halts 0:16:11.516 --> 0:16:18.796 these beautiful silly you know. They had Hugh Lofting's top hats. 0:16:19.436 --> 0:16:21.716 And the curator also showed us a binder full of 0:16:21.836 --> 0:16:25.556 Lofting memorabilia that he'd collected over the years, including a 0:16:25.596 --> 0:16:28.076 photo of a historical marker that used to be out 0:16:28.076 --> 0:16:31.236 in the front of Lofting's old house. It says Doctor 0:16:31.396 --> 0:16:34.916 Little's House, built seventeen sixty one, owned in the nineteen 0:16:34.916 --> 0:16:37.556 twenties by Hugh Lofting, author of the children's book series. 0:16:37.596 --> 0:16:39.476 It was here that his stories came to life and 0:16:39.516 --> 0:16:43.836 his animals learned to talk. Lofting's old house. I figured 0:16:43.916 --> 0:16:46.276 maybe there'd be something there, tucked away in an attic. 0:16:46.796 --> 0:16:49.276 One more stop on the drive, Lisa and I got 0:16:49.316 --> 0:16:52.876 to talking more about animals and children's books. There's a distinction, 0:16:52.916 --> 0:16:55.876 I think in children's literature between the books that are 0:16:56.196 --> 0:17:00.236 entirely an animal world, um, you know, like the Beatrix 0:17:00.276 --> 0:17:04.236 Potter books or um. Trying to think of other examples, 0:17:05.116 --> 0:17:07.396 you know, honestly, it goes back to like Esop's Fables, 0:17:07.516 --> 0:17:10.756 right where it's just an animal world that is animated 0:17:10.916 --> 0:17:14.556 by human emotions or human values or whatever it is. 0:17:14.596 --> 0:17:17.036 And then there are these other stories that involve human 0:17:17.076 --> 0:17:25.196 animal relationships. Animal fables, stories about talking animals go back 0:17:25.196 --> 0:17:28.436 to antiquity, but the so called Golden Age of children's 0:17:28.476 --> 0:17:32.876 literature ran from eighteen seventy to nineteen thirty. Beatrix Potter 0:17:33.036 --> 0:17:36.196 a a Milne, that whole late late Victorian sort of 0:17:36.276 --> 0:17:40.916 tweet sensibility. All of that, which includes Doctor Doolittle stories, 0:17:41.316 --> 0:17:44.436 came out of changing ideas about animals, and this itself 0:17:44.436 --> 0:17:46.476 had to do with what scientists have been doing to 0:17:46.556 --> 0:17:51.196 animals and laboratories. So hold onto your top hat while 0:17:51.196 --> 0:17:55.276 we make a brutal last archive historical detour, a hard turn, 0:17:55.596 --> 0:18:07.396 not so much historically but emotionally. After the break in 0:18:07.476 --> 0:18:12.876 the seventeenth century, rants the philosopher Renee Descartes argued that 0:18:12.956 --> 0:18:17.476 animals have no rational souls and no minds. They can't 0:18:17.516 --> 0:18:22.876 experience pain. They were basically just machines, Descartes said. Meanwhile, 0:18:22.876 --> 0:18:29.036 over in England, William Harvey dissected animals living animals without anesthesia. 0:18:29.196 --> 0:18:33.476 This is called vivisection. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, 0:18:33.836 --> 0:18:37.956 a major discovery. His experiments were brutal and cruel, but 0:18:38.036 --> 0:18:40.796 if you didn't think animals had souls or felt pain, 0:18:41.516 --> 0:18:45.996 then maybe those experiments were less cruel. Vivisection became common 0:18:46.076 --> 0:18:50.116 during the Scientific Revolution. Often it was done on dogs. 0:18:50.716 --> 0:18:54.076 The experiments took hours, sometimes it was days before the 0:18:54.116 --> 0:18:59.036 animals died. A century later, people finally started saying vivisection 0:18:59.316 --> 0:19:03.036 had to stop, partly because another philosopher came along and said, 0:19:03.516 --> 0:19:06.956 oh yeah, Descartes, he was just entirely wrong. In the 0:19:06.996 --> 0:19:11.196 seventeen eighties, Jeremy Bentam insisted about animals, the question is 0:19:11.236 --> 0:19:16.356 not can they reason nor can they talk? But can 0:19:16.396 --> 0:19:20.396 they suffer? I mean, obviously they can suffer. Thus was 0:19:20.436 --> 0:19:24.196 born the animal welfare movement in England. The first animal 0:19:24.236 --> 0:19:28.116 welfare legislation was passed by Parliament in eighteen twenty two. 0:19:28.836 --> 0:19:32.316 In eighteen twenty four, reformers founded the Society for the 0:19:32.356 --> 0:19:37.116 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Animal welfare advocates especially wanted 0:19:37.116 --> 0:19:41.276 to outlaw vivisection, which was still taking place. That movement 0:19:41.316 --> 0:19:44.636 was led by an Irish suffragist named Francis power Cobb. 0:19:45.476 --> 0:19:48.636 It also, to a degree, enjoyed the support of Charles Darwin. 0:19:49.636 --> 0:19:52.876 Darwin loved dogs. He devoted a chunk of the Descent 0:19:52.956 --> 0:19:56.196 of Man to them. In eighteen seventy one. He wrote, 0:19:56.596 --> 0:19:58.916 it is curious to speculate on the feelings of a 0:19:58.956 --> 0:20:01.756 dog who will rest peacefully for hours in a room 0:20:01.876 --> 0:20:04.836 with his master or any of the family, without the 0:20:04.916 --> 0:20:07.756 least notice being taken of him, but if left for 0:20:07.796 --> 0:20:12.196 a short time by himself, barques or howls dismally. What 0:20:12.316 --> 0:20:16.836 staggered Darwin was that this love extended even to his torturer. 0:20:17.156 --> 0:20:20.116 The vivisectionist who nailed a dog to a table, cut 0:20:20.196 --> 0:20:22.796 him up, left him there all night to suffer, and 0:20:22.876 --> 0:20:25.556 went back to do more cutting in the morning. As 0:20:25.636 --> 0:20:29.796 Darwin wrote, everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, 0:20:30.276 --> 0:20:34.156 who licked the hand of the operator. This man, unless 0:20:34.156 --> 0:20:36.796 he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse 0:20:37.076 --> 0:20:42.396 to the last hour of his life. Darwin helped draft 0:20:42.436 --> 0:20:46.076 an anti vivisection bill. He also testified before a parliamentary 0:20:46.116 --> 0:20:49.876 commission charged with investigating the practice. A version of that 0:20:49.956 --> 0:20:53.436 legislation passed in eighteen seventy six, but it continued to 0:20:53.476 --> 0:20:57.236 be a source of debate. Americans had gotten involved by now, too, 0:20:57.396 --> 0:21:01.396 founding the American Anti Vivisection Society in eighteen eighty three, 0:21:01.956 --> 0:21:05.076 three years before Hugh Lofting was born. By the time 0:21:05.116 --> 0:21:07.996 of the First World War, when Lofting wrote those letters 0:21:08.036 --> 0:21:11.036 home from the Western Front, the Royal Society for the 0:21:11.036 --> 0:21:13.956 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was working hard to save 0:21:14.036 --> 0:21:17.596 war horses, had established a fund for sick and wounded horses, 0:21:17.756 --> 0:21:22.596 had set up horse ambulances, had built horse hospitals. Doctor 0:21:22.636 --> 0:21:25.716 Doolittle came out of all of this when Lofting began thinking, 0:21:26.476 --> 0:21:29.276 maybe the best way to treat animals would be to 0:21:29.436 --> 0:21:35.636 learn their languages. Talk to the animals their languages. Maybe 0:21:35.636 --> 0:21:40.916 take an animal degree. I'd study elephant and eagle, buff 0:21:41.236 --> 0:21:47.476 and eagle, alligator, guinea pig, and flee. Chances are you've 0:21:47.516 --> 0:21:50.516 never read The Doctor to Little Books. Maybe you've seen 0:21:50.556 --> 0:21:53.276 that old Rex Harris and Musical though, or the lousy 0:21:53.356 --> 0:21:56.676 Eddie Murphy movies or the Robber Downey Junior one. Believe me, 0:21:56.716 --> 0:21:59.596 they're all terrible, But the original stories from the nineteen 0:21:59.636 --> 0:22:03.756 twenties are full of fantastic elements, like the Pushmi Pullyu, 0:22:03.956 --> 0:22:06.756 a lama with a head at both ends. There are 0:22:06.756 --> 0:22:10.196 many voyages, there are many adventures. The Doctor to Little 0:22:10.196 --> 0:22:13.956 Books are a little like superhero comics. Still, Dolittle is 0:22:14.036 --> 0:22:17.716 older than Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Those characters were 0:22:17.716 --> 0:22:21.436 created in the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties. Doolittle was 0:22:21.476 --> 0:22:25.356 created in the nineteenteens and nineteen twenties. That means there's 0:22:25.396 --> 0:22:28.516 all kinds of datedness to the stories, including a lot 0:22:28.556 --> 0:22:33.196 of truly outrageously racist depictions of African and Indigenous peoples. 0:22:33.916 --> 0:22:36.516 In spite of the fact that Lofting, a progressive and 0:22:36.596 --> 0:22:39.596 a pacifist who wrote for the Nation, was an ardent 0:22:39.636 --> 0:22:43.796 opponent of racism and of imperialism too. In a nineteen 0:22:43.836 --> 0:22:46.876 twenty four article in the Nation, for instance, he damned 0:22:47.116 --> 0:22:50.356 race hatred and urged the writers of children's books to 0:22:50.396 --> 0:22:54.396 get away from the bigoted misrepresentation of people of different races. 0:22:57.076 --> 0:22:59.556 Back in Connecticut, Elise and I were just pulling up 0:22:59.556 --> 0:23:01.836 to the house where Lofting used to live, a yellow 0:23:01.876 --> 0:23:05.076 farmhouse with a fence out front. The house he lived 0:23:05.076 --> 0:23:07.836 in on the edge of town was quite small, but 0:23:07.996 --> 0:23:11.196 his garden was any large, and he had a wide 0:23:11.236 --> 0:23:15.756 long and stone seats and weeping willows hanging over. It 0:23:15.836 --> 0:23:19.156 turns out a doctor lives there now, Caroline, an emergency 0:23:19.236 --> 0:23:21.796 room doctor. She and her son Ben answered the door 0:23:21.956 --> 0:23:25.116 and invited us around back for iced tea. We're gonna 0:23:25.116 --> 0:23:28.356 stay outside. That's fine, both multitude of reasons, of course, 0:23:28.476 --> 0:23:36.596 that's fine. Not always Lofting he always had three or 0:23:36.636 --> 0:23:39.636 four dogs around at his house. Caroline and Ben have two, 0:23:40.116 --> 0:23:44.876 two German Shepherds, rescue dogs. We could hear them inside howling. 0:23:45.476 --> 0:23:50.196 They harmonize too, and um, what do you think they're 0:23:50.236 --> 0:23:53.996 trying to tell us? They just they want to come out, 0:23:54.156 --> 0:23:58.636 They want to say hi. They're crazy. I mean they 0:23:58.636 --> 0:24:02.356 won't they won't hurt you, but they're crazy. I know 0:24:02.436 --> 0:24:05.676 all about those crazy dogs. Sadly they didn't come out 0:24:05.716 --> 0:24:09.556 to join us. Carolin hadn't known much about too when 0:24:09.556 --> 0:24:11.956 she bought the house, but the spirit of the place 0:24:12.476 --> 0:24:16.036 had been hard to resist. We would need a party, 0:24:16.356 --> 0:24:20.196 a big neighborhood party. And made little push meeep never 0:24:20.276 --> 0:24:23.836 mind who was then a little plastic horses and cut 0:24:23.876 --> 0:24:27.436 them in half, really include them together for glue their 0:24:27.476 --> 0:24:35.956 heads to play around still at the house. Didn't come 0:24:35.996 --> 0:24:39.476 with any secret stash of Hugh Lofting's papers, but Carolyn 0:24:39.556 --> 0:24:42.076 did end up collecting a set of first Editions, each 0:24:42.156 --> 0:24:45.236 illustrated by Lofting. She said she'd planned to leave them 0:24:45.236 --> 0:24:49.396 in the house and someday she moves out. We went 0:24:49.436 --> 0:24:52.156 her on the front to see the homemade painted wooden sign, 0:24:52.476 --> 0:24:56.396 a new one that Caroline's kids had updated. My brother 0:24:56.436 --> 0:25:00.676 made this one. Um so it says Doctor Dolittle House 0:25:00.956 --> 0:25:05.076 Circus seventeen sixty one, owned by author Hugh Lofting eighteen 0:25:05.116 --> 0:25:09.156 eighty six to nineteen forty seven. That's his life in 0:25:09.236 --> 0:25:11.756 nineteen twenties. This is where doctor Dolittle came to life 0:25:11.756 --> 0:25:15.676 and learned to talk to his animals. The old one said, 0:25:15.676 --> 0:25:23.636 where his animals learned to talk rated an issue or correction, 0:25:23.716 --> 0:25:31.396 You just uplogether. I loved that the updating of the 0:25:31.436 --> 0:25:35.076 historical record correcting it. The animals didn't learn to talk 0:25:35.116 --> 0:25:38.476 to us. People learned to listen to the animals, and 0:25:38.556 --> 0:25:42.396 it's true. Learning animal language was Doctor doolittle superpower, not 0:25:42.556 --> 0:25:46.516 talking to them. The Doctor Dolittle stories date to the 0:25:46.556 --> 0:25:50.196 era of animal welfare, when reformers were fighting against cruelty 0:25:50.236 --> 0:25:54.516 to animals, trying to end vivisection. Today there are different fights. 0:25:54.716 --> 0:25:58.396 It's an age of mass extinction and climate catastrophe. There 0:25:58.396 --> 0:26:01.476 are other questions to ask about humans relationship to animals, 0:26:01.956 --> 0:26:05.316 including whether sometime soon there will be hardly any of 0:26:05.356 --> 0:26:10.156 them left. Animal cognition is like any other signiance. It's 0:26:10.196 --> 0:26:13.196 a means of producing knowledge, but it's also freighted with 0:26:13.196 --> 0:26:17.196 an almost existential burden, the burden of this moment. If 0:26:17.236 --> 0:26:20.916 we could understand better what animals know, would we find 0:26:20.956 --> 0:26:31.156 better ways of sharing the planet with them. Ben and 0:26:31.196 --> 0:26:33.796 I have gone to Killingworth, Connecticut with a children's book 0:26:33.836 --> 0:26:37.076 writer a lease Broach, to search for doctor Doolittle, who 0:26:37.116 --> 0:26:40.516 could talk to the animals. I came away from that trip, though, 0:26:40.956 --> 0:26:43.996 wondering what had happened to that idea, to an interest 0:26:44.156 --> 0:26:47.596 not in teaching animals to talk. But in listening to them, 0:26:47.836 --> 0:26:53.036 I could talk to the animals. Just imagine it chatting 0:26:53.036 --> 0:27:00.116 to a chimp in chimpanzee chatting to a cheetah. What. 0:27:03.916 --> 0:27:05.956 Right around the time Hugh Lofting was writing the first 0:27:05.996 --> 0:27:09.996