'A lady owning important kennels in the South of England writes me a letter on this subject [of food] which may be worth notice of firms who advertise vitamin products for dogs. I am by no means a crank on this subject myself, believing that some experiments may be needed; but when once a fact has been established I can see no reason at all for repeating the experiment which proved it; and as there are many dog owners like my correspondent who feel very deeply the cruelty that is undoubtedly permitted to go on, and vendors of foods who try to sell vitamin products by advertising in this particular fashion are likely to arouse hostility, but here is the letter:-

Dear Medicus,

Thank you for your notes in Our Dogs of December 1st drawing attention to the 'starvation' experiments which take place, and which will only be stopped when the public shall become fully aware of them and will decide that they be abolished. The cases you quote are experiments conducted under the Ministry of Health, and in this case the only action that can be taken by an individual is to write to his Member of Parliament protesting against the use of public money for such purposes. The Government care nothing for the cruelty involved, but every Member of Parliament dislikes the possibility of losing a vote, and if the majority of his constituents proclaimed themselves to be against these experiments more would be done to stop them, for it is, first and last, a matter of public opinion. A short time ago a firm producing foods for human consumption produced an account of feeding experiments on animals. People, feeling strongly on this subject, ceased buying that firm's products, with the result that the firm soon realised that experiments on animals did not pay. Within the past few months several firms have sent me circulars advertising dog foods and remedies, the circulars being accompanied by leaflets illustrating feeding experiments on animals. These circulars must have been sent to thousands of your readers, but I wonder how many wrote to the firms in question and refused to contemplate their product on the ground of the cruelty involved? It is to be hoped that a great many did so, for it is only by each individual raising a voice in protest against such things that any result can accrue.

It will probably occur to the makers of dog foods containing some special vitamin properties, on reading the above protest, that it is not necessary, when advertising their products, to enter into details regarding the manner in which animals have been experimented upon in order to secure the necessary evidence of the effectiveness of the vitamins.'

Relevant passage from 'The Latest About Vitamins':

'The publication by His Majesty's Stationary Office of "Vitamins: A Survey of Present Knowledge," a volume compiled by a committee appointed jointly by the Lister Institute and the Medical Research Council, is an event by no means without interest to the doggy world. Although the research of its authors and of the specialists whose researches are described in the volume is with the food of man, the information has been made available largely as a result of experiments in the feeding of dogs, among other animals, but dogs especially. One cannot help wondering, after perusing this volume, whether it is really necessary to continue subjecting dogs and other animals to the "starvation" experiments, which may have been necessary in the early days of vitamin research in order to ascertain what were the general effects of feeding upon substances deficient in certain of these vitamins; but we know quite enough about these matters now to enable us to form a sufficiently general opinion as to the sort of foodstuffs which should be avoided or supplemented or varied, in order that the human frame can obtain what it needs for its upbuilding and for preserving the health and strength of the frame throughout the successive periods of life. What is now being done largely consists of scientific refinements, and it hardly seems necessary to torture animals for that purpose.'

The proliferation of Lactol and similar foods contributed to a more generalreconceptualization of dog feeding as a scientific endeavor. Ads for Spratt’s Malt Milk, Vigor, and MartinMilk all emphasized their chemical nutritional credentials... Such rhetoric spilled over into the dog advice literature of the period... Medicus, having only rarely touched upon the nutritional requirements of dogs prior to the First World War, regularly returned to the topic during the 1920s and 1930s, acting as an arbiter on the relative nutritional virtues of commercial products and cheerleading the adaptation of fashionable foods such as orange juice and whole wheat to canine requirements. [note: 'For example, Medicus, “Notes for Novices: “Whole Wheatmeal Feeding,” Our Dogs, no. 89 (18 November 1932): 528; Medicus, “Notes for Novices: The Latest about Vitamins,” Our Dogs, no. 93 (1 December 1933): 653; Medicus, “Notes for Novices: Yeast for Dogs,” Our Dogs, no. 112 (12 August 1938): 507. On the health benefits accorded wholemeal bread at this time, see Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, “‘Not a Complete Food for Man’: The Controversy about White versus Wholemeal Bread in Interwar Britain,” in Setting Nutritional Standards: Theory Policies Practices, ed. Elizabeth Neswald, David F. Smith, and Ulrike Thoms (Rochester, NY, 2017), 142–64.']' (297)