The story of man and beast - and the relationship between them - is as old as humankind.

The controlled use of animals by humans began thousands of years before recorded history with the domestication of dogs, cattle and other creatures. Their use in medicine also has a long history.In the second century A.D., the Greek physician Galen used animals to show that arteries carried blood, not air, as was generally believed at the time.

Eight hundred years later, the Italians began dissecting animals at the new medical schools that had been established at Salerno and elsewhere. By the 17th century, scientists were using animals to make important anatomical discoveries.

In 1796, physician Edward Jenner developed a vaccine for smallpox by giving his patients cowpox. Jenner's discovery was followed by a parade of medical advances derived from animal-based research, from Frederick Banting's use of dogs in the development of insulin to the role of rats in Jonas Salk's discovery of a vaccine for polio.

Yet, while Salk and even Galen were making their discoveries, people also were thinking about the role of animals in human society.

Many early cultures viewed animals as resources to be used for the benefit of humanity. In the Old Testament, for instance, it is made clear that God has given man "dominion" over the animals (Genesis 1:28). And during biblical times, ancient Hebrews sacrificed tens of thousands of animals each year in the name of God.

Christian doctrine, which has its roots in the Old Testament, teaches that humans are the only creatures that God has chosen to endow with a soul. Still, the Judeo-Christian tradition also teaches that animals are part of God's creation and, as such, are deserving of humane treatment.

The other great pillars of Western thought, the cultures of Greece and Rome, also grant animals little in the way of rights. Aristotle said that man, as the only rational creature on the planet, should have dominion over all other animals and be free to use them as he liked. This arrangement, Aristotle said, was part of the natural order.

But this concept of total sovereignty over other creatures did not go unchallenged. British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) chose to look at the issue from a different angle. He contended: "The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but Can they suffer?"

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Bentham's question was given greater weight by Charles Darwin, whose theory of natural selection transformed man's view of himself. In "On the Origin of Species" (1859) and "The Descent of Man" (1871), Darwin argued that one animal could evolve into a different creature and that human beings had their origins in the animal world.

This belief, which had gained wide acceptance by the early 20th century, shattered the biblical view of man's unique and special place in the universe. Human beings were closer to the natural world than earlier believed, leaving some to ask whether man had underestimated the power of animals to feel.

This belief was underscored a century later when Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and other researchers showed that chimpanzees, apes and other primates had the capacity for many of the same emotions, like love, jealousy and hate, previously thought to be the sole province of humans.

"Some of the emotional states of chimpanzees are so obviously similar to ours that even an inexperienced observer can understand what is going on," Goodall wrote in 1990.

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