Vivisection became a major issue in the last quarter of the 19th century and the years leading and following the ‘Brown Dog Affair’ further strengthen the movement.

In the 1950s, at the time of the correspondence, vivisection was still a much-publicized concern. In the 1950s, Russia and the United States were competing with each other on space projects, and on November 3r 1957 a dog named Laika became the first living creature in space. It is known that both the Americans and the Russians had extensive space programmes involving the use of live animals. At the same time, the warfare had provided the basis of an enormous amount of animal experimentation since the First World War. To this effect, animals were also being tested for the effects of poison gas and atomic bombs.There were a number of demonstrations outside the actual laboratories where vivisection was taking place, namely in England. Taking this into consideration, it comes with no surprise that one of the discussions in the correspondence is the publication of Bayliss’s typewritten facsimile and whether or not the account should be made public.

On April 20 1955, Provost Ifor Evans is quoted saying "I am rather of the view that it would be wiser at this stage not to publish it, but to keep it in our records". One year later, the issue is mentioned again by L. Bayliss: on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the erection of the statue of the Brown Dog, Bayliss suggests that the Journal of the U.C.L Students Physiological Society should publish an account of the affair. Furthermore, Bayliss will edit the account, "chiefly by the omission of any comments that might be regarded as at all derogatory". However, Evans is quoted again showing his uncertainty on the issue: "I think it is very important that the students should know about this whole affair, On the other hand, I feel like the publication may raise the whole anti-vivisectionist issue’ [...] the less publicity we have, the smoother things will be". Furthermore, the men involved consider important to make sure that the account contains no possible grounds for a counter libel action on the part of Miss Lind af Hageby, one of the Swedish activists present in the lecture, who was still alive at the time. Thus, the account of the events is published on 1954, after making sure that there is no ground for a legal action.

There is a clear transition from the 1900’s – when one could sue for defamation on grounds of a vivisection and win – in comparison with the 1950s, when the issue had become much more widely criticized and one had to be cautious in publicly taking a position.