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| death_place = [[Woodford, London|Woodford]], [[Essex]], England
| occupation = Writer
| spouse = Hedley Thomson
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'''Ethel Douglas Hume''' (4 May 1874 – 16 July 1950) was a British [[Vivisection|anti-vivisectionist]], [[animal welfare]] writer and traveller. She is best known for authoring a controversial book in 1923 which accused [[Louis Pasteur]] of plagiarizing [[Antoine Béchamp]]'s theories.
==Biography==
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Hume was born in [[Batticaloa]], [[Ceylon]].<ref name="Clan">[http://www.clan-home.org/tng11/getperson.php?personID=I52426&tree=2 "Ethel Douglas Hume"]{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Clan Home Genealogical Database. Retrieved 25 November 2020.</ref> She was educated in [[Germany]], [[Italy]] and [[London]].<ref name="Bristol">''Feminine Reflections''. ''[[Western Daily Press|Western Daily Press and Bristol Mirror]]''. (March 5, 1938). p. 10</ref> She lived in [[Canada]] for a year and travelled to the [[Malay Peninsula]] and to [[Japan]].<ref name="Bristol"/> A wide traveller, Hume lived in [[Bristol]], Japan and [[Scotland]]. She later settled in [[Essex]]. She also travelled to [[North Africa]] and throughout [[Europe]].<ref name="Bristol"/> She married Hedley Thomson.<ref name="Clan"/>
Hume authored the controversial ''Bechamp or Pasteur? A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology'', in 1923. The book went through many editions and reprints. Hume argued that Louis Pasteur plagiarized [[Antoine Béchamp]]'s theories. The book was based on the manuscripts of [[Montague Leverson]].<ref name="Nature">{{cite journal |last1=B |first1=W. |title=Béchamp or Pasteur? a Lost Chapter in the History of Biology |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |date=January 1924 |volume=113 |issue=2830 |pages=121 |doi=10.1038/113121b0 |bibcode=1924Natur.113..121B |s2cid=4127327 |language=en |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/113121b0.pdf|issn=1476-4687}}</ref> Hume's book has been cited by proponents of [[alternative medicine]] but was criticized by historians.<ref name="Geison 1995">Geison, Gerald L. (1995). ''The Private Science of Louis Pasteur''. [[Princeton University Press]]. p. 275. {{ISBN|0-691-03442-7}}</ref><ref>Hess, David J. (1997). ''Can Bacteria Cause Cancer?: Alternative Medicine Confronts Big Science''. [[New York University Press]]. p. 76. {{ISBN|0-8147-3561-4}}</ref> Early reviewers were not aware that Hume was female.<ref name="Nature"/>
In 1924, a review in the ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' journal commented that "the solid fact remains that most of [Béchamp's] work has been discredited as inaccurate, and although he wrote an immense amount, he plunged deeper and deeper into error. However high the opinion of the author is on the virtues of Bechamp, he has utilised a fair part of the book to exploit his own antimicrobic and antivaccination views."<ref name="Nature"/> In 1928, [[William Fearon]] stated that the book "is written in a somewhat peevish style, and appears to be more concerned with the defects of Pasteur than the merits of Bechamp".<ref>{{cite journal|author=Fearon, William Robert|year=1928|title=Spontaneous Generation|journal=[[Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review]]|volume=17|issue=65|pages=72–81}}</ref> In 1934, a review in ''[[The Quarterly Review of Biology]]'' dismissed the book as a "bit of anti-vivisection and anti-vaccination propaganda".<ref>{{cite journal|year=1934|title=Brief Notices|journal=[[The Quarterly Review of Biology]]|volume=9|issue=1|pages=99}}</ref> A review in the ''[[Isis (journal)|Isis]]'' journal the same year, described the book as an attack upon Pasteur and to discredit vaccination. The review concluded that "the emotional basis, the intellectual feebleness, and the anti-scientific and anti-social character of the whole anti-medical movement is superbly illustrated in the motivation and in the pseudo-scientific and ofttimes painfully unintelligent content of this subsidized book of propaganda."<ref>{{cite journal|author=Sarton George; Siegel, Frances|year=1934|title=Thirty-Ninth Critical Bibliography of the History and Philosophy of Science and of the History of Civilization (To September 1933,--With Special Reference to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) |journal=[[Isis (journal)|Isis]]|volume=21|issue=2|pages=404–405|doi=10.1086/346863|s2cid=144676705}}</ref>
Hume's book was republished as ''Pasteur Exposed: The False Foundations of Modern Science'' (1989).<ref name="Geison 1995"/> Historian [[Gerald L. Geison]] wrote
Hume was an [[Anti-vaccine activism|anti-vaccinationist]] and [[Germ theory denialism|germ theory denialist]]. In 1933, Hume commented that cholera, dysentery and enteric are evidence of bad sanitation and bad water supply and do not prove the [[germ theory of disease]].<ref>''What Causes Disease?''. ''[[Daily Mirror]]'' (July 18, 1933). p. 11</ref>
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==Animal welfare==
Hume was an [[anti-vivisectionist]] and supporter of animal welfare. She authored ''The Mind-Changers'', a book which documented the history of the changing public opinion on treatment of animals. It contains biographical sketches of pioneers against animal cruelty.<ref>''The Mind Changers''. ''[[Manchester Evening News]]'' (April 1, 1939). p. 8</ref><ref>''Books for Somerset Readers''. ''[[Central Somerset Gazette]]'' (April 14, 1939). p. 6</ref> [[Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark|H. R. H. Prince Christopher]] wrote the foreword and [[George Arliss]] wrote the introduction.<ref>[https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19390723-1.2.119.4 ''The Mind Changers'']. ''[[The Straits Times]]'' (July 23, 1939). p. 25</ref> In 1919, Hume lectured on "Hydrophobia and the Mad Dog Scare" for the [[London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society]]. Hume was a [[Vegetarianism|vegetarian]] and associated with the Bristol Vegetarian and Health Culture Society.<ref name="Bristol"/>
==Selected publications==
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