An Ethical Problem Part 5

"In this country we are glad to think that experiments on animals are never performed nowadays except upon some reasonable excuse for the pain thus wilfully inflicted. We are inclined to believe that the question will some day be asked, whether any excuse can make them justifiable? One cannot read without shuddering details like the following. It would appear from these that the practice of such brutality is the everyday lesson taught in the veterinary schools of France.

"A small cow, very thin, and which had undergone numerous operations-- that is to say, WHICH HAD SUFFERED DURING THE DAY THE MOST EXTREME TORTURE--was placed upon the table, and killed by insufflation of air into the jugular vein."[1]

This fact is related by M. Sanson, of the veterinary school of Toulouse, merely incidentally, when describing an experiment of his own upon the blood. The wretched animal was actually cut to pieces by the students! ... M. Sanson adds (merely wanting to prove that the nervous system of the animals upon which he operated was properly stirred up): 'Those who have seen these wretched animals on their bed of suffering--lit de douleur--know the degree of torture to which they are subjected; torture, in fact, under which they for the most part succ.u.mb!'"

[1] In all extracts italics are the compiler's.

A little later the same medical journal again touched the subject of vivisection in its editorial columns. In its issue of October 20, 1860, the editor is even more emphatic in denunciation:

"Two years ago we called attention to the brutality practised at the veterinary schools in France, and gave a specimen of the kind of torture there inflicted upon animals. WE ARE VERY GLAD TO SEE THAT THE PUBLIC ARE NOW OCCUPIED WITH THE SUBJECT, and we are sure that the Profession at large will fully agree with us IN CONDEMNING EXPERIMENTS WHICH ARE MADE SIMPLY TO DEMONSTRATE PHYSIOLOGICAL OR OTHER FACTS WHICH HAVE BEEN RECEIVED AS SETTLED POINTS AND ARE BEYOND CONTROVERSY. We consider the question involved as one of extreme interest to the Profession, and we shall gladly throw open our columns to any of our brethren who may wish to a.s.sist in framing some code by which we may decide under what circ.u.mstances experiments upon living animals may be made with propriety."

The words italicized in the foregoing quotation are of special significance to-day. The editor is "very glad" to note the interest taken in the subject by the general public--a sentiment quite foreign to that of the present time. One notes, too, the gratifying a.s.surance that the medical profession of England at that period would "fully agree in condemning experiments," which nowadays are made not only in medical schools but to some extent in every college of any standing in the United States. And this condemnation on the part of the medical profession was voiced four years before the date a.s.signed by Professor Bowditch as that of "the first serious attack upon biological research in England."

A few months later the same medical periodical outlined the principles which it believed should govern the practice of animal experimentation. In the issue of this journal for March 2, 1861, the editor makes the following p.r.o.nouncement:

"VIVISECTION.--We have been requested to p.r.o.nounce a condemnation of vivisection....

"We believe that if anyone competent to the task desires to solve any question affecting human life or health, or to acquire such a knowledge of function as shall hereafter be available for the preservation of human life or health, by the mutilation of a living animal, he is justified in so doing. But we do not hesitate to condemn the practice of operating on living animals for the mere purpose of acquiring coolness and dexterity, and WE THINK THAT THE REPEt.i.tION OF EXPERIMENTS BEFORE STUDENTS, MERELY IN ORDER TO EXHIBIT THEM AS EXPERIMENTS, SHOWING WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN, IS EQUALLY TO BE CONDEMNED."

Again, on August 16, 1862, the Medical Times and Gazette gives an expression of its views on the subject. It condemns the cruelty of Magendie, concerning which one will seek vainly to-day in medical periodicals for any similar expression of reprobation. Referring to the subject, the editor says:

"No person whose moral nature is raised above that of the savage would defend the practices which lately disgraced the veterinary schools of France, or in past years the theatre of Magendie.[1] Professor Sharpey, in his address to the British Medical a.s.sociation, has accurately drawn the required limits, fully obtained and confirmed, ITS REPEt.i.tION IS INDEFENSIBLE; and 'as the art of operating may be learned equally on the dead as on the living body, operations on the latter for the purpose of surgical instruction are reprehensible and unnecessary.'"

[1] The lecture-room in which vivisections were publicly performed.

To the London Lancet the cause of humaneness to animals is also indebted, for its repeated condemnation of the cruelties of vivisection. As the exponent and representative of British surgery, its words undoubtedly carried great weight among medical pract.i.tioners. In its issue of August 11, 1860, after pointing out the utility of certain physiological inquiries, the Lancet's editor thus defines what it regards as reprehensible cruelty:

"On the other hand, when at any moment the practice overpa.s.ses the rigorous bounds of utility, when its object is no longer the pursuit of new solutions of scientific problems, or the examination of hypotheses requiring a test; when vivisection is elevated into an art, and this art becomes a matter of public demonstration--then it is degraded by the absence of a beneficent end, and becomes a cruelty.

The THE EXHIBITIONS OF EXPERIMENTS WHICH AIM ONLY AT A REPEt.i.tION OF INQUIRIES ALREADY SATISFACTORILY CONCLUDED, and the DEMONSTRATION OF FUNCTIONS ALREADY UNDERSTOOD, appear to us to rank among the excesses which must be deplored, if not repressed. The displays in these amphitheatres are of the most painful kind, and it is to be deeply regretted that curiosity should silence feeling, and draw spectators to mortal suffering.... The Commission (of the Societies for Prevention of Cruelty) asks for nothing which the most zealous devotees of science cannot--and ought not--to grant. It demands only the cessation of experiments which are PURELY REPEt.i.tIVE DEMONSTRATIONS OF KNOWN FACTS."

This is a remarkable utterance. It is quite probable that it voiced an almost unanimous opinion among English physicians and surgeons of half a century ago. How far have we strayed since then! The Lancet of to-day would doubtless earnestly oppose any legal prohibition of experiments which it once ranked among the "excesses which must be deplored, IF NOT REPRESSED."

Two or three months afterward the Lancet again expressed its condemnation of experiments made for the demonstration of known facts. In its issue of October 20, 1860, the Lancet editor says:

"The moment that it [vivisection] overpa.s.ses the bounds of necessity; when it ceases to aim at the solution of problems in which humanity is interested, and becomes a new means of public demonstration, having no benevolent end--then it is degraded to the level of A PURPOSELESS CRUELTY. The repet.i.tive demonstration of known facts, by public or private vivisections, is an abuse that we deplore, and have more than once condemned."

On January 12, 1861, the Lancet opens its columns to a correspondent, who invites attention of its readers to the views of Professor Owen, afterward Sir Richard Owen, and the most distinguished anatomist of his time:

"Professor Owen, one of the first physiological authorities of the present day, observes: 'That no teacher of physiology is justified in repeating any vivisectional experiment, merely to show its known results to his cla.s.s or to others. IT IS THE PRACTICE OF VIVISECTION, in place of physiological induction, pursued for the same end, AGAINST WHICH HUMANITY, CHRISTIANITY, AND CIVILIZATION SHOULD ALIKE PROTEST.'"

It is probable that no stronger denunciation of the cruelty of vivisection ever appeared than that contained in the leading editorial of the London Lancet of August 22, 1863. The writer was certainly not an opponent of all experiments upon animals; he admits that "if pressed for a categoric answer whether such a practice as vivisection were permissible under proper restrictions for the purpose of advancing science and lessening human suffering, the answer would be in the affirmative." But the practice is evidently spreading. It is a.s.serted that experiments upon animals "are a common mode of lecture ill.u.s.tration," and that such investigations "have spread from the hand of the retired and sober man of matured science into those of everyday lecturers and their pupils." Against such extension of vivisection the editor of the Lancet enters an emphatic protest:

"If we were pressed simply for a categoric answer to the question whether such a practice [as vivisection] were permissible under proper restrictions and for the purpose of advancing science and lessening human suffering, we need hardly say that the answer would be in the affirmative. It is a.s.serted, however, that the practice of vivisection and such investigations as are implied by this term, 'have spread from the hands of the retired and sober man of matured science into those of everyday lecturers and their pupils,' and that such experiments 'are a common mode of lecture ill.u.s.tration....'

"We will state our belief that there is too much of it everywhere, and that there are daily occurring practices in the schools of France which cry aloud in the name both of honour and humanity for their immediate cessation. About two years ago, our Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals became possessed of the knowledge that it was still the practice in the schools of Anatomy and Physiology in France for lecturers and demonstrators to tie down cats, dogs, rabbits, etc., before the cla.s.s; to perform upon them operations of great pain, and to pursue investigations accompanied by the most terrible torture. THIS, TOO, FOR THE PURPOSE ONLY OF DEMONSTRATING CERTAIN FACTS WHICH HAD BEEN FOR LONG UNHESITATINGLY ADMITTED, and for giving a sort of meretricious air to a popular series of lectures.

It learned, moreover, that at the veterinary schools of Lyons and Alfort, live horses were periodically given up to a group of students for anatomical and surgical purposes, often exercised with ... extra refinements of cruelty...."

It appeared that at Paris the whole neighborhood adjoining the medical school--including patients in a maternity hospital--"were constantly disturbed, when the course of physiology was proceeding at the school, by the howling and barking of the dogs, both night and day." The dogs were silenced. "The fact was, the poor animals were now subjected to the painful operation of dividing the laryngeal nerves as preliminary to the performance of other mutilations! And what were these dogs for?

Simply for the vain repet.i.tion of clap-trap experiments, by way of ill.u.s.trations of lectures for first-year students! These facts becoming known, the general public has at length interfered, and, we think, with very great propriety. THE ENTIRE PICTURE OF VIVISECTIONAL ILl.u.s.tRATION OF ORDINARY LECTURES IS TO US PERSONALLY REPULSIVE IN THE EXTREME. Look, for example, at the animal before us, stolen (to begin with) from his master; the poor creature hungry, tied up for days and nights, pining for his home, is at length brought into the theatre.

As his crouching and feeble form is strapped upon the table, HE LICKS THE VERY HAND THAT TIES HIM! He struggles, but in vain, and uselessly expresses his fear and suffering until a muzzle is buckled on his jaws to stifle every sound. The scalpel penetrates his quivering flesh. One effort only is now natural until his powers are exhausted--a vain, instinctive resistance to the cruel form that stands over him, the impersonation of Magendie and his cla.s.s. 'I recall to mind,' says Dr. Latour, 'a poor dog, the roots of whose vertebral nerves Magendie desired to lay bare to demonstrate Bell's theory, which he claimed for his own. The dog, already mutilated and bleeding, twice escaped from under the implacable knife, and threw his front paws around Magendie's neck, licking, as if to soften his murderer, and ask for mercy! Vivisectors may laugh, but I confess I was unable to endure that heartrending spectacle.' But the whole thing is too horrible to dwell upon. Heaven forbid that any description of students in this country should be witness to such deeds as these! We repudiate the whole of this cla.s.s of procedure. Science will refuse to recognize it as its offspring, and humanity shudders as it gazes on its face."

In all the literature of what is known as "antivivisection" is it possible to find a more emphatic condemnation of scientific cruelty than this? The decadence of humane sentiment in the laboratory can hardly be more strikingly ill.u.s.trated than by a comparison of this editorial utterance of the Lancet with some of the present-day expressions of opinion in medical journals. When a quotation from this editorial was brought to the attention of a professor in Cambridge University not long since, it seemed to him so incredible that he made "a special inquiry," and then felt safe in publishing a doubt of its authenticity. If, as one may perhaps imagine without undue violence to probability, this "special inquiry" was made in the editorial rooms of the journal in question, the incredulity which even there found expression only ill.u.s.trates the gulf that lies between the present and the past. It is a marvel, indeed, that the human sentiment of that earlier period, before the dominance of Continental ideals became an accomplished fact in America and England, can be so utterly forgotten by the medical journals and medical teachers of the present time.

A week later the Lancet again discusses the subject always, it should be remembered, as the advocate of vivisection, provided the practice be carried on under humane restrictions. A few sentences of the editorial of August 29 are specially significant:

"... As a general rule, neither our [British] students nor teachers are wont to carry on experiments upon living animals even in a private way. The utmost that can be said is that perhaps some two or three-- at the most six--scientific men in London are known to be pursuing certain lines of investigation which require them occasionally during the year to employ living animals.... Whilst the schools of medicine in this country are as a rule not liable to the charge of vivisectional abuses as regards the higher animals, we cannot altogether acquit them from a rather reckless expenditure of the lives and feelings of cold-blooded creatures.... The reckless way in which we have sometimes seen this poor creature [the frog] cut, thrown and kicked about, has been sometimes sickening.... We cannot help feeling there is both A BAD MORAL DISCIPLINE FOR THE MAN, as well as an amount of probable pain to the creature, in such a practice."

How strange such criticism as this appears to-day! Can one imagine a medical journal in America or England expressing in our time any sympathy for the suffering of frogs in a physiological laboratory? Can one fancy on the part of its editor a suggestion of "bad moral discipline" which the ruthless vivisection of animals of the highest organization or grade of intelligence might induce? To-day such criticism is unthinkable. Yet the capacity of animal suffering has not diminished. The number of victims is vastly larger. What change has occurred which makes it impossible to conceive on the part of a medical journal of the present time the expression of such a sentiment of pity for one of the lower forms of animal life?

The Lancet was not alone in such condemnations. No periodical of that day, devoted entirely to the problems of medicine, occupied a position of influence equal to that of the British Medical Journal. One of its earlier editorial utterances concerning vivisection appeared in its issue of May 11, 1861, three years before the date given by Dr. Bowditch as that of "the first serious attack."

"The Emperor of the French has received a deputation from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. We sincerely trust that this interview may be the means of putting an end to the unjustifiable brutalities too often inflicted on the lower animals under the guise of scientific experimentation. IT HAS NEVER APPEARED CLEAR TO US THAT WE ARE JUSTIFIED IN DESTROYING ANIMALS FOR MERE EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH UNDER ANY CIRc.u.mSTANCES; but now that we possess the means of removing sensation during experiments, the man who puts an animal to torture ought, in our opinion, to be prosecuted."

Referring to the experiment upon a cow mentioned in Dr. Brown-Se'quard's Journal of Physiology, and already described, the editor adds:

"We are not disposed, in a question of this kind, in which some of the highest considerations are concerned, to allow our opinion to be swayed by the opinions or the proceedings of even the greatest surgeons and the greatest physiologists. That such authorities performed vivisection is a fact; but it does not satisfy us that the proceeding is justifiable. Under any circ.u.mstances, this much, we think, is evident enough: that IF VIVISECTIONS BE PERMISSIBLE, THEY CAN ONLY BE SO UNDER CERTAIN LIMITED AND DEFINED CONDITIONS. We need hardly add that these conditions have not yet been laid down.

Altogether, the subject is one well worthy of serious discussion, and gladly would we see the interests of medical science in the matter properly reconciled with the dictates of the moral sense."

Nothing could be more clearly stated. One reads almost with a feeling of amazement the sentences we have italicized in the foregoing quotation. Here, in the editorial columns of the princ.i.p.al medical journal in the world, is expressed doubt of the justification of any destruction of animals whatever, "for mere experimental research."

What magnificent independence of the opinions and experimentation "of even the greatest surgeons and the greatest physiologists" is here displayed!

Five months later the British Medical Journal in its editorial columns again refers to the peculiarly atrocious vivisection which it had once before denounced; it is evident that the journal intends that such actions shall not be forgotten. In the issue of October 19, 1861, it says:

"The brutalities which have been so long inflicted upon horses, etc., in the veterinary schools of France under the name of Science are perfectly horrible. Some idea of what has been daily going on in those schools during many past years may be obtained from such a statement as the following, taken from a paper by M. Sanson, in the Journal of Physiology [edited by Dr. C. E. Brown-Se'quard]. M. Sanson is speaking incidentally of the condition of animals upon whose blood he was himself experimenting: 'A small cow,' he writes, 'very thin, and which had undergone numerous operations--that is to saw, WHICH HAD SUFFERED DURING THE DAY THE MOST EXTREME TORTURE--was placed upon the table,' etc. M. Sanson adds '...Those who have seen these wretched animals on their bed of suffering--lit de douleur--know the degree of torture to which they are subjected; torture, in fact, under which they for the most part succ.u.mb!' THE POOR BRUTES ARE ACTUALLY SLICED AND CHOPPED, PIECEMEAL, TO DEATH, in order that the e'le'ves (students) may become skilful operators!"

Almost a year pa.s.ses, and on September 6, 1862, we again find the editor of the British Medical Journal discussing the ethics of animal experimentation. He admits that there is useless vivisection and unnecessary infliction of pain. Significant, indeed, it will seem to the physician of to-day to find one of the leading exponents of medical opinion condemning as "unjustifiable" demonstrations of well-known facts, which are now considered as essential to medical education. After stating that some restrictions should be imposed, the editor adds:

"We will venture to suggest that these restrictions should be well and clearly defined; that some high authority like Dr. Sharpey himself should lay down certain rules on the subject, and for the purpose of preventing, if possible, any needless suffering from being inflicted experimentally on the lower animals. All of us must be well aware that many needless experiments are actually performed, and until some clearly defined rules on this head are laid down, we venture to think such needless suffering will still continue to be inflicted on animals. If, for example, it were publicly stated by authorities in the profession that experiments of this nature, made for the mere purpose of demonstrating admitted physiological facts, are unjustifiable, a great step would be gained, and a great ground of complaint cut from under the feet of the enthusiastic antivivisection societies. The very fact of an authoritative sanction to the legitimate performance of such experiments...."

The denunciations of cruel vivisection by the British Medical Journal extend over a considerable period. Occasionally the Journal quotes the opinions of some of its medical contemporaries in Paris, admitting the need for reform. For instance, in its issue of May 2, 1863, in its editorial columns, the Journal presents us with a quotation from L'Union Me'dicale of Paris, suggesting distinctions that should be made in the selection of vivisection material:

"Vivisection is often useful and sometimes necessary, and therefore not to be absolutely proscribed; but I would gladly pet.i.tion the Senate to forbid its performance on every animal which is useful to, and a friend of, man. The mutilations and tortures inflicted upon dogs are horrible. The King of Dahomey is less barbarous than these merciless vivisectors. HE cuts his victims' throats, but without torturing them; while THEY tear and cut to pieces these wretched dogs in their most sensitive parts. Let them operate on rats, foxes, sharks, vipers, and reptiles. But no; our vivisectors object to the teeth, the claws, the beaks of these repulsive animals; they must have gentle animals; and so, like cowards, they seize upon the dog--that caressing animal, which licks the hand, armed with the scalpel!"

Think of a such quotation in the columns of the British Medical Journal--a periodical which to-day rarely ventures to criticize any phase of animal experimentation.

The following summer, on August 22, 1863, the Journal find s.p.a.ce in its editorial pages for yet other quotations from French medical periodicals concerning the "enormous abuses" of vivisection.

"We are very glad to find that the French medical journals are entering protests against the cruel abuse which is made of vivisection in France. L'Abeille Me'dicale says:

"'I am quite of you opinion as to the enormous abuses practised at the present day in the matter of vivisection.... In the laboratories of the College of France, in the E'cole de Me'decine, eminent professors, placed at the head of instruction, are forced to the painful sacrifice of destroying animals in order to widen the field of science. In doing so they act legitimately, and suffering humanity demands it of them.

Those experiments are performed in the silence of private study, and the results obtained are then explained to the pupils, or treated of in publications.... But to repeat the experiments before the public, to descend from the professional chair in order to practise the part of a butcher or of an executioner, is painful to the feelings and disgusting to the sentiments of the student.... Such public exhibitions are ign.o.ble, and of a kind which pervert the generous sentiments of youth. An end should be put to them. Ought we to allow the e'lite of our French youths to feed their eyes with the sight of the flowing blood of living animals, and to have their ears stunned with their groans, at this time when society is calling for the doing away of public executions? Let no one tell us that vivisections are necessary for a knowledge of physiology.... If the present ways, habits, and customs are continued, the future physician will become marked by his cold and implacable insensibility. Let there be no mistake about it: THE MAN WHO HABITUATES HIMSELF TO THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD, AND WHO IS INSENSIBLE TO THE SUFFERINGS OF ANIMALS, IS LED ON INTO THE PATH OF BASENESS.'

"So writes L'Abeille Me'dicale. But here L'Union Me'dicale takes up and comments on the tale:

"'This is all excellently said; but we must correct a few errors.

Magendie, alas! performed experiments in public, and sadly too often at the Colle'ge de France. I remember once, among other instances, the case of a poor dog, the roots of whose spinal nerves he was about to expose. Twice did the dog, all b.l.o.o.d.y and mutilated, escape from his implacable knife, and twice did I see him put his forepaws around Magendie's neck and lick his face! I confess--laugh, Messieurs les Vivisecteurs, if you please--that I could not bear the sight.... It is true that Dr. P. H. Be'rard, Professor of Physiology, never performed a single vivisection in his lectures, which were brilliant, elegant, and animated. but Be'rard was an example of a singular psychological phenomenon. Toward the close of his life, so painful to him was the sight of blood and the exhibition of pain, that he gave up the practice of surgery, and would never allow his students to witness a vivisection. But Be'rard was attacked by cerebral haemorrhage, and the whole tone of his character was thereby afterward changed. The benevolent man became aggressive; the tolerant man, irritable.... He became an experimenter, and pa.s.sed whole days in practising vivisections, TAKING PLEASURE IN THE CRIES, THE BLOOD, AND THE TORTURES OF THE POOR ANIMALS.'"

The following week the Journal again refers to the subject, the "ATROCITIES OF VIVISECTION." It is a noteworthy phrase, proceeding from a medical journal, and should not be forgotten. Concerning the truth of the charges, the absolute heartlessness exhibited, there can be no possible doubt, for the evidence is c.u.mulative. Has the phrase "atrocities of vivisection" appeared in the editorial columns of any medical journal during the past twenty years, unless in the way of ridicule or contempt? It may be doubted.