An Ethical Problem Part 6

"The atrocities of vivisection continue to occupy the attention of the Paris papers. The Opinion Nationale says: 'The poor brutes' cries of pain sadden the wards of the clinic, rendering the sojourn there insupportable both to patients and nurses. Only imagine that, when a dog has not been killed at one sitting, and that enough life remains in him to experiment upon him in the following one, they put him back in the kennel, all throbbing and palpitating! There the unhappy creatures, already torn by the scalpel, howl until the next day, in tones rendered hoa.r.s.e and faint by another operation intended to deprive them of voice.'"

Again, only three weeks later, in its issue of September 19, 1863, the British Medical Journal presents in an editorial an account of the debate on Vivisection in the French Academy of Medicine. It is of interest, not only as an indication of English opinion at that day, but also as evidence of what was being done by vivisectors over fifteen years after the discovery of chloroform.

"Our readers are aware that the French Minister of Commerce submitted to the Academy of Medicine doc.u.ments supplied to him by a London society.... A committee of the Academy examined these questions and issued a report, but they did not answer the simple questions put to it. A discussion on the report has naturally taken place in the Academy itself, and has given rise to some very interesting remarks.

M. Dubois ... refused to draw up the report because he differed somewhat in opinion on the subject of vivisections from many of his a.s.sociates. He therefore reserved the liberty of speaking his mind freely on the subject before the Academy. His conclusions are well worthy serious attention. They seem to us to contain all that can be rightly said in favour of vivisection, and to put the matter on its true and proper footing. The greatest praise is due to M. Dubois for having had the courage to express his opinion so boldly and openly....

"In the first part of his speech, M. Dubois demolished the work of the report, showing that it did not answer the questions of the Government, and left things exactly in their previous state. He then proceeded to give his opinion as to what reforms should be made in the practice of vivisection. The greatest physiologists, he remarked, such as Harvey, a.s.selli, Haller, were parsimonious and discreet in their use of vivisection. To-day we have before our eyes a very different spectacle. Under pretence of experimentally demonstrating physiology, the professor no longer ascends the rostrum; he places himself before a vivisecting-table, has live animals brought to him, and experiments. The habitual spectators at the School of Medicine, the College of France, and the Faculty of Sciences, know how experiments are made on the living flesh, how muscles are divided and cut, the nerves wrenched or dilacerated, the bones broken or methodically opened with gouge, mallet, saw, and pincers. Among other tortures there is that horrible one of the opening of the vertebral ca.n.a.l or of the spinal column to lay bare membranes and the substance of the marrow; IT IS THE SUBLIME OF HORROR. One needs to have witnessed that sight thoroughly to comprehend the real sense of the word 'vivisection.' Whoever has not seen an animal under experiment CANNOT FORM AN IDEA OF THE HABITUAL PRACTICES OF THE VIVISECTORS.

M. Dubois drew an eloquent picture of these practices, become usual in the physiological amphitheatres in the midst of blood and of howls of pain, and he showed that under the dominant influence of the vivisectors, physiological instruction has gone out of its natural road. Himself an eminent pathologist, he treated without ceremony the unjustifiable pretensions of those innovators, who, regardless at once of the principles of physiology and those of pathology, try to transport clinical surgery to the table of vivisection.

"M. Dubois, indeed, was so pungent in his censures that some of the Academicians left the hall without awaiting the end of his discourse.

The veterinary part of his audience heard him to the end, and, it is to be hoped, profited by the picture he drew of the sight that met his eyes on his first visit to Alfort. M. Renault, the director of the establishment, took M. Dubois into a vast hall, where five or six horses were thrown down, each one surrounded by a group of pupils, either operating or waiting their turn to do so. Each group was of eight students, and matters were so arranged that each student could perform eight operations, so well graduated that, although the sixty- four operations lasted ten hours, a horse could endure them all before being put to death. Although unwilling to hurt the feelings of his host, M. Dubois could not help letting slip the word 'ATROCITY.'

'Atrocities, if you please,' replied M. Renault, 'but they are necessary.' 'What!' exclaimed M. Dubois; 'SIXTY-FOUR OPERATIONS, AND TEN HOURS OF SUFFERING?' M. Renault explained to him that this was a question of finance; that if more money were allowed, the horses might be kept only three or four hours under the knife. M. Dubois stated that it was true fewer operations are now performed, and that horses are kept less time under the hands of experimenting students. But, he declared, he should never forget the sight he witnessed at Alfort.

Some of the horses were just begun upon; others were already horribly mutilated; they did not cry out, but gave utterance to hollow moans.

M. Dubois, supported by the authority of many veterinary surgeons, demands that these practices should be discontinued. Dr. Parchappe, who spoke afterward, agreed with M. Dubois. He said: '... Experiments on animals are in no way indispensable to completely efficacious instruction in physiology.'"

It could hardly be expected by anyone but the most sanguine of mortals that the French Academy of Medicine would agree to censure or condemn certain of its own members at the instance of English humanitarians, even though supported by men of their own nationality. When the matter came to a vote, the opponents of change pa.s.sed a resolution declaring that complaints had no basis, and that the question of performing experiments or surgical operations in the veterinary schools "SHOULD BE LEFT TO THE DISCRETION OF MEN, OF SCIENCE." This is precisely the position taken to-day both in England and America by those who contend that the practice should not be restricted by law.

The Journal, however, adds:

"Everyone who has followed this debate must be aware that the resolution is ... entirely opposed to the facts elicited in the discussion. Almost every speaker, except the veterinaries, put in a protest more or less strong against the practice of surgical operations in veterinary schools, and again and again was the word ATROCIOUS applied to them. We learn, moreover, that this mode of instruction was adopted in 1761, so that for more than a century these atrocious operations have been practiced on animals in French veterinary schools. Yet the Academy decides that complaints on this score are without foundation, and that men of science in this matter NEED NO INTERFERENCE! We may be sure that, however much the Academicians may snub the affair, the discussion cannot fail to have beneficial results."

Two or three weeks later, on October 10, the Journal again touches the subject of physiological demonstrations, and denounces them--when conducted as in Paris--as a scandal to humanity. The Journal says:

"M. Dubois has published a discourse ... on the subject of vivisection in answer to objections made to the amendments proposed by him. It is a brilliant summary of the whole subject, and utterly condemnative of the amendments carried by the Academy. M. Dubois showed to demonstration that ... physiological demonstrations on living animals in the public [Medical] schools ARE UTTERLY UNJUSTIFIABLE, AND A SCANDAL TO HUMANITY. IN ALL THIS WE MOST THOROUGHLY AGREE WITH HIM.

He said:

"'If we are to carry out the wishes of certain savants, we shall make everyone of our professional chairs a scene of blood.... Let us tell the Minister that vivisections are necessary for the advancement of science, and that to suppress them would be to arrest the progress of physiology; but let us also say that THEY ARE UNNECESSARY IN THE TEACHING OF THIS SCIENCE, AND THAT RECOURSE OUGHT NOT TO BE HAD TO THEM, EITHER IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE LECTURE.'"

Under what restrictions would the British Medical Journal of that day permit animal experimentation?

In two editorial utterances the Journal briefly defines its position.

In the issue of January 16, 1864, we have the following expression of its views:

"The conditions under which--and under which alone--vivisections may be justifiably performed seem to us to be clear and easily stated....

We would say, then, in the first place, that those experiments on living animals, and those alone, are justifiable which are performed for the purpose of elucidating obscure or unknown questions in physiology or pathology; that whenever any physiological or pathological fact has been distinctly and satisfactorily cleared up and settled, all further repet.i.tion of the experiments which were originally performed for its demonstration are unjustifiable; that they are needless torture inflicted on animals, being, in fact, performed not for the purpose of eliciting unknown facts, BUT TO SATISFY MAN'S CURIOUSITY....

"And in the second place, we would say that only those persons are justified in experimenting upon living animals who are capable experimentalists.... All experiments made by inexperienced and incapable observers are unjustifiable, and for an obvious reason. The pain in such case, suffered by the animal, is suffered in vain.... Pain so inflicted is manifest CRUELTY."

If we compare this statement with any recent expression of the Journal's views, we shall see how far this organ of medical opinion has strayed in fifty years from the conservatism of Sir Charles Bell toward the unrestricted freedom demanded by the apologists of Magendie and Brachet. Six months later, another p.r.o.nouncement appears in its editorial columns. In the issue of June 11, 1864, we read:

"Far be it from us to patronize or palliate the infamous practices, the unjustifiable practices, committed in French veterinary schools, and in many French Medical schools, in the matter of vivisection. We repudiate as brutal and cruel all surgical operations performed on living animals. WE REPUDIATE THE REPEt.i.tION OF ALL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF ANY ALREADY WELL-DETERMINED PHYSIOLOGICAL QUESTION. We hold that no man except a skilled anatomist and a well-informed physiologist has a right to perform experiments on animals."

It is unnecessary to state that these excerpts from the editorial columns of medical journals are not quoted by way of criticism. On the contrary, they seem in the highest degree creditable to the medical periodicals in which they appeared. They voiced a condemnation of scientific cruelty which then found a universal response. In the awakening of public apprehension regarding the growing abuses incident to vivisection, their influence cannot be too highly esteemed. There can be no question that these exposures of physiological methods, these repeated and emphatic denunciations of cruelty, proceeding from the leading medical journals of England, contributed more than anything else to arouse the general public to the acknowledged existence of abuse, and to the necessity of some legislation regarding the vivisection of animals. AND YET NO ADVOCATE OF UNRESTRICTED VIVISECTION IN OUR DAY EVER REFERS TO THEM. Sir William Osler tells the Royal Commission that "it is news to him."

Professor Bowditch, the leading physiologist of Harvard Medical School, refers with contempt to "blood-curdling stories" in the pamphlet of Dr. Fleming as the "first serious attack" upon vivisection--without the slightest reference to all this earlier criticism, this exposure of infamous cruelty by the leading journals of the medical profession! But the worst and most regrettable result of such ignorance on the part of those who teach is its effect upon those who, as students, follow their guidance, accept their prejudices, and, unconscious of their ignorance, give to their statements implicit trust.

We shall perhaps be told that although the facts are as stated, yet these medical condemnations of cruelty are the outgrown opinions of the Past. Are the foundations of morals so unstable? Can lapse of years trans.m.u.te cruelty into benevolence and righteousness? Are we now to be asked to approve the conduct of Magendie and of Mantegazza and Be'rnard, and send to the lumber room of "past opinions" the expressions of horror and repulsion which their acts once excited throughout the English-speaking world? The science of the modern school of physiologists gives that implication: "LET ALL THAT Pa.s.s,"

is their cry to-day. With this we cannot for a moment agree. Rather let us believe that in the whirl and conflict of opinions that marks the social evolution of Humanity, there are some principles which are stable and some landmarks that cannot be altered. Cruelty is a vice that should never be condoned. What was regarded as infamous in the laboratory of fifty years ago should be considered equally infamous to-day.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ATTAINMENT OF LEGAL REGULATION

The awakening of a nation to the existence of a great evil is only accomplished after years of persistent agitation. We have seen that some of the strongest denunciations of cruelty in biological experimentation were due to that large element in the medical profession which refused to condone cruelty under the guise of utility. Gradually public opinion began to be thoroughly aroused. In the year 1864 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals offered a prize for the best essay on these questions:

"Is vivisection necessary or justifiable for purposes of giving dexterity to the operator (as in veterinary schools)?

"Is it necessary or justifiable for the general purposes of science, and, if so, under what limitations?"

The committee which decided the merits of the essays submitted included some of the most distinguished scientists of England, among them Professor Owen (better known as Sir Richard Owen), and Professor Carpenter, physiologists of eminence and experience. The first prize was accorded to Dr. George Fleming, the leading veterinary authority in Great Britain for many years, and a second prize was given to Dr. W. O. Markham, F.R.C.P., one of the physicians to St. Mary's Hospital of London, and formerly lecturer on Physiology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School.

Dr. Fleming's essay was undoubtedly of great utility in calling attention to the abuses pertaining to Continental physiological teaching. That which makes his essay of chief value is not so much the presentation of arguments, as the long array of unquestionable facts for which the authorities are given. There is hardly a physiological writer of distinction from whose works he did not quote to ill.u.s.trate the excesses he condemns.

It is Dr. Markham's essay, however, which for us, at the present moment, has princ.i.p.al significance. It is the argument of a professional physiologist, defending the right of scientific research within limits which then seemed just and right to the entire medical profession of the United Kingdom. Every physiologist or physician upon that committee which examined the essays is said to have marked with approval this presentation of their views; and Professor Owen-- probably then the most distinguished man of science in Great Britain-- appended a note significant of his especial agreement. And yet Dr. Markham's essay is never quoted at present by any advocate of free vivisection; even Professor Bowditch in that address to which reference has been made left unmentioned the work of his professional brother, one of the earliest defenders of animal experimentation.

The reader of Dr. Markham's essay will not find it difficult to comprehend the cause of this significant silence. Although the essay was in no way sympathetic with antivivisection, it represented the Anglo-Saxon ideal, in marked distinction from the doctrines which then prevailed in the laboratories of Continental Europe, and which since have become dominant throughout the United States. Defending the practice of vivisection as a scientific method, Dr. Markham freely admitted the prevalence of abuses to which it was liable when carried on without regulation or restraint. Under proper limitations it was at present necessary that some vivisection should be allowed; but with the advance of knowledge, he believed that this necessity would decrease, and the practice of animal experimentation gradually tend to disappear. Some quotations from this essay will be of interest.

"The proper and only object of all justifiable experiments on animals is to determine unknown facts in physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, whereby medical science may be directly or indirectly advanced. When, therefore, any fact of this kind has been once determined and positively acquired to science, all repet.i.tion of experiments for its further demonstration are unnecessary, and therefore unjustifiable.

"All experiments, therefore, performed before students, in cla.s.ses or otherwise, for the purpose of demonstrating known facts in physiology or therapeutics, are unjustifiable. And they are especially unjustifiable because they are performed before those who, being mere students, are incapable of fully comprehending their value and meaning. THEY ARE NEEDLESS AND CRUEL: needless, because they demonstrate what is already acquired to science; and especially cruel, because if admitted as a recognized part of students' instruction, THEIR CONSTANT AND CONTINUED REPEt.i.tION, THROUGH ALL TIME, WOULD BE REQUIRED. I need hardly say that courses of experimental physiology are nowhere given in this country, and that these remarks apply only to those schools i France and elsewhere where demonstrations of this kind are delivered."[1]

[1] "Experiments and Surgical Operations on Living Animals: One of Two Prize Essays." London: Robert Hardwick, 1866.

"ESPECIALLY CRUEL!" Little could Dr. Markham have imagined that this "especial cruelty" which he thus so emphatically denounced in 1864 would spread from the Continent of Europe and become, within the short s.p.a.ce of a single generation, the accepted method of physiological instruction in every leading college or university in the United States!

Dr. Markham evidently fancied that with the larger acquirement of facts the vivisection method would gradually become obsolete.

He says:

"A consideration of the conditions here proposed as requisite for the rightful performance of experiments on living animals shows that experiments of this kind must ever be very limited, because those persons who are fitted for the due performance of them are of necessity few in number; and that in proportion as new facts are added by them to our knowledge, THE EXPERIMENTS MUST DIMINISH IN NUMBER...."

"Thus, then, we have seen that in the case of experiments legitimately performed on living animals, ... such experiments must always, from their nature, be comparatively few; that they must gradually diminish with the advance of scientific knowledge, so that A TIME MAY COME WHEN EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS WILL CEASE TO BE JUSTIFIABLE.

"... Very different, on the other hand, is the character and objects of physiological demonstrations performed in French Schools of Medicine.... These most painful practices are unjustifiable because they are unnecessary.... They afford no instruction to the student which may not be equally well obtained in another way. The pain, moreover, attendant on such proceedings is unlimited and unceasing. If they are to be accepted as a necessary part of the systemic instruction of the student, then must every veterinary student practice these experimental surgical operations, AND EVERY MEDICAL STUDENT BE MADE A WITNESS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMONSTRATIONS ON LIVING ANIMALS. In all veterinary schools, under such conditions, an incalculable amount of pain inflicted on animals becomes a part of the regular instruction of students. At such a conclusion Humanity revolts.

"Experiments performed on living animals for the demonstration of facts already positively acquired to science are unjustifiable, and especially unjustifiable are such experiments when made a part of a systemic course of instruction given to students."

Here, then, we have a view of vivisection presented less than forty years since by a professional teacher of physiology in a London medical school. That the author was mistaken in his outlook, that the practice of vivisection instead of diminishing has a thousand times increased, and that operations then regarded as "especially cruel"

have become the prevalent methods of instruction, are matters evident to all. Peculiarly significant is the fact that a creed, once almost universally held, may be so thoroughly obliterated by its antagonists within so brief a time. One may safely a.s.sert that not a single recent graduate from any Medical College in America, not a single student of physiology in any inst.i.tution of learning in our land to-day, has ever been told that the practice of animal experimentation was once thus regarded by a large majority of the English-speaking members of the medical profession. So completely has the Continental view of the moral irresponsibility of science established itself in American colleges that the former preponderance of other ideals has pa.s.sed from the memory of the present generation of scientific men.

The subject of vivisection does not again appear to have engaged the attention of the English medical Press for several years. The abuses and cruelties on the Continent, against which it had so vigorously protested, continued as before. In a brief editorial, the London Lancet, on April 3, 1869, again referred to the subject:

"VIVISECTION.--The subject of vivisection has been again brought on the tapis, owing to some remarks made by Professor (Claude) Be'rnard ... at the Colle'ge de France.... He admits on one occasion having operated on an ape, but never repeated the experiment, THE CRIES AND GESTURES OF THE ANIMAL TOO CLOSELY RESEMBLING THOSE OF A MAN.

"As the Pall Mall Gazette remarks, M. (Claude) Be'rnard expatiates on the subject with a complacency which reminds us of Peter the Great, who, wishing, while at Stockholm, to see the WHEEL in action, quietly offered one of his suite as the patient to be broken on it....

"We consider that vivisection const.i.tutes a legitimate mode of inquiry when it is adopted to obtain a satisfactory solution of a question that has been fairly discussed, and can be solved by no other means....

"We hold that for mere purposes of curiosity, OR TO EXHIBIT TO A CLa.s.s what may be rendered equally--if not more--intelligible by diagrams or may be ascertained by anatomical investigation or induction, VIVISECTION IS WHOLLY INDEFENSIBLE, and IS ALIKE ALIEN TO THE FEELINGS AND HUMANITY OF THE CHRISTIAN, THE GENTLEMAN, AND THE PHYSICIAN."

It is very probable that much of the criticism of foreign vivisection, which at this period appeared in the medical journals of England, was inspired by the abhorrence felt regarding the cruelty of certain French physiologists. We now know that the worst and most cruel of them all was Claude Be'rnard, Professor of Experimental Physiology at the Colle'ge de France, and the fit successor of Magendie. Just as pirates and freebooters have added to geographical discoveries, so science admits that regarding the functions of certain organs he added to acc.u.mulated facts. But the peculiar infamy of Be'rnard was the indifference displayed toward animal suffering long after the discovery of chloroform and ether, and his practical contempt for any sentiment of compa.s.sion for vivisected animals. Of this savagery one will look in vain for criticism or condemnation in the writings of the opponents of vivisection reform at the present day. Two physicians, however, have told us what they witnessed in the laboratory of Be'rnard. On February 2, 1875, there appeared in the Morning Post a letter from a London physician, describing his personal experience in the laboratory of this physiologist.