An Ethical Problem Part 9

n.o.bODY SHOULD DO IT. WATCH THE STUDENTS AT A VIVISECTION; IT IS THE BLOOD AND SUFFERING, not the science, that rivet their breathless attention. If hospital service makes young students less tender of suffering, vivisection deadens their humanity, and begets indifference to it."

Let us pause for a moment. These are words of great import. They are as true to-day as when first uttered. Who was the speaker? The most eminent surgeon in America in his day. He was professor of surgery in Harvard University, and the leading member of its faculty. He was the surgeon of the Ma.s.sachusetts General Hospital. He had seen the first surgical operation under complete anaesthesia that the world had known. Learned societies in Paris, in London, in other countries of Europe, were proud to number him among their members. He had reached the age of a.s.sured eminence, where all fear of opposing influences that might disastrously affect the medical career of a younger man, had no weight. Surely, if any living man can speak with authority, he speaks now.

And before whom does he speak? He is not addressing a general audience. It is a meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts Medical Society, an a.s.sociation of the physicians and surgeons of that Commonwealth. Some of them had also seen vivisection as practised in Paris and Leipsic.

Here was a man at the head of their profession protesting against the introduction of the vivisection laboratory system in his own country.

He insists over and over again that we cannot tell the degree of agony inflicted by experiments upon the nervous system, nor measure its intensity:

"Who can say whether a guinea-pig, the pinching of whose carefully sensitized neck throws him into convulsions, attains this blessed momentary respite of insensibility by an unexplained special machinery of the nervous currents, OR A SENSIBILITY TOO EXQUISITELY ACUTE FOR ANIMAL ENDURANCE? Better that I or my friend should die than protract existence through acc.u.mulated years of torture upon animals whose exquisite suffering we cannot fail to infer, even though they may have neither voice nor feature to express it."

It is not the fact of suffering, but the useless waste of suffering that chiefly repels him:

"If a skilfully constructed hypothesis could be elaborated up to the point of experimental test by the most accomplished and successful philosopher, and if then a single experiment, though cruel, would forever settle it, we might reluctantly admit that it was justified.

But the instincts of our common humanity indignantly remonstrate against the testing of clumsy or unimportant hypotheses by prodigal experimentation, or MAKING THE TORTURE OF ANIMALS AN EXHIBITION TO ENLARGE A MEDICAL SCHOOL, or for the entertainment of students--not one in fifty of whom can turn it to any profitable account. The limit of such physiological experiment, in its utmost lat.i.tude, should be to establish truth in the hands of a skilful experimenter, and not to demonstrate it to ignorant cla.s.ses and encourage them to repeat it."

One cannot but remark the clear distinction of views which these words indicate. No antivivisectionist would accept the suggestion of a single experiment. Dr. Bigelow is speaking as a restrictionist against the free and unlimited vivisection which he rightly foresaw was about to be introduced into this country, and which has become the practice of the present day. He realizes that if once the laboratory system gains a foothold in his own college, the system will spread throughout America:

"The reaction which follows every excess will in time bear indignantly upon this. Until then it is dreadful to think how many poor animals will be subjected to excruciating agony as one medical college after another becomes penetrated with the idea that vivisection is a part of modern teaching, and that, to hold way with other inst.i.tutions, they, too, must have their vivisector, their mutilated dogs, their guinea- pigs, their rabbits, their chamber of torture and of horrors, to advertise as a laboratory."

Nor this the only expression of Dr. Bigelow's opinions. In his work on "Surgical Anaesthesia," he left on record an even stronger condemnation of the abuses of vivisection and the cruelties which pertain to it. As he quotes from Stanley's "In Darkest Africa," which was published in 1890, it is evident that it represents his mature and settled judgment, down to the very close of his long and distinguished career. In this work he says:

"There can be no question that the discussion of vivisection arouses antagonistic human instincts. It is no common subject which enlists such earnest and opposite opinions. That there is something wrong about it is evident from the way in which the reputation of inflicting its torture is disclaimed. That for some reason it is a fascinating pursuit is equally evident from the bitter contest made for the right to practise it.

"There is little in the literature of what is called the 'horrors of vivisection' which is not well grounded on truth. For a description of the pain inflicted, I refer to that literature, only reiterating that what it recounts is largely and simply fact, selected, it may be, but rarely exaggerated.

"Vivisection is not an innocent study. We may usefully popularize chemistry and electricity, their teaching and their experimentation, even if only as one way of cultivating human powers. But not so with painful vivisection. We may not move as freely in this direction, for there are distinct reasons against it. It can be indiscriminately pursued only by torturing animals; and the word 'torture' is here intentionally used to convey the idea of very severe pain--sometimes the severest conceivable pain, of indefinite duration, often terminating, fortunately for the animal, with its life, but as often only after hours or days of refined infliction, continuously or at intervals."

It is here that Dr. Bigelow differs radically from the advocates of free vivisection. To them there appears no reason why the science of physiology should not "move as freely" in experimentation as the sciences pertaining to any other subject. The closed laboratory evinces the desire and intention to "move freely," without criticism or restraint.

No physician in America of Dr. Bigelow's eminence has ever stated so distinctly the fact of torment in vivisection, and the reasons for its condemnation:

"A man about to be burned under a railroad car begs somebody to kill him; the Hindoo suttee has been abolished for its inhumanity; and yet it is a statement to be taken literally that a brief death by burning would be considered a happy release by a human being undergoing the experience of some of the animals who slowly die in a laboratory.

Scientific vivisection has all the engrossing fascination of other physical sciences, BUT THE TRANSCENDENT TORTURE SOMETIMES INFLICTED HAS NO PARALLEL IN ANY OF THEM. As to its extent, we read that in course of ten years seventeen thousand dogs were dissected alive in one laboratory."

Why, then, does not a universal protest arise against such infamous cruelty? On this point Dr. Bigelow is very frank. It is because of the confidence which the general public places in the average scientist. Is he deserving of that implicit faith? Dr. Bigelow does not think so. He says:

"The difficulty is that the community, for want of time or opportunity themselves to investigate the subject, ARE WILLING TO RELY UPON THE DISCRETION OF SCIENTIFIC MEN. This is an error.... A recent distinguished writer, a good judge of men, makes the following observation: 'Who can say why the votaries of science, though eminently kind in their social relations, are so angular of character?

In my a.n.a.lysis of the scientific nature, I am constrained to a.s.sociate with it (as compared with that of men who are more Christians than scientists) A CERTAIN HARDNESS, OR RATHER INDELICACY OF FEELING. They strike me as being ... coolly indifferent to the warmer human feelings.'[1]

[1] Sir Henry M. Stanley, "In Darkest Africa."

"It should not for a moment be supposed that cultivation of the intellect leads a man to shrink from inflicting pain. Many educated men are no more humane--are, in fact, far less so--than many comparatively uneducated people.... The more eminent the vivisectionist, the more indifferent he usually is to inflicting pain; however cultivated his intellect, he is sometimes absolutely indifferent to it....

"But in order to oppose vivisection to best advantage, and especially lest he should place himself in a false position, the anti- vivisectionist should bear clearly in mind that what he opposes is PAINFUL vivisection only. For there have been wholly painless experiments upon living animals which have led to useful results.

Some of the greatest discoveries in medical science were made with no pain whatever.... And yet they have been often and sophistically cited by the vivisector as plausible arguments for inflicting both excessive and useless pain. The fact that a few able men have made discoveries by certain painless experiments upon animals is used to justify the demonstration of torture to medical students (to whom it is as profitless as any medical information can be), and its practice by them. The discovery of anaesthesia has been time and again quoted in favour of vivisection. THIS IS SIMPLY PREPOSTEROUS. In making that discovery, the experiments from the beginning were painless, and were therefore wholly un.o.bjectionable--as I happen to know, having seen the first of them. The same is true of Jenner's vaccination, which was a wholly painless discovery. Little pain was involved in all that was needed to discover the circulation of the blood, which was inferred from the valvular construction of the veins, and then easily substantiated.... The greatest prizes in the lottery of physiological and pathological discovery have involved little or no pain. But the usual and staple work of a so-called 'laboratory of vivisection, physiology or pathology,' for the education and practice of medical students in the unrestricted cutting of living animals, and for the indiscriminate and endless repet.i.tion of experiments already tried, where a live dog can be bought and its living nerves dissected, ... all this is a very different affair. A distinguished vivisector once remarked: 'To us, pain is nothing.' When it is remembered that this pain may be, and sometimes intentionally is, of the most excruciating nature possible for human science to invent, and that in a large majority of instances it is to little or no purpose, the remark of this vivisector covers the objectionable ground."

In view of the foregoing quotations, it would appear almost impossible for Dr. Bigelow's position to be misrepresented or misunderstood. He cannot be regarded as an antivivisectionist, for he repeatedly states that to painless experiments upon animals no objection exists. But of the reality of the torment, and of the blunted sensibility of the professional tormenter, he seems to have no doubt. How may reform be promoted? By legal supervision and regulation. A few further extracts from Dr. Bigelow's writings will bring these points into prominence:

"There can be no question that the practice of vivisection HARDENS THE SENSIBILITY OF THE OPERATOR, and begets indifference to the infliction of pain, as well as great carelessness in judging of its severity.

"Indeed, vivisection will always be the better for vigilant supervision, and for whatever outside pressure can be brought to bear against it. Such pressure will never be too great, nor will it r.e.t.a.r.d progress a hair's-breadth in the hands of that very limited cla.s.s who are likely materially to advance knowledge by its practice.

"The ground for public supervision is that vivisection, immeasurably beyond any other pursuit, involves the infliction of torture to little or no purpose. Motive apart, painful vivisection differs from that usual cruelty of which the law takes absolute cognizance mainly in being practised by an educated cla.s.s, who having once become callous to its objectionable features, find its pursuit an interesting occupation under the name of science. In short, though vivisection, like slavery, may embrace within its practice what is un.o.bjectionable, what is useful, what is humane, and even what is commendable, it may also cover what is nothing less than hideous. I use this word in no sensational sense, and appeal to those who are familiar with some of the work in laboratories and out of them to endorse it as appropriate in this connection....

"'But burning was useless, while vivisection is profitable.' Here we reach the kernel of the argument of the pain-inflicting vivisector.

The reply is that by far the larger part of vivisection is as useless as was an auto da fe'. It does not lead to discovery. The character of the minds of most of those who usually practise it makes this hardly a possibility. Real discoverers are of a different texture of mind, which you cannot create by schools; nor can you r.e.t.a.r.d their progress by restrictions, put on all you may. But restrictions will and should cut off THE HORDE OF DULL TORTURERS WHO FOLLOW IN THE WAKE OF THE DISCOVERER, actuated by a dozen different motives, from a desire for research down to the wish to gratify a teacher or to comply with a school requisition."

How carefully and how clearly the writer has phrased his distinctions between what in vivisection is right and wrong! In all the literature of advocacy for free and unrestricted vivisection can we find anything resembling it? Certainly, I know no writer favourable to unlimited experimentation who has been equally fair. One surgical vivisectionist is fond of dividing the cla.s.s interested in discussion of vivisection as "Friends of Research," and "Foes of Research,"

ascribing to the first all the virtues of good sense, and to the latter all the folly that belongs to ignorance. In which cla.s.s, we may well wonder, would he place the first American surgeon of his time because he objected only to cruelty and abuse?

To Dr. Bigelow the legal supervision of the laboratory seemed the one practical method by which cruelty might be somewhat restrained, because in this way he believed the public would obtain some knowledge of the practice which is now withheld. He says:

"In order that painful vivisection may be as nearly as possible suppressed, not only by public opinion, but by law, IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT PUBLIC OPINION SHOULD BE FREQUENTLY INFORMED OF WHAT IT IS AND MAY BE. Here lies the work of the antivivisectionist. Further, every laboratory ought to be open to some supervising legal authority competent to determine that it is conducted from roof to cellar on the humanest principles, in default of which it should be, as slavery has been, uncompromisingly prohibited wherever law can accomplish this result."

Is the cruelty of unrestricted and unregulated vivisection a reality or a myth? Of his own views on this question we can have no doubt.

He says:

"A TORTURE OF HELPLESS ANIMALS--MORE TERRIBLE BY REASON OF ITS REFINEMENT AND THE EFFORT TO PROLONG IT THAN BURNING AT THE STAKE, WHICH IS BRIEF--IS NOW BEING CARRIED ON IN ALL CIVILIZED NATIONS, NOT IN THE NAME OF RELIGION, BUT OF SCIENCE."

"The law should interfere. There can be no doubt that in this relation there exists a case of cruelty to animals far transcending in its refinement and in its horror anything that has been known in the history of Nations.

"There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of Science, as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of Religion."

Concerning vivisection, then, the views of one of the most eminent surgeons that America has produced may be summed up as follows:

FIRST. He is not favourable to antivivisection, but to restriction.

"There is no objection to vivisection except the physical pain."

SECOND. The cruelties which pertain to certain vivisections and vivisectors are not myth, but realities. For a description of these cruelties, Dr. Bigelow expressly refers to the literature of protest.

THIRD. In defence of vivisection or of unrestricted experimentation, he says that UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS OF UTILITY have been made.

FOURTH. The reasons for inflicting prolonged torment upon animals are wholly inadequate for its justification.

FIFTH. Vivisection has a hardening tendency upon its pract.i.tioners.

The more eminent the vivisector, the more indifferent he may become to the infliction of torment.

SIXTH. There is ample reason for the interference of the law. Every laboratory should be legally supervised. Public opinion should be frequently informed concerning vivisection, its objects, and its methods.

I have presented these opinions at length because they represent exactly the position which I have personally maintained for over thirty years. And if the time shall come, foreseen by him, "when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of Science, as we now do to burning at the stake in the name of Religion," then, surely, it will be remembered that the first strong voice in America raised, not in condemnation of all experimentation upon animals, but solely in protest against its cruelty and secrecy, and in appeal for its reform, was that of the leading American surgeon of his time, Professor Henry J. Bigelow of Harvard University.

CHAPTER X

THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON VIVISECTION

In the year 1906, a Royal Commission was appointed by King Edward to investigate the practice of animal experimentation. Thirty years had pa.s.sed since the appearance of the earlier inquiry, upon which was based the English law regulating the practice of such experiments. On the one hand, it had been denounced as affording most inadequate protection to animals liable to such exploitation; on the other hand, in the United States it had been condemned as a hindrance to scientific progress, and a warning against any similar legislation. A new Commission was therefore appointed to inquire into the practice, to take evidence, and to report what changes, if any, in the existing statute might seem advisable.