"If you must kill them, do it without cruelty. Every aninnil 
lms it riRlit to justice and protection at the hands of the superior 
animal — man.” 
VIVISECTION: 
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR 
PRIZE ESSAYS, 
COHYKIOHTED AM* PUBLISHED BY 
THE AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY. 
J ULY, 1891, 
Anil sold at tiro dollars per 100, or at same rate/or less number. 
KOI! COPIES WHITE 
(iKO. T. AXGELL, 
President of tin American Humane Education Society, the Mas suchnsetts 
Society for the Prerention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Parent 
Imerican Hand of 1 ferry l. 10 Milk Street, Poston. 
I should be "lad to send these Essays, without charge, 
to every physician and every editor in America, if our 
“ American Humane Education Society ’’had the funds 
to do it. Will friends who think they ought to be’so 
circulated send us the means? 
Geo. T. Angell, 
1!) Milk Street, Boston. THE AVHOLE IN A Nl'TSHELL 
What is your object, Mr Angell? 
Answer, Mv object in founding “ The American Humane 
Education Society ” is to liumanely educate the American 
people for the purpose of stopping every form of cruelty, both 
to human beings and the lower animals. 
How do you propose to do it? 
Answer. 1st. By sending humane information, and the 
gems of humane literature, pictures, songs, and stories, 
through the press and otherwise, as I have been sending 
hundreds of thousands of copies of “Our Dumb Animals'' and 
“ Black Beauty " all over this country. 
2d. By the employment of missionaries, forming “ Humane 
Societies'' and hundreds of thousands of “ Bands of Mercy ” 
in schools, Sunday schools, and elsewhere, similar to the 
over ten thousand we have already formed. 
3d. By showing the millions of American youth, in 
ways too numerous to be mentioned in this statement, that 
every kind word they speak or kind, act they do makes their own 
lives happier, and better prepares them for what may come after. 
4th. By building up in our colleges, schools, and else- 
where, in ways I shall be glad to explain to those interested, 
a spirit of chivalry and humanity, which shall in coming 
generations protect the defenceless and maintain the right. 
Geo. T. Angell. 
By the American Humane Education Society. 
COPYRIGHT, 1891, VIVISECTION PRIZE ESSAYS 
ITHMSIIKI* BV 
The American Humane Education Society. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Some time since one of the most intelligent of our Massa- 
chusetts judges stopped me on the street and said, “Mr. 
Angell, what is the meaning of tin* word Vivisection?" 
I found he knew nothing of the subject and had not tin* 
slightest conception of the meaning of tin* word. And yet 
in that word is involved to the dumb races one of the most 
important questions of tin* nineteenth century. 
For the obtaining of light on this important subject, I 
ottered last year, in behalf of our “ American Humane Educa- 
tion Society," two prizes of $250 each for the two best essays, 
one advocating the affirmative and the other the negative 
<d the following question, namely,— In the interest# of 
humanity, should vivisection he permitted, and if so. und> r viiot 
restrictions and limitations S 
In offering these prizes, I recognized the fact that good 
men and women may widely differ — that the human mind 
is so constituted that all cannot think alike, and that there 
is probably no better way, short of the special interposition 
of Divine Providence, of changing human beliefs than by 
full and fair discussion by those most aide t<> fully and fairly 
discuss. 
The experiences of Kuropean and American anti-vivisec- 
tion societies the past twenty years, during which vivisec- 
tions have enormously increased, and are now enormously 
increasing, seem to me to render attempts to stop or limit 
them useless, unless in some way our American people, 
includintj the best and most humane of the medical profession, 
can he satisfied that it ought to he done. 
Whether animals after death pass into a happier exis- 
tence, I do not know. 4 
How far their sufferings' here are compensated hereafter, 
I do not know. 
If the Almighty Power that gives us this life has power to 
give us another, and in that other to punish for wrongs and 
compensate for suffering here, then 1 see no reason why the 
same rule may not apply to these faithful dumb servants, 
friends, and companions who toil and die in our service. 
I am glad to believe that animals do not pass at death 
into anything worse than they endure here. 
To bring before the public from the ablest thinkers the 
best light that can be obtained on vivisection, I offered, as 
before stated, these two prizes. The time was limited to 
expire January 1, 1891 — the length not to exceed eight 
thousand words, — each essay to be signed with a fictitious 
name, and contain in accompanying sealed envelope the real 
name and post-oflice address of the writer, which was not 
to be known until the committees had made their awards. 
Under this offer nineteen essays were received advocating 
vivisection, and fourteen opposing. 
Most of them were written with much care and ability. 
Probably no better committees could have been obtained 
in America than Drs. Boicditch, Whitney, and Mixter, [the 
dean and two professors] of the “ Harvard University 
Medical Schoolwho considered the essays favoriny vivi- 
section, and Philip G. Peabody, Esq., who on behalf of the 
“American Anti-vivisection Society''1 took charge of those 
opposing vivisection. 
I think that no reader of the successful essays will doubt 
that probably no abler presentations of both sides of the 
question have ever been made. 
We publish them in pamphlet form and copyright them, 
and hereby give every one the right to publish them together, 
and forbid their publication separately. 
The order of their publication was decided by lot drawn 
in the presence of our President and Secretary by Vice- 
president Hon. Henry 11. Hill, which places the essay 
opposing vivisection first in the pamphlet. 
I publish them in pamphlet form because the very large 
number of children who read “Oar Dumb Animals ” forbids 
our tilling its columns with discussions which properly 
belong to medical and anti-vivisection papers. 5 
"Our Ihimh Animalis" must lie cheery ami happy, or it 
would soon lose thousands of its present readers and a 
large part of its present influence. 
It must go like the sunlight into our American homes 
to brighten and beautify, and win, we trust, millions to join 
our armies of mercy now being organized all over this 
country, which will, we hope, sooner or later, through the 
mighty power of humane education, drive every vestige of 
unnecessary cruelty from American soil. 
In behalf of our “ American Humane Education Society"1 
I respectfully ask all humane persons to read and carefully 
consider these two essays. 
(Ieo. 'I'. Angell, 
President [of the American Humane Education 
Society, the Massachusetts Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the 
Parent American Band of Mercy'], IB Milk 
Street, Boston. 
THK AMERICAN III MANE EDUCATION SOCIETY. 
The first Society of its kind in the world. 
The American Humane Educutlon society, tlie first of its kind in 
the world, was incorporated as a National Society by Act of the 
Legislature of Massachusetts, March, 1S89, with power to hold half 
a million of dollars free from taxation. 
It received during its.first year in its permanent fund real estate 
given by its president, valued at over three thousand dollars, and 
for preent and future use money given by persons in various 
States to the amount of over eight thousand dollars more. 
Its object is to carry humane education into all our American 
schools and homes,and to found “ Humane Societies” and “ Bands 
of Mercy” over the whole American Continent. 
In Um first year it founded in Western States fourteen new “Humane 
Societies” and four hundred and sixty-six new “/lands of Mercy: ” 
offered prizes to the students in all our American colleges, also to 
all American editors, for best essays on the Effect of Humane Edit- 
cation on the /’rerention of Crime: employed an active missionary, 
and sent nearly a hundred thousand copiesof humane publications 
into every state and Territory except Alaska. 
In its second year it lias vastly increased the above work, and 
also has printed and printing about .four hundred thousand copies of 
“/{lack Heauty." Many thousands of these it has given away, and 
the rest it lias sold largely at the hare cost, or less than cost. 
Its directors are among our most respected citizens. 
All persons wishing information as to what it has already done 
and is proposing to do will receive prompt answers by writing 
GEO. T. AXGELL, 
President [of the American Humane Education Society, the 
Massachusetts Society for the Vrerention of Cruelty to 
Animals, a nil the i’arent American /land of Mercy \, 
IB Milk Street, Boston. 
March 1, 1891. 6 
CIRCULATION OF “OUR DUMB ANIMALS.” 
Our smallest monthly issue last year was thirty-six thou- 
sand; our largest, seventy-five thousand. 
This included the sending of it monthly to the editors of 
about fourteen thousand American newspapers and maga- 
zines. 
To many thousands of kind notices given us by the editors 
of these papers and magazines, we are indebted for the 
immense circulation of “Black Beautyof which we have 
printed and printing in fifteen months from its publication 
four hundred and sixty-five thousand copies — probably more 
than double the number ever printed of any book in the 
world within the same length of time from publication. 7 
IX TIIE INTERESTS OF HUMANITY, SHOULD 
VIVISECTION BE PERMITTED. AND IF SO, 
UNDER WIIAT RESTRICTIONS AND 
LIMITATIONS< 
BY JOSEPH M. GREENE, 3 ELMOXT STREET, 
DORCHESTER, MASS. 
'I'he subject of vivisection, except within the past few 
years, lias attracted little attention from the public in 
general, although tlie custom itself is very ancient. Of 
late years the subject has been much agitated in the in- 
terests of reform: and yet the average person is doubtless 
ignorant of the facts relating thereto. 
The importance of this subject cannot be denied. What- 
ever is fraught on the one hand with comfort or misery to 
many sentient beings; and on the other hand may contain 
the secret of great power for knowledge, or a will-o’-wisp 
of fallacy luring humanity to error and evil, cannot fail to 
concern all. 
Vivisection is the dissection of or otherwise experiment- 
ing on living animals in the interests of Science. It is not 
alone the cutting of the flesh; — it comprises also experi- 
ments with drugs, inoculation with disease, and other tests 
having a supposed value physiologically or with reference 
to disease. 
In the consideration of any practice with regard to its 
regulation by law, four important points must be weighed: 
1. What is its object? 2. To what extent is that object 
effected? 3. Do tin* results justify the cost? 4. Is or is 
not the means employed inherently wrong? 
1. The nominal objects of vivisection are three: (a) The 
discovery of physiological and pathological facts, (b) The 
demonstration of known facts. (r) i’he acquirement of 
dexterity in surgery. These objects, it must be confessed, 
are creditable. There are, however, other motives, gene- 
rally concealed, and frequently disclaimed, which enter 
into this question, and these will be considered hereafter. 
The present question is this: — 
2. To what extent does vivisection effect its purpose? 
First, in discovery or original research, we shall attempt to 
prove the unscientific nature of this method, a. Logically, 
or from the nature of things, b. Practically, or from tin* 
actual results. 
a. Logically, we believe vivisection to be unscientific, for 
two reasons: — 
1. ’The difference in species. 
2. The abnormal condition of the subject. 8 
1. What is true of one species of lower animal in respect 
to functional phenomena is not necessarily true of another, 
on account of the differences in structure, habit, disposi- 
tion, etc. How much greater, then, the gulf between the 
lower animals and man! If different individuals of the 
same species exhibit such widely variant symptoms as 
occur in these experiments, how can one species he a guide 
for another? Certain human diseases cannot he communi- 
cated to the lower animals; and many drugs, deadly to 
man, are harmless to them. A pigeon has taken with 
impunity opium enough to kill a man; antimony is harm- 
less to horses; mice can take hemlock with safety, and 
dogs, mercury; some animals are not injured by the deadly 
belladonna. In the case of injection of drugs into the 
blood, the results are widely different in different animals 
of very similar structure. 
Nature thus seems to indicate conclusively that the 
difference of species offers an insurmountable obstacle to 
this method of experiment. In the words of M. I.onget: 
“ Experiments on animals of different species, so far from 
tending to useful results, have a tendency to mislead us.” 
2. If not under the influence of anaesthetics, which are 
themselves injurious, and are therefore, as we shall see, 
generally omitted, the vivisected animal is in the abnormal 
condition of acute physical pain. Now, physical pain has 
a great influence on the vital functions, and must necessarily 
have a vitiating effect upon the experiment. Moreover, 
all forms of mental distress — rage, terror, etc. — greatly 
affect the physical system, and these in vivisection are 
stimulated to the utmost. It is well known that mental 
feeling can cause death even in animals; and that worrying 
an animal will make its flesh more or less unlit for food. 
In addition to pain, other causes affect the experiment: 
the strained and immovable condition of the subject, and 
exhaustion affecting the blood, respiration, and nerves. 
The vital organs are exposed to the air, isolated from 
their natural surroundings, and roughly handled. Irritation 
of an organ will be transmitted to the nerve centres, thence 
to lie reflected in disastrous effects upon that organ. 
Prof. Pdclard, in describing an experiment, says: “The 
animal is so prostrated that it is impossible to draw any 
positive conclusions " (“ Treatise on Physiology," p. 1013.) 
And yet the condition required for physiological experiment 
is that “ the animals should be healthy and in good condi- 
tion.” This abnormal condition was well illustrated in one 
of the experiments of Magendie, who concluded that the use 
of the pancreatic gland was unknown because that organ did 
not secrete its product when exposed in experiment. The 
distinguished Dr. Carpenter, himself a vivisectionist, has ac- 
knowledged that “the attempt to insulate any one organ ne- 
cessarily destroys or considerably alters those very conditions 
under which alone its functions can be normally performed.” 9 
When, in addition to mutilation by the knife, drugs are 
administered for the purpose of ascertaining their real 
nature, then vivisection is seen in its entirety. It' even 
healthy human saliva, when injected into the tissue of an 
animal, has caused death, as noted by Dr. Sternberg, what 
definite results should we expect from the poisoning of 
animals under abnormal conditionsV We must protest that 
the importance of the “ environment)" so much dwelt upon 
by our scientific friends, is here somewhat slighted. 
Nature, when put to the torture, will answer incoherently 
and at random, as did criminals in olden time. 
We have seen from a logical point of view that the 
method of vivisection is unscientific; and in this conclusion 
we are confirmed by the testimony of some of the greatest 
medical authorities. 
Sir Charles Hell, the noted English physiologist, in his 
work, “>Nervous System of the Human Body,*’ p. 217, 
says: “The opening of animals has done more to per- 
petuate error than to confirm the just views taken from the 
study of anatomy.” 
Henry .1. Bigelow, Professor of Surgery at Harvard College 
in 1871, in an address before the Massachusetts Medical 
Society, said: “How few facts of immediate considerable 
value to our race have been extorted from the cold-blooded 
cruelties now and more and more practised under the 
authority of science!” 
Sir Lawson Tait, Fellow of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, in his work, “ Uselessness of Vivisection,” 
declares. “ Experiments on animals did and could teach 
nothing; for operations have been performed on thousands 
of animals every year for centuries, and nothing whatever < 
has been learned from this wholesale vivisection." 
We are confirmed also by the acknowledgments of many 
distinguished vivisectors. 
Prof. David Ferrier, of Edinburgh, has admitted: “Aor 
do the facts of experimental physiology seem so consistent 
with themselves or with the undoubted facts of chemical re- 
search as to inspire us with unhesitating confidence in their 
accuracy.” And yet the same authority has said with refer- 
ence to this subject: “ The sliijhtest doubt is absolute failure."1 
Prof. Colin, of Paris, confesses that “experiments 
repeated twenty times give twenty different results. Un- 
fortunately this happens too often.” 
Dr. Elliotson admits that “ the same effects do not occur 
with different species of animals." 
Dr. (jcnmgee, before the English Royal Commission (on 
the subject of vivisection) in 1875. testified that “physio- 
logical experiments are more liable to fallacies than any 
other.” And yet this is said to be “ an exact science! ” 
Prof. Hughes Bennett says that “ in making experiments 
on animals it is often impossible to tell how far the shock 
of the operation may vitiate the results.” 10 
Dr. William Rutherford, of Edinburgh, acknowledged 
before the Royal Commission above mentioned that “ patho- 
logical experiments must afterwards be tried on a man, before 
a conclusion could be drawn." 
b. Let us now consider the value of vivisection from the 
standpoint of its practical result in certain definite fields of 
investigation. After its many years of existence, this 
method, if scientific, should prove its worth in no uncertain 
way; and yet the record of the practical results of vivi- 
section shows: — 
1. Its uselessness. 
2. Its injurious effects. 
3. Its false claims. 
1. In the course of evidence given before the English 
Royal Commission of 1875, Mr. John Simon, under whose 
direction certain vivisectionists in the employ of govern- 
ment had been experimenting on animals with a view to 
improving the health of the people, testified as to the 
results obtained in various diseases. With regard to 
cholera it was confessed that all he had to offer as a result 
of the extended experiments was the fact that cholera dis- 
charges were infective, — a fact already known to everybody. 
Regarding consumption the total result obtained was the 
fact of the contagion of the disease. Now, this fact had 
been demonstrated long before in the case of human beings 
by a certain Dr. Weber. 
In the case of slieep-pox Mr. Simon acknowledged that 
‘ none of his experiments would enable a veterinary sur- 
geon to treat this disease more successfully than before.’ 
Dr. Win. Rutherford, of Edinburgh, a number of years 
ago, made many painful experiments upon dogs in order to 
ascertain the effect of calomel on the bile secretion. The 
results were contradictory, both among themselves and to 
the conclusions of Prof. Schiff; and not one quarter part 
conclusive information was deduced, as had been already 
obtained by clinical observation years before. 
Numerous experiments have been performed on the 
gastric functions, but the results have been ever dubious 
and varying, on account of the great disturbance to the 
system caused thereby. All that was ever elucidated in 
tliis way had been known before from observation of the 
human subject. 
Sir Lawson Tait, in his “Uselessness of Vivisection,” 
p. 27, says : “Nofurther success was achieved in abdominal 
surgery from 1701 to 1809, practitioners being led astray by 
vivisection.” 
The Royal Medical and Surgical Society of Loudon, a 
number of years ago, instituted painful experiments on 
animals, by suffocation, drowning, etc., to determine best 
means of resuscitation and other desirable facts in the case 
of human beings. The result was confessed by the Society 
to be “ of no practical benefit to the human race.” 11 
Prof. Virchow was entirely successful in inoculating 
rabbits with trichinosis-, but when the disease afterwards 
appeared as an epidemic he was powerless to control it. 
The great Magendie had a theory that the muscles of the 
stomach were not used in vomiting. The barbarous experi- 
ment to prove this theory has been repeated hundreds of 
times, and yet the theory is not established. 
Even Dr. elixir, procured at the cost 
of incalculable suffering, has disappeared from human 
interest. 
Viewed collectively, the results of vivisection are the 
same. Dr. Albert Leffingwell, in Lippincott's Magazine, 
August, 1884, gives a table showing from conclusive 
authority that “the very diseases for the mitigation of 
which scientists have vivisected for the past half-century, 
have been during that time steadily on the increase! ” 
Dr. Leffingwell also says (Scribner's Monthly, July, 
1880, p. 84) : “During the last quarter of a century vivi- 
section has not resulted in the discovery of a single remedy 
of acknowledged and accepted value.” In the light of this, 
how fitting seems the confession of the French viviseetion- 
ist, Claude Bernard,—“Without doubt, our hands are empty 
to-day! ” 
The failure of purely physiological experiments to be of 
any practical value to suffering humanity is readily under- 
stood when we consider that physiological facts, pure and 
simple, are entirely irrelevant for medical purpose. The 
treatment of disease cannot be judged from the inspection 
of healthy functions, as Dr. A. de Noe Walker declared 
before the Royal Commission: “The knowledge of the 
healthy functions of animal life does not contain in itself 
any therapeutic agents for the treatment of any disease by 
which those parts may be affected.” 
2. The injurious effects of vivisection may be seen not 
only in instances of positive damage to the system of 
patients, but also in errors and contradictions on matters 
closely relating to health. 
With regard to Lister's far-famed carbolic ligature, con- 
cerning which vivisectionists have made so many boasts, 
Sir I .awson Tait, iu a letter to the “Birmingham Daily 
Mail,” July 21, 1882, says: “If the carbolic ligature had 
never been tried on animals, where it seems to answer 
admirably, it would never have been tried on human 
patients, where it failed miserably, and has cost many 
lives.” 
Influenced by his experiments on dogs, Sir Astley Cooper 
at one time supposed that when the bone of the human 
thigh was broken inside of the capsule, repair by bony union 
was impossible, but could occur only l>y ligament. Of course, 
in the case of the dog, the restless nature of the animal 
would prevent the bony union. As a result this distin- 
guished surgeon, both himself directly and by example 12 
indirectly, “ inflicted permanent and unnecessary lameness 
on many people.” 
Some years ago a Commission was sent by the English 
Minister ot Agriculture to oversee the inoculation experi- 
ments being made in Hungary. In the medical periodical 
“ The Practitioner," the Commission reported that they ‘ could 
not overlook the fact that, after the protective inoculations, 
the deaths from certain other diseases (catarrh, pneu- 
monia, etc.) occurred exclusively among the inoculated ani- 
mals.’ 
The great physiologists, Bernard and Pavy, have made 
numerous vivisectional experiments on the sugar-forming 
functions of the liver. The results were as follows: 
Bernard thought that sugar was formed by a healthy liver; 
Pavy, that it was formed by an unhealthy liver! 
Erroneous views as to the uses of the different sets of 
nerves have arisen from the fact that irritation of the motor 
nerves in vivisection will cause pain, induced hy sympathetic 
affection. 
In 1882 Prof. Koch (see “Medical Times,” Aug. 20th of 
that year) considered it “impossible to prevent tubercul- 
osis by inoculation.” Now he claims to have found the 
secret; and yet, in his own words, “ there is great danger of 
a new growth, the use of the lymph is dangerous, and deaths 
have resulted from it.” The conditions necessary for treat- 
ment are extraordinary, and the patient must be constantly 
watched. Such treatment seems on the face of it to lie 
opposed to nature. 
3. The false claims of vivisectionists as to well known 
and useful discoveries are numerous. The written testi- 
mony of Harvey himself, the discoverer of the circulation 
of tiie blood, is that he was first led to the discovery by 
anatomical observation. Dr. J. H. Bridge, in “ Fortnightly 
Bevievjf' July 1, 1876, says: “The more Harvey's immor- 
tal work is studied the more palpable is the fallacy that its 
discovery resulted from any such process of direct inspec- 
tion as vivisection is supposed to give. No such verification 
by the process of direct inspection has ever been made, or by 
the nature of things can be.” 
Years before Harvey lived the circulation of the blood 
through the lungs was known from anatomical dissection, 
and the general circulation had been hinted at hy several 
physiologists. From observation of the valves in the 
arteries, and from facts well known, Harvey drew his con- 
clusion. 
Sir Charles Bell's discovery of the functions of the 
anterior and posterior nerves has been claimed for vivi- 
section ; but he himself has often disclaimed that idea, and 
declared the discovery as due to anatomical study. 
Vaccination is another bold claim, and yet -Fenner, in his 
own written testimony describing the discovery, declares 
that it was made without a single experiment on a living 13 
animal, but simply from observing that immunity from 
disease followed certain conditions. The absurd claim has 
been made that anaesthetics are the result of vivisection. It 
is well known that tin* discoveries of chloroform and ether 
were made respectively by Sir dames Y. Simpson and an Am- 
erican dentist through experiments on themselves. Hunter's 
method for cure of aneurism was tirst carried out on a 
human subject. Subsequent experiments on animals gave 
rise to the claims of viviseetionists. 
The discovery of the glycogenic function of the liver 
had been made from natural observation years before 
an experiment on animals had been made for that purpose; 
and the beneficial results from the improvements in ovari- 
otomy by Dr. Wells are admitted by him to have been due 
to improved methods of nursing in after treatment. 
“Pasteurism,"or the method of breeding the virus of rabies 
in animals for diluted application to the human being, is a 
practice which has furnished an excellent stepping-stone to 
a man's ambition. Hydrophobia was a very rare disease till 
Louis Pasteur caused a panic on that subject. The many 
who have died from the effects of inoculation are not 
counted, while those who recover, whether or no as a result 
of the “treatment,"’ are considered as trophies of victory ! 
Diseases of various kinds are often mistaken for hydro- 
phobia; and it has never been proved conclusively that 
there is a particle of virtue in Pasteur's method. 
The above facts tend to show that viviseetionists have a 
habit of appropriating what has been discovered by other 
methods. 
They consider a fact “suspected" when learned from 
pathological observation, but “ verified" •when shown by 
them. 
The only consistent and practical method of investigation, 
as experience has shown, is plainly that of pathological 
observation,— a careful scrutiny of human diseases and their 
results.— combined with anatomical study and post-mortem 
examinations, assisted by chemistry and the microscope. 
“ Disease is an experiment by nature," and is all around us. 
“ Circumstances alter cases," and experiment should be con- 
ducted in that field where it is intended to be of use. 
The study of anatomy alone would have saved countless 
vivisections. Well has it been said, “ It is not the motion 
of machinery that explains the mechanism, but the mech- 
anism that explains tin* motion.” Lawrence the physi- 
ologist has said: “The extensive examination of various 
structures has thrown great light on the functions of the 
human frame.” 
Sir Astley Cooper's success, according to his biographer 
(who was a vivisectionist), “had its source in dissection 
of tile dead." 
< hemistry is a great and certain force in the medical 
world, and. instead of ineffectively using the systems of 14 
animals, experiments with poisons should he made chemi- 
cally, through processes of reaction and neutralization. 
The living system is not necessary for experiments on 
nervous energy. Galvanic action can be applied with 
perfect success to the body recently dead. 
The famous Abernethy stood at the head of his profes- 
sion as regards knowledge of the digestive functions, and 
yet he denounced the practices of vivisection. 
Long before experiments were made on the brains of 
animals, various effects of the mutilation or absence pf this 
organ on the vital and mental functions, and life itself, had 
been discovered by pathological observation, and vivisec- 
tion but served to confuse what was already learned. 
Both logically and practically, then, we conclude that the 
method of vivisection is one of the greatest errors of this 
century. Its record of one hundred years is one of uncer- 
tainty, a long list of failures and insignificant success. 
The experiments, contradictory and varying in result, are 
repeated till “ verification ” becomes refutation. The pro- 
tests of vivisectionists that they alone can tell what is a 
“ beneficial result ” seems to be in the nature of a confes- 
sion. 
When, however, beneficial results are proved to be want- 
ing, they plead the “advancement of science,” pure and 
simple (as does Dr. Herman, of Zurich : “ Die vivisections- 
frage ”) ; and when it is shown that by this practice science 
has not been advanced, but on the contrary retarded, they 
tell us, as did Dr. Sharply before the Royal Commission of 
1875, that “ it is a very difficult thing to tell what a discovery 
really is" ! Some one has appropriately said that “ this is 
the only professed science that lives on excuses.” 
The other nominal objects of vivisection, — b. the 
demonstration of known facts, and, c. the acquirement 
of dexterity in surgery,—demand but little notice. If 
by this method employed for original research, compli- 
cated points, as we have seen, are not elucidated; as a 
method of demonstration for such points it must fail. On 
the other hand, the simpler physiological facts do not for 
their comprehension require this laborious method. Dr. 
John Fletcher, of Edinburgh Medical School, in a lecture 
said, “None of the functions of animals need to be seen in 
action in order to be perfectly understood.” With the im- 
proved models and advantages for anatomical dissection of 
the present day, vivisection is here clearly superfluous. 
As to the acquirement of surgical dexterity, the same 
reasons as proved vivisection useless for original research, 
apply largely here. The conditions vary utterly between 
the human being and the animal; and the practice would 
tend to distract the attention of the student from his future 
field of labor. Anatomical operations and assisting in 
actual practice would render such preliminary experiment 
entirely useless. Nearly the whole body of the surgical 15 
profession themselves indignantly disclaim the necessity 
for anv such method of test; and Professor Owen has 
said. “The arguments for learning to experiment by re- 
peating experiments on living animals are as futile as 
those for so learning to operate chirurr/ically 
3. Having so far considered the purposes and results of 
vivisection, we now come to the question of tin* cost. 
From what we have seen it is evident that the cost should 
be very slight if it is to be justified by the results. The 
only phases of the cost of vivisection necessary now to 
consider are: a. The suffering caused the lower animals. 
b. The moral effect upon mankind. 
Before, however, we examine the main question of suffer- 
ing, one important point directly relating thereto demands 
the attention, — the subject of anaesthetics; and we shall 
attempt to show, largely from the testimony of tin* experi- 
menters themselves, that the effectiveness of anaesthertcs as 
applied to vivisection is, on the whole, a sham and delusion. 
The subject is naturally divided into: 1. lfealanaesthetics. 
2. False amesthetics. 3. The uncertainty of all anaesthetics. 
The use of real anaesthetics (chloroform, ether, mor- 
phine) in many cases is impracticable and dangerous to 
life. Chloroform has a very injurious effect, especially upon 
the nerve centres and vital organs, vitiating the result of 
almost any experiment. It is a fact well known to the 
profession that only a comparatively small number of 
experiments will allow of its use, and these only as a 
preliminary measure. Dr. Hoggan, in his “ Anaesthetics,” 
page 1. says regarding chloroform : “ Nothing can be more 
uncertain than its influence upon the lower animals. Com- 
plete and conscientious anaesthesia is seldom even at- 
tempted. ” And again: “Amesthetics have proved the 
greatest curse of vivisectihle animals.” 
Dr. de Noe Walker testified before the Royal Commission 
that if it is supposed that while an animal lived and was 
experimented on, it was thoroughly insensible, “it is the 
greatest delusion that ever was! ” 
Professor Pritchard, of the Royal Veterinary College, 
before the same commission, said: “With regard to dogs, 
I should never think of applying chloroform to them. I 
should think it very unsafe to do so.” 
'The English “ Handbook of Physiology” distinctly omits 
amesthetics from a great number of its most painful ex- 
periments: and licenses to experiment irithout amesthetics 
are constantly being granted in England. 
The forms of experiment vitiated by amesthetics are: — 
a. On sensibility and the nervous system. 
b. On the vital organs, circulation, etc. 
c. With drugs. 
d. With diseases by inoculation, etc., and all experiments 
requiring a long duration of time. To this list may he 
added experiments on drowning, starving, baking, etc. 16 
Dr. Lauder Brunton says that “the reflex action of the 
nerves cannot he got from animals insensible from anaes- 
thetics or narcotics.” 
Magendie says: “Pain is an important guide.” 
Professor Elias de Cyon, of St. Petersburg, says: “If 
the experiment concerns the influence of the circulation on 
the activity of the glands, it is best to avoid these drugs on 
account of their influence on the circulation.” 
Professor Rutherford acknowledged before the Royal 
Commission that when amesthetics interfere with due 
result, which is the case with him about half the time, “no 
anaesthetics are given.” 
So much for real anaesthetics. There is, however, a 
“false anaesthetic ” extensively employed by vivisectionists, 
and its name is “curare.” 
Curare is a drug used in laboratories for the purpose of 
paralyzing the motor nerves of the animal, so as to render 
it incapable of making the slightest movement. At the 
same time tin* sensitiveness of the sensory nerves is not 
diminished, hut on the contrary is supposed by some to be 
increased. Under the influence of curare the animal can- 
not breathe of itself: and artificial respiration is established 
through a tube thrust into the windpipe. 
Curare has been tried on human beings, who remembered 
all the pain they suffered, although unable to stir. (See 
Bernard’s “La Chaleur Animate.'") 
Sir Thomas Watson, before the Royal Commission, said 
that to treat curare as an anaesthetic would he, in his 
opinion, “ a fraudulent trick.” 
Professor Holmgren says of this drug: “This venom is 
the most cruel of all poisons. It changes us into a living 
corpse, which knows everything but is unable to move a 
single muscle.” 
Curare has not the injurious effect of chloroform; there- 
fore its use is constant, while that of anaesthetics is only 
partial and temporary. The great extent to which it is 
used may be seen by consulting the medical reports. 
Claude Bernard, in a physiological work, says, that we 
may “take it for granted that experiments when not other- 
wise described are performed on curarized dogs;” and their 
condition he himself describes as “accompanied by the most 
atrocious sufferings which the imagination of man can 
conceive! ” 
Professor Julius Cohnheim states: “The great majority 
of our experiments were made on dogs under curare and 
artificial respiration.” 
From the above we conclude: 1. That curare does not 
in the slightest degree diminish pain. 2. That its use is 
almost universal. 
As to the uncertainty of all amesthetics from their very 
nature, the evidence is strong. The prostration of the 
system after an operation in which anaesthetics have been 17 
used, seems to point to the conclusion that pain lias been 
suffered, although the memory of it is lost. Certain ex- 
periments with anaesthetics produce manifest pain; and 
medical opinion is at variance as to the possibility of elimi- 
nating pain under any conditions. The writer has heard 
the testimony of those who declared that they suffered 
almost death from the effect of the anaesthetic itself. 
Dr. Holleston, of London, (evidence before Royal Com- 
mission) said: “ It is not so easy to know when you have 
an animal thoroughly anaesthetized. The whole question 
has an element of uncertainty about it.’’ 
Dr. Krichsen has given his testimony that “ chloroform 
does not remove the physical impression produced on the 
system by a severe mutilation.” 
Claude Bernard says: “Morphia renders dogs immov- 
able, but sensibility remains.” (Revue <les Cours Scientif- 
ique, vol. vi. page 263.) 
From what we have learned as to the rare vise of anaes- 
thetics, the general use of curare, and the uncertain effect 
of chloroform, morphia, etc., we must therefore conclude 
that the sufferings of vivisected animals are not mitigated 
to any appreciable extent. 
a. in order to estimate the cost of vivisection in animal 
suffering, it is necessary to ascertain,— 
1. The nature of the experiments. 
2. The extent to which they are carried on. 
Those who may be curious to read from the original 
descriptions of these operations are referred to the works 
of Claude Bernard, Paul Bert, Brow n-Sequard, Ricliet, 
Bddard. ('you. in the French; Coltz and Schiff, in the 
Derman; the English “Handbook of the Physiological 
Laboratory;” Dr. Austin Flint's American “Physiology 
of Man;” and the medical reports in general. Bernard’s 
“ Lemons sur le Diabetef' “ Lecons sur la Chalenr,” and 
“ Physiologic Operatoire,” and Cyon's “ Methodik,” will 
be found very vivid in their descriptions. 
The following are examples of experiments frequently 
performed. When the absence or imperfect use of anaes- 
thetics is considered, the real nature of what is being done 
around us can be in a measure conceived. 
lu the Journal of Physiology, vol. i. page 155, a 
description is given of the experiments of Dr. H. Newell 
Martin. Professor of Biology in .Johns Hopkins University 
at Baltimore. Dr. Martin removes tin* brain from animals, 
and then observes the attendant phenomena for one or twro 
ireeks without giving food. He says they “ do better with- 
out the exhausting struggle which the attempt to open 
the mouth occasioned.” 
Professor Ott, of tin* same university, opens the spinal 
column of cats, and applies electricity to the spinal marrow 
trithout anaesthetics. (Journal of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 42.) 
Professor Semi, of Chicago, tears the pancreas of an 18 
animal in two. Animal is left for weeks to note result. 
Death occurs from agonizing diseases, — peritonitis, gan- 
grene, etc. (International Journal of Medical Sciences, 
July, 1886.) 
Dr. W. B. Platt, of Baltimore, watches for twenty-six 
hours the agonies of a dog poisoned with “ resorcin.” 
(.American Journal of Medical Sciences, January, 1883.) 
Dr. , of Harvard, keeps a cat alive for hours 
by artificial respiration (under curare), while the bare 
sciatic nerve is stimulated by electricity. Object: to find 
out whether the nerve would be exhausted. (Journal 
of Physiology, vol. vi. p. 133.) 
Friedrich Goltz, of Germany, washes out portions of the 
brains of dogs, and studies their actions for months, till they 
die of inflammation of the brain. After death, the brain 
“ resembles a lately hoed potato field.” (Pfinger's Ar- 
chives, vol. iii. p. 178.) 
Dr. lays bare the spinal cord in over 
twenty different species of animals, and experiments on 
them for months. (Lancet, vol. i. p. 823.) 
Dr. H. H. Robt. Koch produces “ exquisite peritonitis ” by 
injecting tubercle bacilli. (Medical Times, August 26,1882.) 
A. Chauveau opens with chisel and mallet the spinal 
column of eighty horses and asses, and experiments on the 
spinal marrow. No anaesthetics. (Journal de. Physiologie, 
vol. iv. No. 13.) 
Professor Mantegazza experiments on effect of pain on 
digestion. Prolongs the agony for one month. (Lancet, 
March 25, 1871.) 
Professor Chossat starves twelve animals to death. 
(Gavarrett's “Animal Heat,’’' p. 394.) 
Professor Donders pours concentrated acetic acid on the 
eyes of rabbits. The pupil disappears in four weeks. 
(Bedard's “ Traite de Phys.,” p. 1019.) 
One of Magendie's experiments was to cut the cere- 
bellum, and cause the rotation of the animal. This would 
last for days, “ almost without interruption.” 
In Scientific American, November 29, 1890, an account is 
given of the grafting of a dog's leg to a boy’s leg. Animal 
is strapped twelve days immovable. Its vocal cords are 
cut. Great care is taken that the animal does not have 
too much ancesthetic. 
But enough has been cited of these atrocities to give 
a partial idea of the real nature of vivisection. As to its 
extent, investigation shows this to be enormous. Thou- 
sands of animals thus perish every year. Bryan’s “ Vivi- 
sectors' Directory,” of 1884, gives 470 names as a list of 
licensed vivisectors in Great Britain, with leading experi- 
menting physiologists in foreign laboratories. Over thirty 
well-known American physiologists use this method. In 
Professor Scliiff’s laboratory 700 animals per year have 
been vivisected simply as an illustration to lectures. 19 
Ortila poisoned (>000 dogs in his experiments in toxi- 
cology. There are over 150 laboratories in Europe alone, 
with nearly 250 physicians attached. Besides the well- 
known body of professional vivisectionists, great numbers 
of “ would-be " physiologists are everywhere engaged in 
this work. 
Louis Pasteur, of Paris, says: “The experiments (in- 
oculating dogs with rabies) which we have carried out 
have passed beyond the possibility of numbering them.’’ 
(Medical Times and Gazette, August 23, 1884.) 
Dr. Edward Berdoe, Member of the Royal College of 
Surgeons of England, in a letter dated April 1, 1890, to 
Philip G. Peabody, of Boston, says: “So far from there 
being the slightest exaggeration, I can testify from my 
own knowledge that the atrocious cruelties which you con- 
demn are daily and hourly performed in the physical labor- 
atories of the world.” 
Moreover, there exists an immense business of manu- 
facturing elaborate instruments used by vivisectionists. 
This traffic alone indicates the extent of what occasions it. 
These facts force the conclusion upon us that the bar- 
barities of this practice are almost beyond the imagination 
to conceive. 
Professor Pritchard, of the Royal Veterinary College, 
and an experienced operator, testified that ‘ he had never 
seen anything to make him think differently than that as 
regards the physical sensation of pain, it would be equal to 
that in a human being.’ 
Animals do not, like man, faint from pain, but suffer 
to the last. 
Edward Mayhew. an experienced veterinarian, in “The 
Dog and its Management,” says that “on account of the 
highly developed nervous system ” of this animal, dreadful 
as hydrophobia is to the human being, rabies (the disease 
which Pasteur is continually propagating) is morse to the 
dog." 
'Clio English Royal Commission of 1875 in their report 
gave this opinion: “It is manifest that the practice of 
vivisection is liable to great abuse; that inhumanity may be 
found in persons of very high position as physiologists.” 
b. An important phase of the cost of vivisection is seen 
in its moral effect upon mankind. 
It is a very trite but true saying, that the force of habit 
is strong. 'Hie system, both physical and mental, accus- 
toms itself to its environment. 
Thus it happens that the sight of suffering by degrees 
produces less and less effect upon the mind of the operator, 
until the result is callousness and hard-heartedness. The 
force of habit is seen not only in the commission of evil 
but in the omission of good. The sympathetic sense can 
be slowly diminished by lack of use till it becomes almost 
rudimentary. Dr. George Rollestou, of London, has said: 20 
“Vivisection is specially likely to tempt a man into certain 
carelessness, — the passive impressions caused by sight of 
suffering growing weaker, while pleasure in experimenting 
grows stronger by repetition.” The constant sight of 
suffering has thus a tendency to deteriorate the moral 
nature. The best people in other respects may become so 
morbid from intense study of one subject, as to lose the 
idea of morality in connection with tliat subject. In this 
way only can we explain the fact that in these “ happy and 
free ” United States, and concealed in institutions of 
education and philanthropy, are these inquisitions of to-day. 
The moral effect of his practice on the vivisector can be 
seen from his own acknowledgments. Claude Bernard, in 
his “ Introd. a l'dtude,” p. 180, says: “ A physiologist 
does not hear the animal's cries of pain; he does not see 
the blood that flows. He sees nothing but his idea.” 
Prof. Emanuel Klein stated before the Royal Commission 
that he “ entirely disregarded the sufferings of animals in 
making experiments;” and believed that “that was the 
general practice on the Continent and in England.” 
Now this moral condition of the vivisectionist must have 
its effect on the community, and in three different ways : — 
1. Directly on the sick. 
2. By example to students and others. 
3. On society and posterity. 
1. It is evident that this hardening of the sympathetic 
nature of a physician is liable to react upon the sick under 
his charge in careless and unfeeling treatment. But this is 
not the only way in which the patient will suffer. The 
same mental temperament and condition that delights in 
experiments on animals would prompt experiments on 
human beings, as has often been done. 
Prof. Cyon says: “ Many a surgical operation is per- 
formed less for the benefit of the patient than for the 
service of science." Methodik,"’ p. 8.) This tendency in 
the direction of crime against human beings is seen in the 
experiment, described in the Lancet of November 3, 
1883, in which Dr. Ringer practises on men and women 
with nitrate of sodium, inducing symptoms of violent 
poisoning, prostration, etc. This was done from motives 
of curiosity. 
2. The evil effects of example on students and others 
who witness these experiments cannot fail to be great. 
The youth who largely comprise these medical classes are 
at an age when examples given by those they are taught to 
respect have a powerful influence. At that age they should 
not be hardened to the finer feelings of sympathy. 
Dr. Haughton's declaration before the Royal Commission 
carries truth with it: “I would shrink with horror from 
accustoming large classes of young men to the sight of 
animals under vivisection. Science would gain nothing, and 
the world would have let loose upon it a set of young devils.” 3. The remoter effects upon society ami posterity are just 
as certain. 
No influence is lost among the world’s myriad forces. 
There are moral influences which sometimes seem to possess 
whole peoples as with an epidemic disease; how, we do 
not know. The fever for vivisection seems to have taken 
possession of the medical body, and in the face of facts. 
There is danger that, if it is not quelled, its moral apathy 
as well as its medical delusions, may almost universally 
occupy the professional mind. There is danger also that, 
through published accounts of the alleged labors of 
scientists “ in behalf of humanity," this moral callousness 
to the feelings of others may extend to even the general 
public. 
Another great influence not to be overlooked is heredity. 
The suffering caused by a vivisectionist to his subject, in 
his medical practice and by example, is not the only evil 
that can be traced to his methods of experiment. 
“ Like begets like,” and the influence of a cruel and 
calloused nature will be felt in future generations. 
In our investigation of the results and cost of vivisec- 
tion, we have found : — 
1. That the results naturally and practically are small 
and unsatisfactory. 
2. That the cost in suffering and moral effect is great. 
We therefore conclude that the cost is not justified. 
There is another phase of the cost of vivisection, which 
although unimportant in comparison with the considerations 
mentioned, nevertheless should be stated. The cost in 
energy, time, and wealth thus wasted and worse than 
wasted is in itself no trifling matter. Directed into proper 
channels, these forces would accomplish vast and useful 
results. 
4. We have so far considered vivisection from a stand- 
point of utility: let us now judge it from a standpoint of 
principle. Is or is not this method intrinsically wrong'? 
The first question that suggests itself in the examination 
of the moral aspect of vivisection is this: Are there such 
realities as justice and duty? Or have tilt* lower animals 
no rights, and have we no duties towards them? 
It is written in the human conscience that if we have 
duties at all, we have them with regard to everything that 
can sutler: that, if there be such a thing as justice, all 
should share its benefits. 
Selfishness is the “ root of all evil; ” and is exemplified 
in the idea largely occupying the human mind that every- 
thing outside of its own species is entitled to no considera- 
tion. The eternal principles of justice, however, will not 
be bounded by such narrow limits. 
It is axiomatic that we have no right to do wrong that 
good may result: for how shall the limit be set, and the 
justifiable proportion fixed between the wrong and the 
21 22 
wished-for benefit? There should be no compromise of 
right with wrong. It is a dangerous principle that has 
been the excuse for every atrocity. 
Cruelty is not justified because done for the benefit of 
others; for it is self-evident that the infliction of suffering, 
undeserved, and not for the benefit of the sufferer, is con- 
trary to the eternal Jitness of things. It is the undeserved 
injury we have to consider, and not upon what it is inflicted. 
In the words of Bishop Butler's axiom : “ On the simple 
fact that an animal is capable of pain, arises our duty to 
spare it pain.” 
In the application of these principles to our subject we 
see that, whereas it should be the noble object of the 
highest species to lessen suffering wherever found, it is, 
instead, engaged in inflicting tortures upon lesser species 
for its own selfish ends. In the workings of justice there is 
a law of compensation, but what compensation has the vivi- 
sected animal ? One individual of the same species has as great 
a right to torture another, as one species to torture another; 
and there is no excuse that could be given for this practice 
that would not apply as well to the torture of human beings. 
What if a superior order of beings should torture us. as 
suggested in “The Modern Back?” Would the vivisection- 
ists consider it right? And if not, then why note is it 
right? We thus see that not everywhere is self-preserva- 
tion the “first law,” and that it is a sign of the highest 
civilization to regard the rights of the weak and defenceless. 
The vivisectionist claims that his object is good. We 
have seen that this does not justify his act; but, on the 
other hand, is his motive always worthy? Is it probable 
that he who with stony heart and steady hand inflicts 
upon helpless animals the tortures we have described, would 
agitate himself greatly upon the subject of human misery? 
Reason will answer, No. “But,” it is argued, “good 
results may nevertheless follow from his efforts.” To this 
reason replies: “The aims of the vivisectionist are in a 
different direction; and objects of curiosity and personal 
ambition will be advanced to the exclusion of less attractive 
but more worthy ends.” 
Dr. Charles Richet, in Hevue de deux Mondes. February 15, 
1883, confesses that “it is not desire to relieve human 
suffering or advance utility that animates these men,” but 
simply “ scientific curiosity.’’ 
Dr. George Hoggan (Fraser's Magazine, April, 1875), in 
speaking of his experiences in the laboratory of a cele- 
brated French physiologist, says: “The idea of the good of 
humanity was simply out of the question, and would have 
been laughed at; the great aim being to keep up with and 
get ahead of one’s contemporaries.” 
Here, then, are seen the secret motives of the vivisection- 
ist.— ambition and rivalry. Is it fitting that parties thus 
interested should decide the right or wrong of a question? The result, then, of our consideration of vivisection from 
a moral standpoint, is that this practice is inspired directly 
and indirectly by selfishness, and that it is inherently 
wrong. It is enough that we are often compelled to wit- 
ness the abuse of animals by the ignorant. The spectacle 
should not he forced upon us in this nineteenth century of 
our learned “ savants ” descending to the depths of bar- 
barity, and excusing their own selfishness by appealing to 
the selfishness of others. It is inconsistent to punish a 
huckster for beating his horse, and allow a professor to 
cut one to pieces. 
As to partial restriction and legal regulation of this 
practice, it is not difficult to show that any such efforts 
would be useless, and for the following reasons : — 
1. A law that would be a proper protection to the animal 
would be practically prohibitory to the vivisectionist. 
2. Such a law, at the same time licensing and protecting, 
would not he carried out. 
1. When we consider what has already been learned as to 
the unreliability of amesthetics themselves, the imperfect 
manner in which they are necessarily used in the great 
majority of cases, and the many instances when they can- 
not he employed at all. it is evident that the small residue 
of cases, if any, when they could he effectively used, would 
be practically worthless to the vivisector. Therefore, it is 
more consistent and logical to stand upon the basis of pro- 
hibition. and avoid unnecessary cumbering of the statute 
books with complicated regulations. 
Moreover, from various motives, law-makers would be 
more favorably disposed towards a simple than a complex 
measure for the reform of an abuse. 
2. That such a proper restricting law would not he 
carried out, is founded both on — a, reason ; and 6, historical 
evidence. 
a. The ineffectiveness of such a law is evident for the 
following reasons: — 
1. The sanction of the law has a tendency to shield 
abuse. 
2. The motives for evasion would he great. 
8. The difficulty of supervision would he insuperable. 
1. Such a law. through legalizing the practice, would 
but serve as a cloak for all kinds of inhumanity to animals. 
The public would he satisfied, and the torturers left to 
their work. 
2. The motives for evasion include : — 
(i. The necessity for dispensing with amesthetics, as we 
have seen. 
1. The trouble and expense of complying with the law, 
involving the careful administration of amesthetics. 
c. The feeling of antagonism would be a powerful motive. 
Interference of the public is considered by vivisectiouists as 
impertinent; and each experimenter claims the right to he 
23 24 
autocrat in his laboratory. “ Anything that they consider 
necessary,” according to Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, “ should 
be allowed.” 
Dr. Ferrier, before the Commission, said: “ I should 
certainly object to inspection of any kind in my experi- 
ments.” 
“ For the public to interfere,” says Dr. Sharply, “would 
be a barbarism.” 
3. As to the difficulty of supervision, there is a well- 
known saying that it is foolish to play with a gambler at his 
own game. It is likewise foolish to attempt to supervise a 
practice in which the supervised have at command all the 
means for deception. Even if the inspection were adequate, 
it would have to be constant. Dr. Haughton, himself a 
defender of vivisection, said before the Royal Commission : 
“ 1 know the practice is to use the anaesthesia very 
imperfectly; and when the controlling eye is gone, to drop 
the use of it altogether.'1' Moreover, those skilled in the 
intricacies of chemistry can easily make black seem white 
to the law, especially when ostensibly working “for 
humanity.” Curare could be administered secretly; and in 
case of complaint no proofs could be obtained on account of 
contiicting testimony. 
The result of these difficulties would be carelessness in 
supervision, which, intensified by the moral sanction of the 
law and the motives for evasion, would finally cause such a 
restrictive measure to become simply a matter of form from 
which the spirit had departed. 
b. Historical evidence is to the effect that a compromise 
of this kind has always resulted disastrously to reform. 
The friends of humanity in England in 1875 agitated the 
question of vivisection, and the result was the Vivisection 
Act of 1876. Notwithstanding, however, the strenuous 
efforts of the Victoria Street Society, the measures of this 
Act were so tampered with and so inefficiently carried out as 
to practically leave the whole power in the hands of the 
vivisectionists. After four years’ labor, the Society con- 
cluded that the only true and safe course is prohibition. 
In Dr. Berdoe's “Twelve Years’ Trial of the Vivisection 
Act,” it is shown that under that Act vivisection flourished 
more than ever. 
Since a restrictive law would be folly, and the exigencies 
of the case demand a more speedy method than that of 
education alone, the only remedy is clearly prohibition. 
The question is, can a prohibitory law be enforced? And 
the answer is plainly, yes, for the following reasons : — 
These experiments are performed either m public before 
classes, or in private for purposes of alleged scientific ad- 
vancement. It is evident that all experiments of the first 
kind would be abolished; and as for the rest, the great 
motive of ambitious desire to be renowned in “ discoveries ” 
and quoted in published medical reports would be absent. 25 
A fear of detection would be substituted, for the public 
would oppose the practice. 
Thus, motives for its continuance being absent, the prac- 
tice itself would be abandoned. 
When that time shall come, then life to many hapless 
creatures will cease to be an undeserved curse,—life 
which, as Buddha wrote thousands of years ago,— 
“ is dear even to the meanest; — yea, a boon to all 
Where pity Is; for pity makes the world 
Soft to the weak and noble to the strong.” 
PRICES OF HUMANE PUBLICATIONS. 
The following publications of the Massachusetts Society 
P. ('. Animals can be obtained at our offices at the follow- 
ing cost prices, free of postage: — 
Address to Boston Public Schools, by Geo. T. Angell, 
;s cents each, or $2.00 per 100 
Humane Leaflets, Nos. 1 to 8, by Geo. T. Angell. — 
Flight of either No. or Nos., as wanted, 5 cents; 
twenty-four for 10 cents; one hundred, -25 cents, 
post paid. 
Bird Leaflet, by Geo. T. Angell, 25 “ 
Twelve Lessons on Kindness to Animals, by Geo. T. 
Angell, at 2 cents for the whole twelve bound 
together, or 2.00 “ 
Care of Horses, .45 “ 
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form, two cents for the whole, or ... 2.00 “ 
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Condensed Informtttion, an eight-page pamphlet by Geo. T. 
Angell, including all necessary for forming Societies for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Bands of Mercy. This, as 
well as the address of Mr. Angell to the National Convention of 
the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union at Nashville, Tenn., we 
send without cost to every one asking. 
The above can be had in smaller numbers at the same 
rates. 27 
BY JOHN A. MACPHAIL, B.A., M.l>., 6 UNIVERSITY STREET, 
MONTREAL. 
VIVISECTION. 
There are questions of science and questions of sentiment, 
but there are questions in which both are combined. To 
this last class vivisection belongs, and the present aim is to 
establish the proper relation existing between these two 
factors. Much work has been done on this subject at differ- 
ent times, and evidence has been adduced on both sides by 
the staunchest opponents; at least the evidence was re- 
corded, but no systematic attempt has been made at a sum- 
ming up from which any plain, unprejudiced mind could 
draw an authoritative conclusion. All that now remains 
is to consider the evidence offered along with the facts that 
have arisen since that time, and to point out on which side, 
according to all reasonable rules, the decision must lie. 
The store of published facts concerning vivisection in 
America is singularly small, because in this country it has 
never really become a public question, but in England, on 
the occasion of the first attempt at restrictive legislation 
fifteen years ago, the conflict between those who favored 
the practice and those who opposed it was singularly 
keen. 
There are two classes of persons working to lessen pain; 
those who oppose vivisection, striving to prevent the suf- 
ferings of animals, and the vivisectors, whose motive is the 
seeking after truth and knowledge which will go toward 
alleviating the sufferings of humanity, and of the animals 
themselves, through scientific medicine or applied physiol- 
ogy. That these two classes, who have a common aim, 
should hold views so conflicting, must be due to some mis- 
apprehension which it is intended the present exposition 
of facts will help to remove. 
If it can be shown that the pain and death which vivi- 
section implies have been wrought for the good of human- 
ity, by leading to knowledge, light, and power, and that 
this knowledge, light, and power could have been arrived at 
in no other way, and that these are so considerable that 
mankind would he badly off without them, then the case 
for vivisection may be considered proved. What restric- 
tions, if any, should he laid upon the practice, is to he con- 
sidered afterwards. 
By vivisection is to he understood the operating with 
cutting instruments or other means on the bodies of living 
animals. 
The objections advanced against it are mainly two, — the 
cruelty involved, and the cpnsequent injury to the moral 28 
nature through the infliction of a wrong; hut it is also 
urged that the practice is not justified by the results. It 
will first be necessary to estimate the. amount of pain actu- 
ally caused, for it is in this the principal fallacy lies. 
In the transition from life to death there are three stages: 
the first marked by loss of consciousness, the second cessa- 
tion of breathing and heart action, and the third is initi- 
ated by those changes that characterize the rigidity of final 
death and decomposition. An animal may have life and 
not he “ living,” that is, it may be alive, hut unconscious, and 
without the capacity for suffering pain. It is under these 
conditions, induced by anaesthetics, that most vivisection is 
performed. The heart may be in full working order, the 
respiratory movements unimpeded for hours after con- 
sciousness has disappeared, and, in the case of cold-blooded 
animals, even for days. Operations performed on such an 
animal are rightly classed under the head of vivisection, 
but to brand them as improper is as unreasonable as to 
charge the skilful surgeon with cruelty, who uses all care 
in removing a tumor from a living but unconscious pa- 
tient. By the use of those anaesthetics which physiolo- 
gists habitually employ, the animal is rendered uncon- 
scious. This is the moment the vivisector chooses for his 
work. lie brings into use the instruments of his research. 
He watches the ebb and flow of blood, the throbbing of 
vessels, and takes tracings of them; he measures their 
force; he gathers the juice a gland secretes; he divides 
one nerve and stimulates another or poisons a third. He 
records his observations, and finishes a painless but profit- 
able death in one of a variety of ways. Just as anaesthetics 
have rendered the surgeon's task a simple one, and enlarged 
his sphere, so they have rendered new experiments possible, 
and have become as great a necessity in physiology as in 
surgery. 
Dr. Yeo submitted the following estimate as to the pro- 
portion of operations that caused pain : — 
Absolutely painless 75 
As painful as vaccination 20 
As painful as the healing of a wound .... 4 
As painful as a surgical operation 1 
100 
This is on the assumption that the capacity an animal 
has for suffering is equal to that possessed by a human 
being. As a matter of fact, the cases in which aiuesthetics 
interfere with the progress of an experiment are exceed- 
ingly rare, except in certain researches on the functions of 
sensory nerves; but these functions have already been 
worked out; and as it now stands the percentage where 
pain is an essential factor is very low. The public mind 
lias been befogged by the use of a single term, “ vivisec- tion,” for two separate things: experiments upon sentient 
and non-sentient animals. It would be easy, one would 
think, to distinguish between these two; yet Miss Cobbe, 
speaking for all opponents of vivisection, says, “ We find 
it practically impossible to separate torturing from non- 
torturing vivisection;" and Mr. Bergli implores pardon for 
saying “ that if tin* rose would smell as sweet by any other 
name, surely the blood of tortured animals would also re- 
tain its repulsive odor under any other designation.” 
The question whether vivisection is good or bad is not 
affected by saying that there are other things equally 
wrong,— the agonies caused by sportsmen to birds dragging 
their wounded bodies to some hidden covert, the piercing 
cries of the hunted hare, the suffering of the brave fox as 
his living body is to lie torn by the pursuing hounds; or 
that the pain caused by vivisection ever since it was prac- 
tised is as nothing compared with the suffering animals 
undergo in transportation and in slaughter-houses, for the 
satisfaction of man's bodily needs; or to assert that in 
every agricultural community male animals are every day 
being vivisected for their more complete mastery, or to 
show that the ghastly scenes anti-vivisectionists conjure 
up from physiological laboratories with their “torture 
troughs,” represent no such cruelty as is depicted in Sny- 
der's “Boar Hunt,” or in Landseer's “Death of the 
Otter." It is also useless to point out that the most earn- 
est vivisector may be an ardent lover of animals, and that 
his deepest endeavor is to alleviate their suffering in com- 
mon with that of mankind, or to affirm that their oppo- 
nents are actuated by an unmanly sentimentalism. 
First, there is the principle that should govern man's 
conduct in relation to animals. Without swearing to the 
words of any teacher, or committing one's self to any 
school, it may be laid down as a truth that life is a strug- 
gle, a struggle with fellow-men, with living beings, ani- 
mals, and plants, and with the lifeless forces around us. 
The conditions in which men find themselves inevitably lay 
upon them this burden, and they are obliged to use the 
means they find around them in this struggle, amongst 
which are the lives of animals. If, then, man is to prosper, 
he must kill animals, it may he tigers, sheep, or vermin. It 
is a duty imposed upon him by nature, even if a painful 
duty, hut self-preservation demands it. The rule cannot 
be laid down that an animal may be killed for one purpose 
and not for another, that life maybe taken to gratify an 
appetite or nourish the body, but not to increase the exist- 
ing store of knowledge or benefit the mind. The only test 
is whether the death of an animal is likely to he of benefit 
to society at large. Man must be fed : lie is justified in kill- 
ing and eating sheep: man’s success in this struggle for 
existence depends on superior knowledge: he is justified in 
killing a frog or rabbit if it can he shown that human 
29 30 
knowledge is thereby enlarged. But he is not justified in 
causing pain if it can he avoided, or unless pain is of ad- 
vantage to Mm. Death is painful In itself, but that does 
not mean he is to abstain from killing; it means that he is 
to kill with the least possible pain. One could imagine a 
costly system of anaesthetizing animals about to be slaugh- 
tered, but no one has shown it to be practicable, just as a 
surgeon may not find it practicable to administer chloro- 
form where some local anaesthetic, like cocaine or the ether 
spray, would serve the purpose nearly as well. 
It was pointed out that to justify vivisection the informa- 
tion must he obtainable in no other way. Let this be quali- 
fied by saying “in no other reasonable way,” and to illus- 
trate, place the only twro ways that are in any way reason- 
able, side by side. Take cholera, for example, in which 
experiments have been conducted on both principles. On 
the one side are the scientific infection experiments of 
Thiersch, and others following him, performed by vivisec- 
tion ; on the other hand are the popular experiments which 
have at various times been performed during cholera epi- 
demics on human beings, by companies supplying them 
with water and other commodities. Even the most con- 
firmed anti-vivisectionist will commend the former way. 
But even if this knowledge could be arrived at in “some 
other way” at some future period, what of the suffering 
and death that must in the meantime come to the human 
race ? What of those who must die unaided till the light 
comes in some hypothetical aad mysterious way, and of 
those now living whose lives are due to their laying hold 
of the remedies and the prophylactics which vivisection 
has brought? 
But it is not certain that the knowledge could be ob- 
tained in any other way. for the discovery of the lethal 
agents in the transmission of disease was only and could 
only be determined by means of experiments on living ani- 
mals. 
It remains to be proved that the human race has bene- 
fited considerably by the results obtained from vivisec- 
tion. To discuss this in detail would involve the tracing 
of every step in the progress of medicine, for medicine is 
no longer an art to be practised by rule of thumb, and 
whatever progress it has made is due to observation and 
experiment. There was ground for the mocking words of 
Voltaire when he jeered at physicians “ pouring drugs, of 
which they knew little, into bodies of which they knew 
less.” They were doing their best in those pre-vivisection 
days. They gave the white spots on a leaf to consumptive 
patients; they gave the carrot in jaundice because it was 
yellow; for kidney diseases they gave fruits which resem- 
bled that organ. They were groping in the dark, unaided 
by the light of experiment, and men were dying around 
them of complaints that to-day it is unnecessary to feel. 31 
Contrast the present position of medicine with that of fifty 
years ago, and you have a measure of tlie value of experi- 
ments, for the most part performed on living animals. Ex- 
perimentation on animals for the benefit of humanity is 
the keynote of modern medicine, and the physician who 
underestimates its value is out of time with the best that is 
said and thought on the subject. Physiology is at the 
basis of rational medicine, and it is to physiology the phy- 
sician must seek if he would he anything more than a 
“ medicine man,” a dispenser of chance-gotten drugs. Ex- 
perimental pathology is the synthesis, as clinical diagnosis 
is the analysis, of disease, and physiology reduces the facts 
to a system. If physiology consists in the study of vital 
processes going on in living organisms, it follows that 
many of them must be studied as they actually take place. 
It is useless to appeal to the dead body, for though there 
the changes can he noted, the processes will have passed 
away. In the dead body there is no disease, for, as Virchow 
remarked, disease presupposes life. 
It will he possible to refer only to the most notable ex- 
amples of vivisectional results in relation to the practice of 
medicine, but enough will he given to obtain for it the 
justification of practical utility. Vesalius, the founder of 
anatomical study, states in his work on the human body 
that it was through experiments on living animals he was 
led to his wide generalizations in anatomy, which before 
his time consisted of shreds and patches of crude observa- 
tion and false induction. Harvey, “having frequent re- 
course to vivisections," received the first hint of the circu- 
lation of the blood by watching the palpitating heart of a 
living creature. Haller, who by his doctrine of “irrita- 
bility” laid the foundation of the true physiology of the 
nervous system, wrought through pain and death to ani- 
mals. Charles Hell and Magendie traced out the distinction 
between motor and sensory nerves, and Marshall Hall 
demonstrated by vivisectional methods the occurrence and 
importance of reflex actions, by which one-half of our life 
is controlled. Weber demonstrated in the same way the 
inhibitory action of the pneumogastric nerve upon the 
heart, and laid down the principles of a rational treatment 
for the prevention of heart failure in diphtheria and other 
acute diseases. Du Bois-Iteymond, Pfluger, Flourens, 
Schiff', Yulpian, Goltz, Waller, in fact all 
physiologists, by their work attest that if physiology is not 
a hopeless puzzle and a baseless fancy it is due to the results 
of experiments on living animals. The chemistry of living 
beings was worked out in the same way by Lavoisier and 
Priestly, who first made out the chemistry of respira- 
tion. The chemistry of digestion and nutrition would yet 
have been a phenomenon and a guess if it were not for the 
labors of Schmidt and Bidder. Fever and inflammation, 
old mystic words, were never understood till Claude Ber- 32 
nard and Cohnheim made tlieir researches on the vaso-motor 
nerves of living animals. It was by vivisection Aselli and 
Pecquet discovered the system of lymphatic vessels, and 
Malphigi the capillary circulation. Artificial respiration 
was made a practicable means of resuscitation by Vesalius, 
Hooke, and Lower, through experiments made upon dogs. 
The experiments of Rev. Dr. Hales on pressure of the 
blood in the arteries are also to be noted. In the seven- 
teenth century Sir Christopher Wren and other Fellows of 
the Royal Society experimented on the transfusion of 
blood, and recently it has been made a means of saving 
life. In 1835 a committee of physicians at Dublin showed 
how heart sounds are produced, and enabled clinicians to 
diagnose the various forms of heart disease. Duhamel, in 
1740, Sir Astley Cooper in 1820, Syme in 1831, and more 
recently Ollier and others, have conducted experiments on 
living animals to show the processes by which wounds are 
healed and injured parts restored, and especially how frac- 
tured bones are united, the practical results of which are 
inestimable. The surgery of the old days has been robbed 
of its horrors through the results of vivisection. The 
“ fearful fear of hemorrhage ” that the old surgeons felt is 
now groundless, through the experiments made in ligatur- 
ing the arteries of animals. By this simple process the 
boiling oil, the vitriol and caustics, the hot searing irons 
and receptacles for blood are no longer seen at an operating 
table where the surgeon is willing to avail himself of the 
‘benefits derived from vivisection. It was by such experi- 
ments the Esmarch, a bandage applied to a limb about 
to be amputated, to prevent the flow of blood, came into 
use. This inaugurated bloodless surgery. The prin- 
ciples of antisepticism were studied on animals, and with 
the introduction of aseptic methods all dread of pyaemia, 
fever, tetanus, and secondary hemorrhage have disap- 
peared. Inflammation is no longer a formula, “redness, 
swelling, heat, and pain,” since by the experiments of Ber- 
nard, Virchow, and Cohnheim, and later by Redfern and 
Von Recklinghausen on the blood-cells in the leg of a frog 
and the eye of a rabbit, its secret has been pierced, and 
following it new knowledge of abscesses, ulceration, gan- 
grene, and clots. The present abdominal surgery had its 
origin in vivisection. In the American Civil War, out of 
3717 cases of wounded intestines, 3273 ended fatally. A 
series of experiments was conducted in Chicago, in which 
thirty-seven dogs were etherized and shot, when the feasi- 
bility of opening the abdomen was proved. The percentage 
of fatal cases after such injuries at present is twelve; before 
this experiment it was eighty-eight; that is, the position is 
exactly reversed, and if they had been performed before 
the Civil War 3273 soldiers instead of 446 would now be 
living, and their injuries would not even be considered 
grave enough to entitle them to a pension. Sir Spencer 33 
Wells, by operating on dogs, introduced the practice of 
suturinj; the peritoneum, and reduced the percentage of 
fatal cases from thirty-four to eleven. Out of 1.000 cases 
of his, 769 were saved, and 17,800 years added to the 
sum of human life. Martin, of Berlin, in the same 
manner proved the possihility of ovariotomy, and performed 
this operation, which a few years ago used to he denounced 
as murderous, in 130 cases, with only one fatal result. By 
these observations on the openin'; and suturing of the peri- 
toneum of animals, and the treatment of the pedicle by 
ligature, abdominal surgery is now a matter of routine. 
Another feature in modern surgery is the progress made 
in operations on the brain, and all of these are based on ex- 
perience gained by vivisection. Hitherto the brain was 
looked upon as the “ oracle of God," but Dr. Fcrrier, by his 
experiments on animals, demonstrated the location of sen- 
sory and motor functions in the cerebral* hemispheres as 
clearly as if the skull and membranes surrounding the 
brain were transparent. 
Dr. MacEwan, of Glasgow, in one year saved the life of 
ninety patients by following Ferrier's methods. 
In one year Dr. Echeverria collected 165 cases of epi- 
lepsy, of which seventy-five were cured by following the 
principles of localization laid down by Ferrier; yet for 
these experiments the eminent doctor was haled before the 
magistrates as if he were :rburglar ora swindler. 
Thousands of patients died from malignant affections 
of the kidney till Simon, at Heidelberg, demonstrated 
on animals the possibility of its extirpation, and the 
performance of the excretory function by a single organ. 
It was by an experiment of this kind, inoculating the udder 
of a cow to produce a vaccine pustule, that Jenner was aided 
in his great discovery of a preventive of small-pox. 
By the experiments of Gerlach it has been shown that 
tuberculosis in cows can be communicated to healthy ani- 
mals, such as man, fed upon their milk,— that the disease 
may be induced by tubercular matter being inhaled or 
taken into the stomach.—facts of importance in relation to 
the prevention of the disease. By the sacrifice of a few 
dogs and rabbits information is obtained which may have, 
and as a matter of fact has had, an important bearing upon 
the safety of the human race. 
But the most brilliant vindication of vivisection is now 
under our eyes, — the results that have attended Dr. Koch's 
experiments upon animals, by which tuberculosis, that dis- 
ease which carries otf twelve out of every hundred human 
beings, is likely to be stayed. These results were arrived 
at by making on a few mice experiments which men for 
generations have in blind ignorance been making on them- 
selves. Cholera has already been referred to. and since 
1884 Freire, in Brazil, has been working to obtain a specific 
against yellow fever along vivisectional lines, and is only 34 
waiting for an epidemic to put his results at the service of 
mankind. Rev. R. M. Luther, a missionary in India, by 
vivisection obtained an antidote successful in sixty cases 
out of a hundred of bite by the brown viper, and with it 
saved the life of a fellow worker, who was afterwards in- 
strumental in inducing 2,000 natives to embrace Christian- 
ity. Dr. Wood, by “baking alive” at 120° a few dogs, 
explained the treatment of sunstroke. The only gleam of 
hope that has ever come to a patient affected with those 
terrible maladies, diseases of the kidneys, has been through 
Bernard's experiments on the formation of glycogen in the 
liver, and until the mystery is cleared up by the death of 
more animals, the treatment of these diseases must remain 
a matter of empiricism. Whatever of good Pasteur lias 
conferred on mankind he has accomplished by vivisectional 
methods, and yet the results are out of all proportion to 
the pain inflicted. There is a danger of becoming techni- 
cal in pointing out that through observations made 
upon the tadpole by Arnold it was found out that blood- 
vessels are formed by the hollowing of protoplasmic cells, 
and to enter upon a discussion of what embryology owes 
to vivisection would take one far beyond the present limits 
and the needs of this discussion. The modern method of 
pharmacology is based on vivisection. Instead of “experi- 
menting ” on patients, the effect of a new drug is tested 
upon such plants as the algae ami fungi, and then upon the 
frog, rabbit, or dog. Its mode of action is exactly ascer- 
tained, and the physician knows what organs and structures 
will be affected, how they will be influenced, and the 
changes which will be produced by the progress of a 
disease. Even if the charge were true that vivisection had 
never added a drug to the pharmacopoeia, it would prove 
nothing, for it is the work of the vivisectionist to test the 
effects of existing drugs and define their uses. A few 
instances will suffice. If nothing were ever learned by 
vivisection but the action of digitalis upon the heart, the 
pain caused would be abundantly justified. Bromide of 
ethyl was brought forward as an efficient anaesthetic, but 
a vivisectionist, by the death of a few dogs, prevented a 
series of those dreaded accidents, — death on the operating 
table, — which would have followed its use. By operations 
on animals Bernard discovered the hypodermic use of 
drugs, and Magendie of strychnine. Traube explained the 
real nature and use of digitalis, and Maure of saline purga- 
tives. Luchsinger, following up the clue obtained from 
experiments on dogs, demonstrated the value of strychnine 
as a preventive of night sweats in consumptive persons, 
and by the same means nitrite of amyl was shown to allay 
the agony of angina pectoris, and pepsin to be of value in 
dyspepsia. In the same way jequirity was introduced in 
ophthalmic surgery, nitrite of amyl in epilepsy, salicylic 
acid in rheumatism, jaborandi in dropsy, iodoform as an 35 
antiseptic, and tlie bromides, chloral, and paraldehyde as 
analgesics. All the new drugs, — antipyrine, exalgine, and 
antifebrine, — that have cooled so many fevers and alleviated 
so much suffering, were all tested and their effects proved 
on animals. Who would have dared to use cocaine on the 
human eye, like all amesthetics “God’s best gift to his 
suffering children,” with all the risk of inflammation, if its 
effects had not first been ascertained on animals? But this 
charge is not true, for Dr. Lauder Bruntou has shown that 
between 1864 and 1807 seven drugs were added to the 
pharmacopoeia, and from 1867 to 1874 eleven were added. 
Commercially, vivisection has been of the greatest 
practical importance. Dr. George Fleming, in his work 
on veterinary science, makes some estimate of the results. 
In one district in France sheep to the value of £213,600 
died in one year of anthrax, and in Russia 100.000 horses 
died annually till Braueil, followed by Delafond, Davain, 
Chauveau, Toussait, and Pasteur, perfected the knowledge 
of the poison and showed the means by which its energy 
may be abated. The desolating scourge of the cattle 
plague was stayed, and the silkworm disease was brought 
under complete control by Pasteur. Smallpox of sheep, 
the swine plague, and distemper of dogs and chicken 
cholera, can be prevented by inoculation. The exact 
method of the propagation of pleuro-pneumouia in cattle 
has been made out, which is the first stage in discovering a 
remedy. The ravages of splenic fever in cattle and 
analogous diseases of horses and sheep have ceased since 
its nature and mode of prevention have been discovered by 
vivisectional methods, and hydrophobia is now robbed of 
its terrors. Glanders, a disease “as infectious as syphilis 
and as fatal as tuberculosis,” can only be diagnosed by the 
method of inoculating animals. 
Another use vivisectional experiments have been put to 
is in the detection of murderers who have resorted to 
poison. The notorious Lamson, who was executed in 
England in 1883, may be mentioned, lie used aconite to 
kill his victim, and the presence of the drug was only 
proved by its effects on small animals. If it were not for 
this man's secret, poisoners might enjoy all the immunity 
that was formerly obtained in the days of the Borgias. 
The testimony of physicians is valuable. 
The International Medical Congress, held at London in 
1881, attended by three thousand physicians, resolved 
unanimously “that experiments on animals are indispensable 
to the future progress of medicine.” Before the British 
Medical Congress, in 1881, Professor Humphry declared 
that “almost every advance in our knowledge of the 
working of the human body has been made through 
vivisection.” 
In the United States, resolutions affirming the value of 
experiments upon animals, and deprecating legislative 36 
interference, were adopted by seven medical schools, by the 
New York Medical Society, and by sixteen organizations 
in various localities. 
Three of the leading American universities have been 
quoted in support of the practice, and to the number is to 
be added Harvard Medical School, a believer in the experi- 
mental method. 
But, after all, there are a number of experiments, a small 
number, which necessarily involve pain to animals, and in 
their defence it is only necessary to fall back upon.the 
original position that the pain is justifiable for the sake of 
the good that is accomplished. These are the ones neces- 
sary to demonstrate the effects of drugs, of poisons like 
that of cholera, and such as were performed by Chossat, in 
which the animal must be deprived of food; but the ex- 
periments which cause pain become fewer and fewer as 
physiology advances, until all that remains to be studied is 
pain itself, and the physiologist can study that best upon 
his own body. 
Some hasty opponent has recommended vivisectors to 
practise among themselves. And so they have. The 
names of Toynbee, found dead in his laboratory, Christi- 
son, Hunter, Heinrich, Dvorak, Sell iff', need but be men- 
tioned in this connection. 
It is not a pleasant occupation spending one's days and 
nights in nauseous dissecting rooms, surrounded by dead 
and dying animals. Physiologists have found themselves 
ostracized and vilified, and their practice ruined for it when 
they had any, but the misrepresentation which they have 
suffered has not stayed their hand from working for 
science and humanity. lake the good Samaritan of the 
parable, they subjugate feeling to judgment, and do not 
pass by on tiie other side with pity or scorn. 
The provision that vivisection should not be practised 
unless there is a probability of beneficent results must not be 
pushed too closely, for science must be untrammelled. The 
science of to-day brings us nearer to the science of the future, 
and one truth may in an unseen way be the germ of others. 
Science has only to do with the seeking of truth; utility will 
follow in its train. Who, for instance, could foresee that a 
simple physiological preparation, the leg of a frog, with its 
living but nou-sentient nerve, in the hands of Galvani, was 
to be the origin of galvanism, electricity, and allied subjects. 
If one urge that experiments may be performed on one 
class of animals and not on another, it is to be said in reply 
that no two persons could agree where to draw the line 
between the bacillus and the dog, and some might even 
include within the pale the phylloxera that formerly 
destroyed the vineyards of a nation. 
For the benefit of those who deny that utility and 
morality have any interdependence, it will be necessary to 
refer to the ethics of vivisection. If there is a moral 37 
wrong involved in experimenting on animals, then, they 
say, no considerations of utility can justify it. even if by 
the death of one animal the light would break upon the 
pestilence that stalketh only in the darkness, and that 
there may be a knowledge which man is bound to forego, 
that the alleviation of human pain is not the highest good. 
According to the same principle it were better to starve 
than to do that violence to the moral nature which is 
involved in the death of a creature. They say that 
honor should deter man from exercising the tyrant’s 
power which nature has given him, and that it is well- 
nigh impossible to deal rightly with animals when men are 
at the same time judge, accuser, witness, and culprit. 
Another class of objectors resist scientific research be- 
cause it loves what art hates — analysis, and yet another 
class because they accuse it of attempting to reduce God 
to a “ physical necessity.” To the one it may he said that 
art itself must have a basis in truth, and “ to the solid 
ground of nature trusts the mind which builds for aye,” 
and the other class of objectors is urged to remember that 
the “ kingdom of God is within.” 
Hut the greatest show of reason is with those who 
object on what they call “moral grounds.” Arguments 
have been urged against them by Virchow, who held that 
an animal was a man's “honestly bought chattel,” and by 
Dr. Carpenter, who affirmed that “moral duties exist only 
towards those possessing moral responsibility,” but these 
do not meet the case. As reasoning beings we can only he 
reasonable when we deal with the facts around us as we 
find them. It would he easy to conjure up Swift's land of the 
“ houyhnlmms,” \\ here the relations between men and lx asts 
were reversed, but with this condition we have not to do; 
there is no brotherhood between man and beasts. Without 
insisting too strongly on the fiat which went forth in the 
world's first springtime, “ Let man have dominion over the 
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the 
cattle, and over all the earth,” it is undeniably one of the 
principles of creation that animals are subordinate to man 
for his use in the progress of life. Nature has ordained it, 
and Nature is not without pain to living beings whilst they 
dwell in this world, or whilst they come into or leave it. 
“The whole creation groaueth and travaileth in pain.” 
Man has to live; like the Apostle he is enjoined to “ Wise,kill, 
and eat.” Man's duties towards inferior creatures must 
take in man's nature, which he cannot -discard. Therefore 
his relations towards animals can only in a qualified sense 
be regarded as ethical, and the divine injunction cannot ap- 
ply : “ Do unto others even as ye would that they should 
do unto you." It would involve one in a tiresome discussion 
to include a consideration of sacrifice. vicarious and by com- 
pulsion; but it might be noted that the Great Teacher ad- 
mitted that mankind was of more value than many sparrows. 38 
If vivisection is productive of good to humanity, it re- 
mains to be considered under what restriction it should be 
practised. Vivisection and cruelty are in no way bound up 
together, and even if in some countries it appears that im- 
proper methods are used, it does not follow that the practice 
should everywhere be restricted. Because exiles are badly 
treated in Russia, it does not follow that no criminals should 
be sent to Siberia, or that lawbreakers should go unpun- 
ished. The only country where restrictive legislation is in 
force is England, though the attempt was made in Germany, 
Sweden, Denmark, and the United States. The first attempt 
was made in 1875, by Lord Hartismere's bill, but it never 
came into force. Then a Royal Commission was appointed, 
composed of Lord Cardwell, Lord Winmarleigh, Hon. W. E. 
Forster, Sir John Karslake, Professor Huxley, Mr. Erichsen, 
and Mr. Hutton, to inquire into the “ practice of subjecting 
live animals to experiment for scientific purposes.” They 
examined every person in England likely to throw any light 
on the question. The evidence is contained in a bulky blue- 
book, and in that report it is stated: “ The imputation of 
cruelty, which has always been indignantly repudiated, has 
not been substantiated by a single authentic instance. In 
their evidence given before the Royal Commission, the So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals state, 
through their secretary, that “ they do not know a single 
case of wanton cruelty.” The report also recommended 
“that no ban be placed upon vivisection.” 
The Belgian Special Commission's report, published last 
July, practically substantiates this position. In addition, 
nearly all the physiologists in Great Britain sent a memo- 
rial to the House of Commons deprecating any legislative 
interference. Notwithstanding the failure of a Royal Com- 
mission to obtain evidence of the abuse of physiological 
vivisection in Great Britain, the legislature was induced to 
pass a prohibitory enactment, which has been so worked as 
almost to prevent experimental research on live animals in 
England ever since. 
Lord Carnarvon's bill prescribed:— 
1. That experiments must be performed with a view only 
to the advancement by new discovery of knowledge which 
will be useful for saving or prolonging human life or allevi- 
ating human suffering. 
2. That they must be performed in a registered place. 
3. By a person holding a license. 
4. The animal must, during the whole experiment, be 
under the complete influence of some anaesthetic. 
5. It must be killed before it recovers consciousness. 
6. Experiments must not be performed for demonstration. 
7. They may be performed for the purpose of acquiring 
manual skill. 
In 1883 Mr. Reid introduced another bill, but it never came 
to a discussion. The effect of this mischievous ami meddling legislation 
was disastrous to English physiology, and compelled those 
who practis(*d vivisection to flee to France and Germany, 
and to draw upon the I'nited States for their medical knowl- 
edge. Mr. Lister found the working of the Act “ so 
vexatious as to he practically prohibitory,” and went to 
Toulouse to carry on his investigations. Dr. Greenfield, 
pathologist, of Edinburgh University, regarded it as "al- 
most hopeless to attempt any useful work in this country,” 
and cites cases where patients died in consequence. Professor 
Fraser experienced the “mortification of being refused a 
license to investigate the poison used by natives of Borneo 
for their arrows.” Professor Foster considered the “ legisla- 
tive action has crippled physiological research in England. 
We are asked to make bricks when they have taken away 
the straw.” Sir dames Paget thought it intolerable that he 
might pay a rat-catcher to poison the animals about his 
place, and not he permitted to use them for the good of 
mankind, or that he should have to appeal to a government 
official for leave to prick a mouse. Speaking of the Congress 
of 1881, in which Virchow declared the charge of cruelty 
was a subterfuge, Professor Foster said: “ One good fruit 
of the present Congress is that our foreign brethren, seeing 
our straits, will go home determined to resist to the utmost 
all attempts to put the physiological inquirer into chains.” 
Dr. Lauder Brunton was engaged in England in experiment- 
ing with the poison of venomous serpents, when restrictive 
legislation was introduced and put an end to them. But 
the government that introduced the legislation supplied 
Dr. Weir Mitchell and Dr. Reichert, who lived in a more 
reasonable country, with the snakes, and they succeeded in 
isolating the poison. This was necessary before discovering 
an antidote to a poison which annually carries off- 20,000 
victims. Mr. Horsley, in the British Medical Journal, pro- 
tests against the difficulty of obtaining a license, and Dr. 
Wyatt Johnston observed that the incubation period of 
disease should be lengthened, since it usually developed 
before a license could be procured. Scientific men are 
averse to be licensed like publicans or prostitutes. They 
refuse to work in an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion, 
even upon subjects not prescribed by law, and object to 
having their laboratories searched by detectives as if they 
were smugglers' dens. Notwithstanding the existence of 
a law which limited tin* number of persons performing 
experiments to twenty-six in England, Scotland, and 
Ireland, and under which the government inspectors con- 
tinually spoke of the cruelty practised as “ insignificant,” 
“inappreciable," “equal to that caused by vaccination,” 
the opponents of vivisection were not satisfied, and in 1883 
used every endeavor to have the practice totally prohibited. 
This legislation, so sweeping in its provisions and so drastic 
in its results, one would think left to the votaries of the sup- 
39 40 
pression of vivisection very little to desire. One of the fore- 
most of them, Mr. Colam, acknowledged that after employ- 
ing the “ surveillance of detectives, he could “ not accuse 
the physiologists of cruelty.*’ But after all. Frances Power 
Cobbe, the chief scribe of the anti-vivisectionists, was led 
to exclaim that “ anti-vivisectionists recognized that their 
work must take the sha/ie of an ethical and religions agitation:' 
The law hampered and harassed the vivisectionists for a 
time, till they were able to take up their work in other 
countries, but the total amount of pain inflicted was not 
diminished by one iota. Fortunately for humanity, there 
were centres where researches could still be carried out, but 
the results have not gone to-further the credit of English 
physiological work, being arrived at under the :egis of 
foreign schools. The public is of the sibility of 
a physician, but by a senseless agitation it forbade the means 
of acquiring knowledge. Vet it has not been slow to avail 
itself of the advantages derived from physiological research, 
and would stand aghast if medical men were to cast aside 
what has been gained by the method of vi\isectiou, and 
return to the days when quacks flourished and vended their 
vaunted nostrums, their charms and cure-alls. But the 
indications are that English physiologists will not long- 
remain under the burden, and it is fairly ceitain that a 
similar restriction will never again he placed upon scientific 
men. The medical journals are no longer shy of the practice, 
and adopt no line of excuse, but treat the objections with 
aggressive scorn, confident that they are based upon 
assumption and illogical reasoning. 
In the United States there is really no restriction placed 
upon vivisection and the discussion of the question has been 
meagre. Professor Dalton makes the general statement: 
“ The exhibition of pain in an experimental laboratory is an 
exceptional occurrence. As a rule all the cutting opera- 
tions are performed under the influence of ether** (not ol 
curare, which dulls the motor but not the sensory nerves). 
Dr. Lettingwell, by quotations from the physiological 
treatises of Professor's Dalton and Flint, shows that there 
are only seven cases in which amesthetics are not always 
emploved, and in them there is reason to believe the pain 
inflicted is either brief or not very severe, and that there is 
also reason for belief that there is an annual decrease in the 
number of such demonstrations! The charge of Kay Ean- 
kesteristhus disproved, “ that the number of experiments 
must increase in geometric ratio as physiology advances. 
Prof. ]I. C. Wood writes: “ So far as concerns the medical 
schools of Philadelphia, vivisection withont amesthetics is not 
practised to any extent, it at all. for class demonstrations. 
In 1867 an Act was passed by the State ol New 1 ork 
“for the more effectual prevention of cruelty to animals. 
It declared it a misdemeanor to “ unnecessarily or needlessly 
mutilate or kill any living creature," but nothing in the Act 41 
was to Ik* construed »• to prohibit or interfere with any 
properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations 
performed only under the authority of some regularly incor- 
porated medical college or university of tile State of New 
York.” This law was so vague, its provisions did not inter- 
fere w ith vivisection any more than the Blue Laws prevent 
reasonable recreation on Sunday. 
At the session of 1881. Mr. lienry Bergh introduced into 
the New York Legislature a bill providing “that 
every person w ho shall perform or cause to be performed 
or assist in performing upon any living animal an act of 
vivisection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,” and “the, 
term vivisection used in this Act shall include every investi- 
gation. experiment, or demonstration producing pain or dis- 
ease in any living animal, including the cutting, wounding, 
or poisoning thereof." The attempt was renewed in 1882, 
and again in 1888, but since that time nothing has been 
heard of the bill, and vivisection in America is practically 
untrammelled, a fact the English (Jovernment has not been 
slow to take advantage of to evade the provisions of its own 
law s. From this it appears that vivisection can be practised 
in a civilized country extensively and carefully, without 
cruelty or unreasonable pain and without legislative inter- 
ference. Indeed, tin* physiologists and legislators of the 
I nitial States have proved the case for unrestricted vivisec- 
tion. As the celebrated Owen said, “ The Legislature of the 
I'nited States of America, assailed by well-meaning ignor- 
ance, has refused to pass a law which would cast an 
unproven and unmerited stigma on scientific men.” 
If anti-vivisectionists claim that legislation has not dimin- 
ished the practice as a whole, then their labor has been in 
vain; if they claim that it has, then they have committed a 
wrong against humanity, in the light of the benefits vivi- 
section has bestowed. But it is impossible to apply these 
principles by any other than moral force, and the great 
work tin* opponents of vivisection have wrought is that they 
have stimulated and rendered sensitive the moral sense of 
operators, which deters them from unnecessary cruelty. 
l>r. I'ye-Smith. in his address before the British Associa- 
tion in 18711, laid dow n the lines on which auti-vivisectional 
legislation is at all permissible. “ The only restriction w hich 
Christian morality imposes upon such practices is that no 
more pain shall lie inflicted than is necessary for the object 
in view . Any one w ho w ould inflict a single pang beyond 
w hat is necessary for a scientific object, or would by care- 
lessness fail to take due care of the animals he has to deal 
with, would be justly liable to public reprobation. This 
means that the physiological laboratories should be licensed 
like dissecting rooms under the Anatomy Act in England; 
and licenses given only to persons of adequate knowledge 
and known character, and that then the experts should be 
left to follow their own methods." 42 
Upon the question of the restriction of vivisection. Pro- 
fessor Dalton says categorically: “I think investigators 
and teachers should be the sole judges as to what is neces- 
sary in their investigations and teachings.” Dr. L. S. 
Pilcher believes it only necessary that “the public 
should be informed of the truth relating to vivisection 
in order that there should he secured to science every 
advantage and privilege which its advancement may 
need.” Professor Wesley Mills, the leading physiologist 
in Canada, declares openly that a scientist can be the 
only judge of the rights and obligations of his own 
profession. Dr. Osier, iiis predecessor, now of Johns Hop- 
kins, was of a similar mind. In Dr. Yeo's table it is admitted 
that only one experiment in a hundred is painful. Legisla- 
tion aims to deal with this one case, and in doing so sup- 
presses the other ninety-nine as well, and the way to ensure 
that not more than one case in a hundred shall he painful 
and yet science go untrammelled, is not by legislative enact- 
ments based on sentiment and insufficient knowledge, but, 
as Frances Power Cobbe, its most ardent opponent, admits, 
“ by an ethical and moral agitation,” by a more refined 
morality on the part of the operators and the community in 
which they live, brought about by the methods of (“tides 
and religion. The action of the societies for the prevention 
of cruelty to animals, by countenancing the enthusiasts who 
would suppress vivisection, has alienated the support of 
physicians whose position and relations would be invaluable 
in furthering tin* general aims of the societies. 
It does not appear either that restrictive legislation has 
lessened the sum total of cruelty, or that physiologists have 
altered their methods under its compulsion. It will always 
be ineffective, because there will continue to be communities 
not overpow ered with “ genuine British narrowness,” w here 
biologists can labor unimpeded in the cause of truth, science, 
and humanity. 
The extent to which legislators should interfere with 
vivisection is very limited, unless they choose to incur the 
responsibility Darwin speaks of, that “ he who retards the 
progress of physiology commits a crime against mankind.” 
I hysiologists assent themselves to the principles laid down 
by Sir Thomas Watson: that experiments must not be 
performed at random to see what will happen; that they 
must have some object in view, a question to settle or a 
doubt to remove, and with a reasonable hope of resulting 
benefit; that operators have the skill, judgment, and intelli- 
gence and previous knowledge to make experiments suc- 
cessful and instructive; that they guard against everything 
that would enhance pain and do nothing out of mere 
curiosity. 
Looking at the w hole question from the distance of a few 
years, and in the light of the results that have been attained 
since then, it is clear that the outcry against vivisection has been the result of a popular delusion that cruelty and vivi- 
section were synonymous, that the experiments were useless 
and unnecessary, and that the same knowledge might have 
been gained in some other way. 
But the present exposition of facts shows that vivisection 
is not of necessity cruel, and that — 
1. It has tended to correct and extend our knowledge of 
the functions of the human body. 
1. It lias aided in obtaining exact knowledge of tin* pro- 
cesses of disease. 
3. It has tested the remedies by which diseases are to be 
controlled. 
4. By it the means have been ascertained of checking 
contagion and preventing epidemics both in man ami 
beasts. 
5. Poison can be detected. 
(!. All this information could have been obtained in no 
other way. 
7. There is no moral wrong involved in the operations 
either to animals, to operators, or spectators. 
While physiologists and physicians know it as a fact that 
the road to a more perfect medical science lies through 
experiment, it may be painful experiment, they can afford 
to resist theclamor of those whom they would serve, believ- 
ing, by the added experience of two centuries, with Harvey 
of immortal name, who in speaking of this same subject 
declared that skill and knowledge could be arrived at “ non 
e.<- fibrin md <•.»• disnertionibits 
43 
u Dear friends, kind women, sweet with all of innocence 
and truth, 
Bright, laughing maidens, flitting by in happiness and 
youth, 
Gay children, (/race and bearded men, we pray you all 
give ear; 
Dear friends, kind friends, we turn to you for sympathy 
and cheer. 
I Uphold us in our noble work, nor let us speak in vain 
For those too helpless to protest, too patient to complain; 
Be pitiful, be generous to help us in our need, 
And He who notes the sparrow's fall shall surely bless the 
deed." OUR DUMB ANIMALS. 
Monthly Organ of the A merican Humane Education 
Society and The Massachusetts Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to A nitnals. 
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