_LEGISLATION AGAINST MEDICAL DISCOVERY._[P]
[P] An open letter from President Eliot of Harvard University
to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of
Columbia.
DEAR SIR: I observe that a new bill on the subject of vivisection has
been introduced into the Senate, Bill No. 34. This bill is a slight
improvement on its predecessor, but it is still very objectionable. I
beg leave to state very briefly the objection to all such legislation.
1. To interfere with or retard the progress of medical discovery is an
inhuman thing. Within fifteen years medical research has made rapid
progress, almost exclusively through the use of the lower animals,
and what such research has done for the diagnosis and treatment of
diphtheria it can probably do in time for tuberculosis, erysipelis,
cerebro-spinal meningitis and cancer, to name only four horrible
scourges of mankind which are known to be of germ origin.
2. The human race makes use of animals without the smallest
compunctions as articles of food and as laborers. It kills them,
confines them, gelds them and interferes in all manner of ways with
their natural lives. The liberty we take with the animal creation in
using utterly insignificant numbers of them for scientific researches
is infinitesimal compared with the other liberties we take with
animals, and it is that use of animals from which the human race has
most to hope.
3. The few medical investigators can not, probably, be supervised or
inspected or controlled by any of the ordinary processes of Government
supervision. Neither can they properly be licensed, because there is no
competent supervising or licensing body. The Government may properly
license a plumber, because it can provide the proper examination
boards for plumbers; it can properly license young men to practice
medicine, because it can provide the proper examination boards for that
profession, and these boards can testify to the fitness of candidates;
but the Government cannot provide any board of officials competent to
testify to the fitness of the medical investigator.
4. The advocates of anti-vivisection laws consider themselves more
humane and merciful than the opponents of such laws. To my thinking
these unthinking advocates are really cruel to their own race. How
many cats or guinea pigs would you or I sacrifice to save the life
of our child or to win a chance of saving the life of our child? The
diphtheria-antitoxin has already saved the lives of many thousands
of human beings, yet it is produced through a moderate amount of
inconvenience and suffering inflicted on horses and through the
sacrifice of a moderate number of guinea pigs. Who are the merciful
people--the few physicians who superintend the making of the antitoxin
and make sure of its quality, or the people who cry out against the
infliction of any suffering on animals on behalf of mankind?
It is, of course, possible to legislate against an improper use of
vivisection. For instance, it should not be allowed in secondary
schools or before college classes for purposes of demonstration only;
but any attempt to interfere with the necessary processes of medical
investigation is, in my judgment, in the highest degree inexpedient,
and is fundamentally inhuman.
Yours very truly,
C. W. ELIOT.