_Question_. Why are you so utterly opposed to vivisection?
_Answer_. Because, as it is generally practiced, it is an unspeakable
cruelty. Because it hardens the hearts and demoralizes those who
inflict useless and terrible pains on the bound and helpless. If
these vivisectionists would give chloroform or ether to the animals
they dissect; if they would render them insensible to pain, and
if, by cutting up these animals, they could learn anything worth
knowing, no one would seriously object.
The trouble is that these doctors, these students, these professors,
these amateurs, do not give anesthetics. They insist that to render
the animal insensible does away with the value of the experiment.
They care nothing for the pain they inflict. They are so eager to
find some fact that will be of benefit to the human race, that they
are utterly careless of the agony endured.
Now, what I say is that no decent man, no gentleman, no civilized
person, would vivisect an animal without first having rendered
that animal insensible to pain. The doctor, the scientist, who
puts his knives, forceps, chisels and saws into the flesh, bones
and nerves of an animal without having used an anesthetic, is a
savage, a pitiless, heartless monster. When he says he does this
for the good of man, because he wishes to do good, he says what is
not true. No such man wants to do good; he commits the crime for
his own benefit and because he wishes to gratify an insane cruelty
or to gain a reputation among like savages.
These scientists now insist that they have done some good. They
do not tell exactly what they have done. The claim is general in
its character--not specific. If they have done good, could they
not have done just as much if they had used anesthetics? Good is
not the child of cruelty.
_Question_. Do you think that the vivisectionists do their work
without anesthetics? Do they not, as a rule, give something to
deaden pain?
_Answer_. Here is what the trouble is. Now and then one uses
chloroform, but the great majority do not. They claim that it
interferes with the value of the experiment, and, as I said before,
they object to the expense. Why should they care for what the
animals suffer? They inflict the most horrible and useless pain,
and they try the silliest experiments--experiments of no possible
use or advantage.
For instance: They flay a dog to see how long he can live without
his skin. Is this trifling experiment of any importance? Suppose
the dog can live a week or a month or a year, what then? What must
the real character of the scientific wretch be who would try an
experiment like this? Is such a man seeking the good of his fellow-
men?
So, these scientists starve animals until they slowly die; watch
them from day to day as life recedes from the extremities, and
watch them until the final surrender, to see how long the heart
will flutter without food; without water. They keep a diary of
their sufferings, of their whinings and moanings, of their insanity.
And this diary is published and read with joy and eagerness by
other scientists in like experiments. Of what possible use is it
to know how long a dog or horse can live without food?
So, they take animals, dogs and horses, cut through the flesh with
the knife, remove some of the back bone with the chisel, then divide
the spinal marrow, then touch it with red hot wires for the purpose
of finding, as they say, the connection of nerves; and the animal,
thus vivisected, is left to die.
A good man will not voluntarily inflict pain. He will see that
his horse has food, if he can procure it, and if he cannot procure
the food, he will end the sufferings of the animal in the best and
easiest way. So, the good man would rather remain in ignorance as
to how pain is transmitted than to cut open the body of a living
animal, divide the marrow and torture the nerves with red hot iron.
Of what use can it be to take a dog, tie him down and cut out one
of his kidneys to see if he can live with the other?
These horrors are perpetrated only by the cruel and the heartless
--so cruel and so heartless that they are utterly unfit to be
trusted with a human life. They innoculate animals with a virus
of disease; they put poison in their eyes until rottenness destroys
the sight; until the poor brutes become insane. They given them
a disease that resembles hydrophobia, that is accompanied by the
most frightful convulsions and spasms. They put them in ovens to
see what degree of heat it is that kills. They also try the effect
of cold; they slowly drown them; they poison them with the venom
of snakes; they force foreign substances into their blood, and, by
inoculation, into their eyes; and then watch and record their
agonies; their sufferings.
_Question_. Don't you think that some good has been accomplished,
some valuable information obtained, by vivisection?
_Answer_. I don't think any valuable information has been obtained
by the vivisection of animals without chloroform that could not
have been obtained with chloroform. And to answer the question
broadly as to whether any good has been accomplished by vivisection,
I say no.
According to the best information that I can obtain, the vivisectors
have hindered instead of helped. Lawson Tait, who stands at the
head of his profession in England, the best surgeon in Great Britain,
says that all this cutting and roasting and freezing and torturing
of animals has done harm instead of good. He says publicly that
the vivisectors have hindered the progress of surgery. He declares
that they have not only done no good, but asserts that they have
done only harm. The same views according to Doctor Tait, are
entertained by Bell, Syme and Fergusson.
Many have spoken of Darwin as though he were a vivisector. This
is not true. All that has been accomplished by these torturers of
dumb and helpless animals amounts to nothing. We have obtained
from these gentlemen Koch's cure for consumption, Pasteur's factory
of hydrophobia and Brown-Sequard's elixir of life. These three
failures, gigantic, absurd, ludicrous, are the great accomplishment
of vivisection.
Surgery has advanced, not by the heartless tormentors of animals,
but by the use of anesthetics--that is to say, chloroform, ether
and cocaine. The cruel wretches, the scientific assassins, have
accomplished nothing. Hundreds of thousands of animals have suffered
every pain that nerves can feel, and all for nothing--nothing except
to harden the heart and to make criminals of men.
They have not given anesthetics to these animals, but they have
been guilty of the last step in cruelty. They have given curare,
a drug that attacks the centers of motion, that makes it impossible
for the animal to move, so that when under its influence, no matter
what the pain may be, the animal lies still. This curare not only
destroys the power of motion, but increases the sensitiveness of
the nerves. To give this drug and then to dissect the living animal
is the extreme of cruelty. Beyond this, heartlessness cannot go.
_Question_. Do you know that you have been greatly criticized for
what you have said on this subject?
_Answer_. Yes; I have read many criticisms; but what of that. It
is impossible for the ingenuity of man to say anything in defence
of cruelty--of heartlessness. So, it is impossible for the defenders
of vivisection to show any good that has been accomplished without
the use of anesthetics. The chemist ought to be able to determine
what is and what is not poison. There is no need of torturing the
animals. So, this giving to animals diseases is of no importance
to man--not the slightest; and nothing has been discovered in
bacteriology so far that has been of use or that is of benefit.
Personally, I admit that all have the right to criticise; and my
answer to the critics is, that they do not know the facts; or,
knowing them, they are interested in preventing a knowledge of
these facts coming to the public. Vivisection should be controlled
by law. No animal should be allowed to be tortured. And to cut
up a living animal not under the influence of chloroform or ether,
should be a penitentiary offence.
A perfect reply to all the critics who insist that great good has
been done is to repeat the three names--Koch, Pasteur and Brown-
Sequard.
The foundation of civilization is not cruelty; it is justice,
generosity, mercy.
--_Evening Telegram_, New York, September 30, 1893.