I shall not be at all surprised if what I have written above has induced
in sympathetic readers a transport of virtuous indignation at the
expense of the medical profession. I shall not damp so creditable and
salutary a sentiment; but I must point out that the guilt is shared by
all of us. It is not in his capacity of healer and man of science that
the doctor vivisects or defends vivisection, but in his entirely vulgar
lay capacity. He is made of the same clay as the ignorant, shallow,
credulous, half-miseducated, pecuniarily anxious people who call him in
when they have tried in vain every bottle and every pill the advertizing
druggist can persuade them to buy. The real remedy for vivisection is
the remedy for all the mischief that the medical profession and all the
other professions are doing: namely, more knowledge. The juries which
send the poor Peculiars to prison, and give vivisectionists heavy
damages against humane persons who accuse them of cruelty; the
editors and councillors and student-led mobs who are striving to make
Vivisection one of the watchwords of our civilization, are not doctors:
they are the British public, all so afraid to die that they will cling
frantically to any idol which promises to cure all their diseases, and
crucify anyone who tells them that they must not only die when their
time comes, but die like gentlemen. In their paroxysms of cowardice and
selfishness they force the doctors to humor their folly and ignorance.
How complete and inconsiderate their ignorance is can only be realized
by those who have some knowledge of vital statistics, and of the
illusions which beset Public Health legislation.