Omitting entirely any consideration of the ethics of vivisection, the
only points to which in the present article the attention of the
reader is invited are those in which scientific inquirers may be
supposed to have a common interest.
I. One danger to which scientific truth seems to be exposed is a
peculiar tendency to underestimate the numberless uncertainties
and contradictions created by experimentation upon living beings.
Judging from the enthusiasm of its advocates, one would think that
by this method of interrogating nature all fallacies can be
detected, all doubts determined. But, on the contrary, the result of
experimentation, in many directions, is to plunge the observer into
the abyss of uncertainty. Take, for example, one of the simplest and
yet most important questions possible,--the degree of sensibility in
the lower animals. Has an infinite number of experiments enabled
physiologists to determine for us the mere question of pain? Suppose
an amateur experimenter in London, desirous of performing some severe
operations upon frogs, to hesitate because of the extreme painfulness
of his methods, what replies would he be likely to obtain from the
highest scientific authorities of England as to the sensibility of
these creatures? We may fairly judge their probable answers to such
inquiries from their evidence already given before a royal
commission.[A]
[A] The contradictory opinions ascribed to most of the
authorities quoted in this article are taken directly from
the "Report of the Royal Commission on the Practice of
Subjecting Live Animals to Experiments for Scientific
Purposes,"--a Blue-Book Parliamentary Report.
Dr. Carpenter would doubtless repeat his opinion that "frogs have
extremely little perception of pain;" and in the evidence of that
experienced physiologist George Henry Lewes, he would find the
cheerful assurance, "I do not believe that frogs suffer pain at all."
Our friend applies, let us suppose, to Dr. Klein, of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, who despises the sentimentality which regards animal
suffering as of the least consequence; and this enthusiastic
vivisector informs him that, in his English experience, the experiment
which caused the greatest pain without anaesthetics was the
cauterization of the cornea of a frog. Somewhat confused at finding
that a most painful experiment can be performed upon an animal that
does not suffer he relates this to Dr. Swaine Taylor, of Guy's
Hospital, who does not think that Klein's experiment would cause
severe suffering; but of another--placing a frog in cold water and
raising the temperature to about 100 deg.--"that," says Doctor Taylor,
"would be a cruel experiment: I cannot see what purpose it can
answer." Before leaving Guy's Hospital, our inquiring friend meets Dr.
Pavy, one of the most celebrated physiologists in England, who tells
him that in this experiment, stigmatized by his colleague as "cruel,"
the frog would in reality suffer very little; that if we ourselves
were treated to a bath gradually raised from a medium temperature to
the boiling point, "I think we should not feel any pain;" that were we
plunged at once into boiling water, "even then," says the enthusiastic
and scientific Dr. Pavy, "I do not think pain would be experienced!"
Our friend goes then to Dr. Sibson, of St. Mary's Hospital, who as a
physiologist of many years' standing, sees no objection to freezing,
starving, or baking animals alive; but he declares of boiling a frog,
"That is a horrible idea, and I certainly am not going to defend it."
Perplexed more than ever, he goes to Dr. Lister, of King's College,
and is astonished upon being told "that the mere holding of a frog
in your warm hand is about as painful as any experiment probably
that you would perform." Finally, one of the strongest advocates of
vivisections, Dr. Anthony, pupil of Sir Charles Bell, would exclaim,
if a mere exposition of the lungs of the frog were referred to,
"Fond as I am of physiology, I would not do that for the world!"
Now, what has our inquirer learned by his appeal to science? Has
he gained any clear and absolute knowledge? Hardly two of the
experimenters named agree upon one simple yet most important
preliminary of research--_the sensibility to pain of a single species
of animals_.
Let us interrogate scientific opinion a little further on this
question of sensibility. Is there any difference in animals as
regards susceptibility to pain? Dr. Anthony says that we may take
the amount of intelligence in animals as a fair measure of their
sensibility--that the pain one would suffer would be in proportion
to its intelligence. Dr. Rutherford, Edinburgh, never performs an
experiment upon a cat or a spaniel if he can help it, because they are
so exceedingly sensitive; and Dr. Horatio Wood, of Philadelphia, tells
us that the nervous system of a cat is far more sensitive than that of
the rabbit. On the other hand, Dr. Lister, of King's College, is not
aware of any such difference in sensibility in animals, and Dr.
Brunton, of St. Bartholomew's, finds cats such very good animals to
operate with that he on one occasion used ninety in making a single
experiment.
Sir William Gull thinks "there are but few experiments performed on
living creatures where sensation is not removed," yet Dr. Rutherford
admits "about half" his experiments to have been made upon animals
sensitive to pain. Professor Rolleston, of Oxford University, tells
us "the whole question of anaesthetizing animals has an element of
uncertainty"; and Professor Rutherford declares it "impossible to say"
whether even artificial respiration is painful or not, "unless the
animal can speak." Dr. Brunton, of St. Bartholomew's, says of that
most painful experiment, poisoning by strychnine, that it cannot be
efficiently shown if the animal be under chloroform. Dr. Davy, of
Guy's, on the contrary, always gives chloroform, and finds it no
impediment to successful demonstration, Is opium an anaesthetic? Claude
Bernard declares that sensibility exists even though the animal be
motionless: "_Il sent la douleur, mais il a, pour ainsi dire, perdu
l'idee de la defense._"[A] But Dr. Brunton, of St. Bartholomew's
hospital, London, has no hesitation whatever in contradicting this
statement "emphatically, however high an authority it may be."
Curare, a poison invented by South American Indians for their arrows,
is much used in physiological laboratories to paralyze the motor
nerves, rendering an animal absolutely incapable of the slightest
disturbing movement. Does it at the same time destroy sensation, or
is the creature conscious of every pang? Claude Bernard, of Paris,
Sharpey, of London, and Flint, of New York[B] all agree that sensation
is _not_ abolished; on the other hand, Rutherford regards curare as a
partial anaesthetic, and Huxley strongly intimates that Bernard in thus
deciding from experiments that it does not affect the cerebral
hemispheres or consciousness, "_jumped at a conclusion_ for which
neither he nor anybody else had any scientific justification." This
is extraordinary language for one experimentalist to use regarding
others! If it is possible that such men as Claude Bernard and
Professor Flint have "jumped at" one utterly unscientific conclusion,
notwithstanding the most painstaking of vivisections, what security
have we that other of our theories in physiology now regarded as
absolutely established may not be one day as severely ridiculed by
succeeding investigators? Is it, after all, true, that the absolute
certainty of our most important deductions must remain forever hidden
"unless the animal can speak"?
[A] "He feels the pain, but has lost, so to speak, the idea
of self defense." Lecons de Physiologie operatoire, 1879, p.
115.
[B] Text-Book of Human Physiology, p. 595.
II. Between advocating State supervision of painful vivisection, and
proposing with Mr. Bergh the total suppression of all experiments,
painful or otherwise, there is manifestly a very wide distinction.
Unfortunately, the suggestion of any interference whatever invariably
rouses the anger of those most interested--an indignation as
unreasonable, to say the least, as that of the merchant who refuses a
receipt for money just paid to him, on the ground that a request for a
written acknowledgement is a reflection upon his honesty. I cannot see
how otherwise than by State supervision we are to reach abuses which
confessedly exist. Can we trust the sensitiveness and conscience
of every experimenter? Nobody claims this. One of the leading
physiologists in this country, Dr. John C. Dalton, admits "that
vivisection may be, and has been, abused by reckless, unfeeling, or
unskillful persons;" that he himself has witnessed abroad, in a
veterinary institution, operations than which "nothing could be more
shocking." And yet the unspeakable atrocities at Alfort, to which,
apparently, Dr. Dalton alludes, were defended upon the very ground he
occupies to-day in advocating experiments of the modern laboratory and
classroom; for the Academie des Sciences decided that there was "no
occasion to take any notice of complaints; that in the future, as in
the past, vivisectional experiments must be left entirely to the
judgment of scientific men." What seemed "atrocious" to the more
tender-hearted Anglo-Saxon was pronounced entirely justifiable by the
French Academy of Science.
A curious question suggests itself in connection with this point.
There can be little doubt, I think, that the sentiment of compassion
and of sympathy with suffering is more generally diffused among all
classes of Great Britain than elsewhere in Europe; and one cannot help
wondering what our place might be, were it possible to institute any
reliable comparison of national humanity. Should we be found in all
respects as sensitive as the English people? Would indignation and
protest be as quickly and spontaneously evoked among us by a cruel
act? The question may appear an ungracious one, yet it seems to me
there exists some reason why it should be plainly asked. There is a
certain experiment--one of the most excruciating that can be
performed--which consists in exposing the spinal cord of the dog for
the purpose of demonstrating the functions of the spinal nerves. It is
one, by the way, which Dr. Wilder forgot to enumerate in his summary
of the "four kinds of experiments," since it is not the "cutting
operation" which forms its chief peculiarity or to which special
objection would be made. At present all this preliminary process is
generally performed under anaesthetics: it is an hour or two later,
when the animal has partly recovered from the severe shock of the
operation, that the wound is reopened and the experiment begins. It
was during a class demonstration of this kind by Magendie, before
the introduction of ether, that the circumstance occurred which one
hesitates to think possible in a person retaining a single spark of
humanity or pity. "I recall to mind," says Dr. Latour, who was present
at the time, "a poor dog, the roots of whose vertebral nerves Magendie
desired to lay bare to demonstrate Bell's theory, which he claimed as
his own. The dog, mutilated and bleeding twice escaped from under the
implacable knife, and threw its front paws around Magendie's neck,
licking, as if to soften his murderer and ask for mercy! I confess I
was unable to endure that heartrending spectacle."
It was probably in reference to this experiment that Sir Charles Bell,
the greatest English physiologist of our century, writing to his
brother in 1822, informs him that he hesitates to go on with his
investigations. "You may think me silly," he adds, "but I cannot
perfectly convince myself that I am authorized in nature or religion
to do these cruelties." Now, what do English physiologists and
vivisectors of the present day think of the repetition of this
experiment solely as a class demonstration?
They have candidly expressed their opinions before a royal commission.
Dr. David Ferrier, of King's college, noted for his experiments upon
the brain of monkeys, affirms his belief that "students would rebel"
at the sight of a painful experiment. Dr. Rutherford, who certainly
dared do all that may become a physiologist, confesses mournfully,
"_I dare not_ show an experiment upon a dog or rabbit before students,
when the animal is not anaesthetized." Dr. Pavy, of Guy's Hospital,
asserts that a painful experiment introduced before a class "would not
be tolerated for a moment." Sir William Gull, M. D., believes that the
repetition of an operation like this upon the spinal nerves would
excite the reprobation alike of teacher, pupils, and the public at
large. Michael Foster, of Cambridge University, who minutely describes
all the details of the experiment on recurrent sensibility in the
"Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory," nevertheless tells
us, "I have not performed it, and have never seen it done," partly,
as he confesses, "from horror at the pain." And finally Dr.
Burdon-Sanderson, physiologist at University College, London, states
with the utmost emphasis, in regard to the performance of this
demonstration on the spinal cord, "I am perfectly certain that no
physiologist--none of the leading men in Germany, for example--would
exhibit an experiment of that kind."
Now mark the contrast. This experiment--which we are told passes even
the callousness of Germany to repeat; which every leading champion of
vivisection in Great Britain reprobates for medical teaching; which
some of them shrink even from seeing, themselves, from horror at the
tortures necessarily inflicted; which the most ruthless among them
_dare not_ exhibit to the young men of England,--_this experiment has
been performed publicly again and again in American medical colleges_,
without exciting, so far as we know, even a whisper of protest or the
faintest murmur of remonstrance! The proof is to be found in the
published statements of the experimenter himself. In his "Text-Book
of Physiology," Professor Flint says, "Magendie showed very
satisfactorily that the posterior roots (of the spinal cord) were
exclusively sensory, and this fact has been confirmed by more recent
observations upon the higher classes of animals. We have ourselves
frequently exposed and irritated the roots of the nerves in dogs, _in
public demonstrations_ in experiments on the recurrent sensibility,
... and in another series of observations."[A]
[A] "A Text-Book of Human Physiology." By Austin Flint, Jr.
M. D. New York, 1876. Page 589; see also page 674.
This is the experience of a single professional teacher; but it is
improbable that this experiment has been shown only to the students of
a single medical college in the United States; it has doubtless been
repeated again and again in different colleges throughout the country.
If Englishmen are, then, so extremely sensitive as Ferrier, Gull, and
Burdon-Sanderson would have us believe, we must necessarily conclude
that the sentiment of compassion is far greater in Britain than in
America. Have we drifted backward in humanity? Have American students
learned to witness, without protest, tortures at the sight of which
English students would rebel? We are told that there is no need of any
public sensitiveness on this subject. We should trust entirely, as
they do in France,--at Alfort, for example,--"to the judgment of the
investigator." There must be no lifting of the veil to the outside
multitude; for the priests of this unpitying science there must be as
absolute immunity from criticism or inquiry as was ever demanded
before the shrine of Delphi or the altars of Baal. "Let them exercise
their solemn office," demands Dr. Wilder, "not only unrestrained by
law, but upheld by public sentiment."
For myself, I cannot believe this position is tenable. Nothing seems
to me more certain than the results that must follow if popular
sentiment in this country shall knowingly sustain the public
demonstration of an experiments in pain, which can find no defender
among the physiologists of Great Britain. It has been my fortune to
know something of the large hospitals of Europe; and I confess I do
not know a single one in countries where painful vivisection
flourishes, unchecked by law, wherein the poor and needy sick are
treated with the sympathy, the delicacy, or even the decency, which so
universally characterize the hospitals of England. When Magendie,
operating for cataract, plunged his needle to the bottom of his
patient's eye, that he might note upon a human being the effect
produced by mechanical irritation of the retina, he demonstrated how
greatly the zeal of the enthusiast may impair the responsibility of
the physician and the sympathy of man for man.
III. The utility of vivisection in advancing therapeutics, despite
much argument, still remains an open question. No one is so foolish as
to deny the possibility of future usefulness to any discovery
whatever; but there is a distinction, very easily slurred over in the
eagerness of debate, between present applicability and remotely
potential service. If the pains inflicted on animals are absolutely
necessary to the protection of human life and the advancement of
practical skill in medicine, should sentiment be permitted to check
investigation? An English prelate, the Bishop of Peterborough,
speaking in Parliament on this subject, once told the House of Lords
that "it was very difficult to decide what was unnecessary pain," and
as an example of the perplexities which arose in his own mind he
mentioned "the case of the wretched man who was convicted of skinning
cats alive, because their skins were more valuable when taken from the
living animal than from the dead one. The extra money," added the
Bishop, "got the man a dinner!"[A] Whether in this particular case the
excuse was well received by the judge, the reverend prelate neglected
to inform us; but it is certain that the plea for painful
experimentation rests substantially on the same basis. Out of the
agonies of sentient brutes we are to pluck the secret of longer living
and the art of surer triumph over intractable disease.
[A] See Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, June 20, 1876.
But has this hope been fulfilled? Pasteur, we are told, has claimed
the discovery of a cure for hydrophobia through experiments on
animals. It may be well worth its cost if only true; but we cannot
forget that its practical value is by no means yet demonstrated. Aside
from this, has physiological experimentation during the last quarter
of a century contributed such marked improvements in therapeutic
methods that we find certain and tangible evidence thereof in the
diminishing fatality of any disease? Can one mention a single malady
which thirty years ago resisted every remedial effort, to which the
more enlightened science of to-day can offer hopes of recovery? These
seem to me perfectly legitimate and fair questions, and, fortunately,
in one respect, capable of a scientific reply. I suppose the opinion
of the late Claude Bernard, of Paris, would be generally accepted as
that of the highest scientific authority on the utility of vivisection
in "practical medicine;" but he tells us that it is hardly worth while
to make the inquiry. "Without doubt," he confessed, "_our hands are
empty to-day_, although our mouths are full of legitimate promises for
the future."
Was Claude Bernard correct in this opinion as to the "empty hands?"
If scientific evidence is worth anything, it points to the appalling
conclusion that, _notwithstanding all the researches of physiology,
the chief forms of chronic disease exhibit to-day in England a greater
fatality than thirty years ago_. In the following table I have
indicated the average annual mortality, per million inhabitants, of
certain diseases, _first_, for the period of five years from 1850 to
1854, and _secondly_, for the period twenty-five years later, from
1875 to 1879. The authority is beyond question; the facts are
collected from the report to Parliament of the Registrar-general
of England:
_Average Annual Rate of Mortality in England,
from Causes of Death, per One Million Inhabitants._
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
| During | During
NAME OF DISEASE. | Five Years, | Five Years,
| 1850-54. | 1875-79.
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
Gout, | 12 | 25
Aneurism, | 16 | 32
Diabetes, | 23 | 41
Insanity, | 29 | 57
Syphilis, | 37 | 86
Epilepsy, | 105 | 119
Bright's disease, | 32 | 182
Kidney disease, | 94 | 114
Brain disease, | 192 | 281
Liver disease, | 215 | 291
Heart disease, | 651 | 1,335
Cancer, | 302 | 492
Paralysis, | 440 | 501
Apoplexy, | 454 | 552
Tubercular diseases and diseases | |
of the Respiratory Organs, | 6,424 | 6,886
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
Mortality from above diseases: | 9,026 | 10,994
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
This is certainly a most startling exhibit, when we remember that from
only these few causes about half of _all_ the deaths in England
annually occur, and that from them result the deaths of two-thirds of
the persons, of both sexes, who reach the age of twenty years.[A] What
are the effects here discernible of Bernard's experiments upon
diabetes? of Brown-Sequard's upon epilepsy and paralysis? of Flint's
and Pavy's on diseases of the liver? of Ferrier's researches upon the
functions of the brain? Let us appeal from the heated enthusiasm of
the experimenter to the stern facts of the statistician. Why, so far
from having obtained the least mastery over those malignant forces
which seem forever to elude and baffle our art, they are actually
gaining upon us; every one of these forms of disease is more fatal
to-day in England than thirty years ago; during 1879 over sixty
thousand _more_ deaths resulted from these maladies alone than would
have occurred had the rate of mortality from them been simply that
which prevailed during the benighted period of 1850 to 1854! True,
during later years there has been a diminished mortality in England,
but it is from the lesser prevalence of zymotic diseases, which no one
to-day pretends to cure; while the organic diseases show a constant
tendency to increase. Part of this may be due to more accurate
diagnosis and clearer definition of mortality causes: but this will
not explain a phenomenon which is too evident to be overlooked.
[A] In 1879 the total mortality in England, above the age of
twenty, from _all causes_ whatsoever, was 287,093. Of these
deaths, the number occasioned by the sixteen causes above
named, was 191,706, or almost exactly two-thirds.
"It is a fact," says the Registrar-general, in his report for 1879,
"that while mortality in early life has been very notably diminished,
_the mortality of persons in middle or advanced life has been steadily
rising for a long period of years_." It is probable that the same
story would be told by the records of France, Germany, and other
European countries; it is useless, of course, to refer to America,
since in regard to statistical information we still lag behind every
country which pretends to be civilized.[A] Undoubtedly it would be a
false assumption which from these facts should deduce retrogression
in medical art or deny advance and improvement; but they certainly
indicate that the boasted superiority of modern medicine over the
skill of our fathers, due to physiological researches, is not
sustained by the only impartial authority to which science can appeal
for evidence of results.
[A] Even Japan, a country we are apt to consider as somewhat
benighted, has far better statistical information at hand
than the United States of America.
* * * * *
What then is the substance of the whole matter? It seems to me the
following conclusions are justified by the facts presented.
I. All experiments upon living animals may be divided into two general
classes; 1st those which produce pain,--slight, brief, severe or
atrociously acute and prolonged; and 2nd, those experiments which are
performed under complete anaesthesia from which either death ensues
during unconsciousness, or entire recovery may follow.
II. The majority of vivisections requisite for purposes of teaching
physiological facts _may_ be so carried on as to take life with less
pain or inconvenience to the animal than is absolutely necessary in
order to furnish meat for our tables. Those who would make it a penal
offense to submit to a class of college students the unconscious and
painless demonstration of functional activity of the heart, for
example, and yet demand for the gratification of appetite the daily
slaughter of oxen and sheep without anaesthetics, and without any
attempt to minimize the agony of terror, fear and pain--may not be
inconsistent. But it is a view the writer cannot share.
III. Prohibition of all experiments may be fairly demanded by those
who believe that the enthusiastic ardor of the scientific experimenter
or lecturer, will outweigh all considerations of good faith, provided
success or failure of his experiment depend on the consciousness of
pain. In other words, that the experimenter himself, as a rule,
_cannot be trusted to obey the law, should the law restrict_.
This also is an extreme position.
IV. Absolute liberty in the matter of painful experiments has produced
admitted abuses by physiologists of Germany, France and Italy. In
America it has led to the repetition before classes of students of
Magendie's extreme cruelties,--demonstrations which have been
condemned by every leading English physiologist.
V. In view of the dangerous impulses not unfrequently awakened by the
sight of pain intentionally inflicted, experiments of this kind should
be by legal enactment absolutely forbidden before classes of students,
especially in our Public Schools.
VI. It is not in accord with scientific accuracy to contend for
unlimited freedom of painful experimentation, on the ground of its
vast utility to humanity in the discovery of new methods for the cure
of disease. On the contrary, so far as can be discovered by a careful
study of English mortality statistics, physiological experiments upon
living animals for fifty years back have in no single instance
lessened the fatality of any disease below its average of thirty-five
years ago.
VII. Vivisection, involving the infliction of pain is, even in its
best possible aspect, a necessary evil, and ought at once to be
restricted within the narrowest limits, and placed under the
supervision of the State.