THE ATTAINMENT OF LEGAL REGULATION
The awakening of a nation to the existence of a great evil is only
accomplished after years of persistent agitation. We have seen that
some of the strongest denunciations of cruelty in biological
experimentation were due to that large element in the medical
profession which refused to condone cruelty under the guise of
utility. Gradually public opinion began to be thoroughly aroused. In
the year 1864 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals offered a prize for the best essay on these questions:
"Is vivisection necessary or justifiable for purposes of giving
dexterity to the operator (as in veterinary schools)?
"Is it necessary or justifiable for the general purposes of science,
and, if so, under what limitations?"
The committee which decided the merits of the essays submitted
included some of the most distinguished scientists of England, among
them Professor Owen (better known as Sir Richard Owen), and Professor
Carpenter, physiologists of eminence and experience. The first prize
was accorded to Dr. George Fleming, the leading veterinary authority
in Great Britain for many years, and a second prize was given to
Dr. W. O. Markham, F.R.C.P., one of the physicians to St. Mary's
Hospital of London, and formerly lecturer on Physiology at St. Mary's
Hospital Medical School.
Dr. Fleming's essay was undoubtedly of great utility in calling
attention to the abuses pertaining to Continental physiological
teaching. That which makes his essay of chief value is not so much
the presentation of arguments, as the long array of unquestionable
facts for which the authorities are given. There is hardly a
physiological writer of distinction from whose works he did not quote
to illustrate the excesses he condemns.
It is Dr. Markham's essay, however, which for us, at the present
moment, has principal significance. It is the argument of a
professional physiologist, defending the right of scientific research
within limits which then seemed just and right to the entire medical
profession of the United Kingdom. Every physiologist or physician
upon that committee which examined the essays is said to have marked
with approval this presentation of their views; and Professor Owen--
probably then the most distinguished man of science in Great Britain--
appended a note significant of his especial agreement. And yet
Dr. Markham's essay is never quoted at present by any advocate of free
vivisection; even Professor Bowditch in that address to which
reference has been made left unmentioned the work of his professional
brother, one of the earliest defenders of animal experimentation.
The reader of Dr. Markham's essay will not find it difficult to
comprehend the cause of this significant silence. Although the essay
was in no way sympathetic with antivivisection, it represented the
Anglo-Saxon ideal, in marked distinction from the doctrines which then
prevailed in the laboratories of Continental Europe, and which since
have become dominant throughout the United States. Defending the
practice of vivisection as a scientific method, Dr. Markham freely
admitted the prevalence of abuses to which it was liable when carried
on without regulation or restraint. Under proper limitations it was
at present necessary that some vivisection should be allowed; but with
the advance of knowledge, he believed that this necessity would
decrease, and the practice of animal experimentation gradually tend to
disappear. Some quotations from this essay will be of interest.
"The proper and only object of all justifiable experiments on animals
is to determine unknown facts in physiology, pathology, and
therapeutics, whereby medical science may be directly or indirectly
advanced. When, therefore, any fact of this kind has been once
determined and positively acquired to science, all repetition of
experiments for its further demonstration are unnecessary, and
therefore unjustifiable.
"All experiments, therefore, performed before students, in classes or
otherwise, for the purpose of demonstrating known facts in physiology
or therapeutics, are unjustifiable. And they are especially
unjustifiable because they are performed before those who, being mere
students, are incapable of fully comprehending their value and
meaning. THEY ARE NEEDLESS AND CRUEL: needless, because they
demonstrate what is already acquired to science; and especially cruel,
because if admitted as a recognized part of students' instruction,
THEIR CONSTANT AND CONTINUED REPETITION, THROUGH ALL TIME, WOULD BE
REQUIRED. I need hardly say that courses of experimental physiology
are nowhere given in this country, and that these remarks apply only
to those schools i France and elsewhere where demonstrations of this
kind are delivered."[1]
[1] "Experiments and Surgical Operations on Living Animals: One of Two
Prize Essays." London: Robert Hardwick, 1866.
"ESPECIALLY CRUEL!" Little could Dr. Markham have imagined that this
"especial cruelty" which he thus so emphatically denounced in 1864
would spread from the Continent of Europe and become, within the short
space of a single generation, the accepted method of physiological
instruction in every leading college or university in the United
States!
Dr. Markham evidently fancied that with the larger acquirement of
facts the vivisection method would gradually become obsolete.
He says:
"A consideration of the conditions here proposed as requisite for the
rightful performance of experiments on living animals shows that
experiments of this kind must ever be very limited, because those
persons who are fitted for the due performance of them are of
necessity few in number; and that in proportion as new facts are added
by them to our knowledge, THE EXPERIMENTS MUST DIMINISH IN NUMBER...."
"Thus, then, we have seen that in the case of experiments legitimately
performed on living animals, ... such experiments must always, from
their nature, be comparatively few; that they must gradually diminish
with the advance of scientific knowledge, so that A TIME MAY COME WHEN
EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS WILL CEASE TO BE JUSTIFIABLE.
"... Very different, on the other hand, is the character and objects
of physiological demonstrations performed in French Schools of
Medicine.... These most painful practices are unjustifiable because
they are unnecessary.... They afford no instruction to the student
which may not be equally well obtained in another way. The pain,
moreover, attendant on such proceedings is unlimited and unceasing. If
they are to be accepted as a necessary part of the systemic
instruction of the student, then must every veterinary student
practice these experimental surgical operations, AND EVERY MEDICAL
STUDENT BE MADE A WITNESS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMONSTRATIONS ON LIVING
ANIMALS. In all veterinary schools, under such conditions, an
incalculable amount of pain inflicted on animals becomes a part of the
regular instruction of students. At such a conclusion Humanity
revolts.
"Experiments performed on living animals for the demonstration of
facts already positively acquired to science are unjustifiable, and
especially unjustifiable are such experiments when made a part of a
systemic course of instruction given to students."
Here, then, we have a view of vivisection presented less than forty
years since by a professional teacher of physiology in a London
medical school. That the author was mistaken in his outlook, that the
practice of vivisection instead of diminishing has a thousand times
increased, and that operations then regarded as "especially cruel"
have become the prevalent methods of instruction, are matters evident
to all. Peculiarly significant is the fact that a creed, once almost
universally held, may be so thoroughly obliterated by its antagonists
within so brief a time. One may safely assert that not a single
recent graduate from any Medical College in America, not a single
student of physiology in any institution of learning in our land
to-day, has ever been told that the practice of animal experimentation
was once thus regarded by a large majority of the English-speaking
members of the medical profession. So completely has the Continental
view of the moral irresponsibility of science established itself in
American colleges that the former preponderance of other ideals has
passed from the memory of the present generation of scientific men.
The subject of vivisection does not again appear to have engaged the
attention of the English medical Press for several years. The abuses
and cruelties on the Continent, against which it had so vigorously
protested, continued as before. In a brief editorial, the London
Lancet, on April 3, 1869, again referred to the subject:
"VIVISECTION.--The subject of vivisection has been again brought on
the tapis, owing to some remarks made by Professor (Claude) Be'rnard
... at the Colle`ge de France.... He admits on one occasion having
operated on an ape, but never repeated the experiment, THE CRIES AND
GESTURES OF THE ANIMAL TOO CLOSELY RESEMBLING THOSE OF A MAN.
"As the Pall Mall Gazette remarks, M. (Claude) Be'rnard expatiates on
the subject with a complacency which reminds us of Peter the Great,
who, wishing, while at Stockholm, to see the WHEEL in action, quietly
offered one of his suite as the patient to be broken on it....
"We consider that vivisection constitutes a legitimate mode of inquiry
when it is adopted to obtain a satisfactory solution of a question
that has been fairly discussed, and can be solved by no other means....
"We hold that for mere purposes of curiosity, OR TO EXHIBIT TO A CLASS
what may be rendered equally--if not more--intelligible by diagrams or
may be ascertained by anatomical investigation or induction,
VIVISECTION IS WHOLLY INDEFENSIBLE, and IS ALIKE ALIEN TO THE FEELINGS
AND HUMANITY OF THE CHRISTIAN, THE GENTLEMAN, AND THE PHYSICIAN."
It is very probable that much of the criticism of foreign vivisection,
which at this period appeared in the medical journals of England, was
inspired by the abhorrence felt regarding the cruelty of certain
French physiologists. We now know that the worst and most cruel of
them all was Claude Be'rnard, Professor of Experimental Physiology at
the Colle`ge de France, and the fit successor of Magendie. Just as
pirates and freebooters have added to geographical discoveries, so
science admits that regarding the functions of certain organs he added
to accumulated facts. But the peculiar infamy of Be'rnard was the
indifference displayed toward animal suffering long after the
discovery of chloroform and ether, and his practical contempt for any
sentiment of compassion for vivisected animals. Of this savagery one
will look in vain for criticism or condemnation in the writings of the
opponents of vivisection reform at the present day. Two physicians,
however, have told us what they witnessed in the laboratory of
Be'rnard. On February 2, 1875, there appeared in the Morning Post a
letter from a London physician, describing his personal experience in
the laboratory of this physiologist.
"SIR,
"If the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals intends to
give effect to the memorial presented to it on Monday, and do its
utmost to put down the monstrous abuses which have sprung up of late
years in the practice of vivisection, it will probably find that the
greatest obstacle to success lies IN THE SECRECY WITH WHICH SUCH
EXPERIMENTS ARE CONDUCTED, AND IT IS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THAT
SECRECY that its best efforts should be directed. So long as the
present privacy be maintained, it will be found impossible to convict,
for want of evidence. No student can be expected to come forward as a
witness when he knows that he would be hooted from among his fellows
for doing so, and any rising medical man would only achieve
professional ruin by following a similar course. The result is that,
although hundreds of such abuses are being constantly perpetrated
among us, the public knows no more about them than what the distant
echo reflected from some handbook of the laboratory affords. I
venture to record a little of my own experience in the matter, part of
which was gained as an assistant in the laboratory of one of the
greatest living experimental physiologists.
"In that laboratory we sacrificed daily from one to three dogs,
besides rabbits and other animals, and after four months' experience I
am of opinion that not one of those experiments on animals was
justified or necessary. 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, OR GET AHEAD OF, ONE'S CONTEMPORARIES IN
SCIENCE, even at the price of incalculable amount of torture
needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor animals. During
three campaigns I have witnessed many harsh sights, but I think the
saddest sight I ever witnessed was when the dogs were brought up from
the cellar to the laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of appearing
pleased with the change from darkness to light, they seemed seized
with horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, divining,
apparently, their approaching fate. They would make friendly advances
to each of three or four persons present, and as far as eyes, ears,
and tail could make a mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they tried it in
vain. Even when roughly grasped and thrown on the torture-trough, a
low complaining whine at such treatment would be all the protest made,
and they would continue to lick the hand which bound them, till their
mouths were fixed in the gag, and they could only flap their tails in
the trough as the last means of exciting compassion. Often when
convulsed by the pain of their torture this would be renewed, and they
would be soothed instantly on receiving a few gentle pats. It was all
the aid and comfort I could give them, and I gave it often. They
seemed to take it as an earnest of fellow-feeling that would cause
their torture to come to an end--an end only brought by death.
"Were the feelings of experimental physiologists not blunted, they
could not long continue the practice of vivisection. They are always
ready to repudiate any implied want of tender feeling, but I must say
that they seldom show much pity; on the contrary, in practice they
frequently show the reverse. Hundreds of times I have seen, when an
animal writhed with pain and thereby deranged the tissues during a
delicate dissection, instead of being soothed, it would receive a slap
and an angry order to be quiet and behave itself. At other times,
when an animal had endured great pain for hours without struggling or
giving more than an occasional whine, instead of letting the poor
mangled wretch loose to crawl about the place in reserve for another
day's torture, it would receive pity so far that it would be said to
have behaved well enough to merit death, and as a reward would be
killed at once by breaking up the medulla with a needle, or `pithing,'
as this operation is called. I have often heard the professor say,
when one side of an animal had been so mangled and the tissues so
obscured by clotted blood that it was difficult to find the part
searched for, `Why don't you begin on the other side?' or `WHY DON'T
YOU TAKE ANOTHER DOG? WHAT IS THE USE OF BEING SO ECONOMICAL?' One of
the most revolting features in the laboratory was the custom of giving
an animal, on which the professor had completed his experiment, and
which had still some life left, to the assistants to practise the
finding of arteries, nerves, etc., in the living animal, or for
performing what are called `fundamental experiments' upon it--in other
words, repeating those which are recommended in the laboratory
handbooks.
"I am inclined to look upon anaesthetics as the greatest curse to
vivisectible animals. They alter too much the normal conditions of
life to give accurate results, and they are therefore little depended
upon. THEY, INDEED, PROVE FAR MORE EFFICACIOUS IN LULLING PUBLIC
FEELING TOWARDS THE VIVISECTORS THAN PAIN IN THE VIVISECTED.
Connected with this there is a horrible proceeding that the public
probably knows little about. An animal is sometimes kept quiet by the
administration of a poison called `curare,' which paralyzes voluntary
motion while it heightens sensation, the animal being kept alive by
means of artificial respiration.
"I hope that we shall soon have a Government inquiry into the subject,
in which experimental physiologists shall be only witnesses, not
judges. LET ALL PRIVATE VIVISECTION BE MADE CRIMINAL, AND ALL
EXPERIMENTS BE PLACED UNDER GOVERNMENT INSPECTION, and we may have the
same clearing away of abuses that the Anatomy Act caused in similar
circumstances.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"George Hoggan, M.B. and C.M.
"13, Granville Place, Portman Square, W."
One of the oldest members of the medical profession in Massachusetts
has also written of his experience in Be'rnard's laboratory, and his
account of the cruelty there practised entirely accords with that of
the English physician:
"When I was studying medicine in Paris, it was the custom of a
distinguished physiologist to illustrate his lectures by operations on
dogs. Some of his dissections were not very painful, but others were
attended with excruciating, long-continued agony; and when the piteous
cries of these poor brutes would interrupt his remarks, with a look of
suppressed indignation he would artistically slit their windpipes, and
thus prevent their howling! Curiousity prompted me to inquire of the
janitor whether, after this period of torment, these creatures were
mercifully put out of misery; and I ascertained that such animals as
did not succumb to the immediate effects of their mutilations were
consigned to a cellar, to be kept, unattended and unfed, until wanted
for the following lectures, which occurred on alternate days. I
never noticed the slightest demonstration of sympathy on their behalf,
except on the part of a few American students. These dogs were
subjected to needless torture, for the mere purpose of illustrating
well-known facts, capable of being taught satisfactorily by drawings,
charts, and models; and hence this cruelty, being unattended by any
possible benefit to either students or mankind, was illegitimate and
unjustifiable. But when it is considered that these same experiments
might have been conducted under the influence of an anaesthetic, so
as to minimize, if not remove, this needless suffering, this
cold-blooded, heartless torture can only be characterized as
contemptible and monstrous.
"From detailed accounts communicated to me by eye-witnesses of the
incidents related, I entertain no doubt that barbarous cruelty was
practised at that time in all the Parisian laboratories, though it is
probable that, for novel and horrible experiments, none could rival
the infernal ingenuity in this business of that master-demon, Claude
Be'rnard."[1]
[1] Extracts from letter to Boston Medical and Surgical Journal,
April, 1895.
Such is the memory which Be'rnard has left for posterity. It was by
useless cruelty that he impressed. And no American physiologist,
sounding the praises of free and unrestricted vivisection, has ever
yet ventured to criticize or to condemn either the man or his work.
Let us go back a little. By the year 1871, the agitation had gone so
far as to be deemed worthy of consideration by the leading scientific
body in Great Britain. At the meeting of the British Association in
Liverpool of that year, a committee was appointed to consider the
subject of animal experimentation, and the result of their
deliberations appears in the annual report. Regarding the practice,
they suggest four recommendations or rules:
"1. No experiment which can be done under the influence of an
anaesthetic ought to be done without it.
"2. No painful experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose of
illustrating a law or fact already determined; in other words,
experimentation without the employment of anaesthetics is not a
fitting exhibition for teaching purposes."
A third rule suggested that painful experiments should only be made in
laboratories under proper regulation; and a fourth rule condemned
veterinary operations for the purpose of obtaining manual dexterity.
It was evidently an attempt to allay agitation--there were no means of
enforcing the recommendations concerning practices which the law did
not touch.
One of the signers was Dr. Burdon Sanderson, a Lecturer on Physiology.
Early the following year he began the delivery of a course of lectures
in the physiological laboratory of University College in London,
illustrated by vivisections. During one of these discourses, the
lecturer made the following statement of his views:
"With respect to what are called `vivisections,' I assure you that I
have as great a horror of them as any members of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The rules in respect to them are
these: First, no experiment that can be done under the influence of an
anaesthetic ought to be done without it. Secondly, no PAINFUL
experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose of illustrating a law
or fact already demonstrated. Thirdly, whenever for the investigation
of new truth, it is necessary to make a painful experiment, every
effort should be made to insure success, in order that the suffering
inflicted may not be wasted. For the question of cruelty depends not
on the amount of suffering, but on its relation to the good to be
attained by it."[1]
[1] Medical Times and Gazette, February 25, 1871.
The lecturer contended that no experiment should be performed by an
unskilled person with insufficient instruments, and argued, therefore,
in favour of the establishment of Physiological Laboratories, equipped
with all modern devices and instruments for vivisection.
Some of his demonstrations were doubtless unproductive of pain, but in
view of the fact that in other experiments no anaesthetic was
employed, it may be questioned whether his second "rule" was always
very strictly observed. In one lecture he referred to his
demonstration "as the first time that we have applied electrical
stimulus to a nerve," and explains that when the experiment is made on
an animal paralyzed with curare, the effect is more complicated when a
sensory nerve is irritated, since then "the arteries all over the body
contract, because the brain is in action."[1] No plainer confession of
the existence of sensibility could be made, yet for obvious reasons
the lecturer carefully avoids admitting the presence of pain. During
the following year there appeared articles describing "the teaching of
practical physiology in the London schools." At King's College in
London, for example, demonstrations were made by the lecturer, but
"experiments on animals are never given to the ordinary student to do;
Professor Rutherford's experience on this point is that such attempts
result only in total failure."[2] On the other hand, at University
College, the Continental method of teaching was to be found. "Student
perform experiments on animals. Frogs, curarized or chloroformed, are
given them, and the experiment which has been fully explained and
demonstrated by the professor, is performed by them as far as
practicable."[3] Here, then, we find introduced into England (and
perhaps there existing in secret for some time before), that
vivisection of animals in illustration of well-known facts, which, but
a few years earlier, every leading medical journal of Great Britain
had so emphatically reprobated and denounced.
[1] Medical Times and Gazette, June 17, 1871.
[2] Ibid., July 20, 1872.
[3] Medical Times and Gazette, July 27, 1872.
The Continental school of English physiologists seemed confident of
victory. But the leading exponents of English ideals in medicine were
not inclined to surrender at once; now and then we find them
vigorously maintaining their ground, and disposed to contrast the
science gained in the laboratory with that gathered by experience and
fortified by reflection. Some extracts from a leading editorial in
the Medical Times and Gazette are extremely suggestive of the conflict
of opinions:
"The relation of physiology to practical medicine is a subject which
has been brought prominently into notice by the address of Dr. Burdon
Sanderson ... at the recent meeting of the British Association. That
address may be considered as the first authoritative and public
announcement made in this country that IT IS THE AIM AND INTENTION OF
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF THOUGHT and work to separate themselves
more and more from the school of practical medicine; no longer to
consider themselves auxiliary to it except as other sciences--for
instance, chemistry and botany--may be considered auxiliary to it, but
to win a place in the public estimation for their science as one which
shall be cultivated FOR ITS OWN SAKE...
"The teaching of experience is more reliable than physiological
theories and opinions.... The history of the advance of the cure of
disease is in the history of empiricism, in the best sense of that
much-abused word. The history of retrogression in the art of curing
disease is that of the so-called Physiological Schools of
Medicine... Physiological theory, based on experiments on dogs, wishes
us to believe that mercury does not excite a flow of bile; but here
the common sense of the Profession, educated by experience, has
refused to be led by physiological theory.... Modern physiological
science has taught us little more than the necessity of pure air,
water, and food, good clothing and shelter, moderation in eating and
drinking, and regulation of the passions--things, in fact, which are
as old as the Pentateuch. We may safely assert that all the
experiments made on luckless animals since the time of Magendie to the
present, in France, America, Germany, and England, have not prolonged
one tithe of human life, or diminished one tithe of the human
suffering that have been prolonged and diminished by the discovery and
use of Jesuits' bark and cod-liver oil."[1]
[1] Medical Times and Gazette (Editorial), September 7, 1872.
Early the next year (1873) was published the "Handbook of the
Physiological Laboratory," compiled by leading men of the
physiological party, among whom were Professors Sanderson, Foster, and
Klein. Describing the method of performing various experiments upon
animals, it included a particular account of some of the most
excruciatingly painful of the vivisections practised abroad. So
atrocious was one of the experiments thus described in this handbook
for students that Professor Michael Foster, who wrote the description,
afterward confessed that he had never seen or performed the experiment
himself, partly "from horror of the pain." Reviewing the work, a
medical journal justly declared that "the publication of this book
marks an era in the history of physiology in England.... It shows THE
PREDOMINANT INFLUENCE WHICH GERMANY NOW EXERCISES IN THIS DEPARTMENT
OF SCIENCE."[1] A professor of physiology, Dr. Gamgee, about the same
time, refers to the physiological laboratories of Edinburgh,
Cambridge, and London, and the part they sustained "in what I may call
the Revival of the study of experimental physiology in England."[2]
[1] Medical Times and Gazette, London, March 29, 1873.
[2] Ibid., October 18, 1873.
Emboldened by continuing success, the advocates of Continental
vivisection in England determined to advance yet another step. The
annual meeting of the British Medical Association for 1874 was to be
held that year in August in the city of Norwich. A French vivisector,
Dr. Magnan, was invited to be present, and to perform in the presence
of English medical men certain experiments upon dogs. On this
occasion, however, the public demonstration of French methods of
vivisection did not pass without protest; there was a scene; some of
the physicians present--among them Dr. Tufnell, the President of the
Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and Dr. Haughton of the medical
school in Dublin, denounced the experiments at the time they were made
as unjustifiably cruel. Public attention was beginning to be aroused;
it was decided to test the question, whether such exhibitions were
protected by English law, and a prosecution was instituted against
some who had assisted in performing the experiments. Dr. Tufnell
appeared to testify in regard to the cruelty of the exhibition, and
Sir William Fergusson, surgeon to the Queen, who had only just retired
from the presidency of the British Medical Association, not only
stigmatized one of the experiments as "an act of cruelty," but
declared that "such experiments would not be of the smallest possible
benefit."[1] The magistrates decided that while the case was a very
proper one to prosecute, yet the gentlemen named as defendants were
not sufficiently proven to have taken part in the experiment. The
decision was not unjust; the real offender was safe in his native
land.
[1] British Medical Journal, December 12, 1874.
It is not my purpose to trace the course of the English agitation
against vivisection, except as it may be seen in the medical
literature of the time; but one cannot refer to this period without
mention of the name of Frances Power Cobbe. In 1863, while in Italy,
she had protested, and not in vain, against the cruelties of Professor
Schiff in Florence. Taking up the question again in 1874, she devoted
the remainder of her life to the advancement of her ideals of reform.
It was to her zeal that in 1875 was founded the "Society for the
Protection of Animals liable to Vivisection." At this period, then,
three phases of opinion opposed one another; first, the
antivivisectionists, who desired the total suppression by law of all
animal experimentation; second, the physiological enthusiasts, few in
number, but favourable to the introduction of the Continental
irresponsibility, and eager to free vivisection from every semblance
of restraint; and, thirdly, the great body of Englishmen and of the
medical profession, whose views we have seen reflected in medical
journals of the day. The popular attack upon all animal
experimentation became so pressing that for a time the entire medical
profession seemed to unite in its defence; and editorial space once
filled with denunciation of vivisection in France was now given over
to criticism of the antivivisectionists of England. Yet, even at this
period, there appeared no repudiation of those humane principles, so
long professed by English medical men. One leading journal, the
Medical Times and Gazette, thus suggests that very oversight of
vivisection which we are told is impossible:
"Just as the law demands that a teacher of anatomy should take out a
licence, and be responsible for the bodies entrusted to him, so a
teacher of physiology might be required to take out some such licence
as regards the teaching of practical physiology. We have never been
of those who advocate the wholesale performance of experiments by
students, especially on the higher animals, if they are of such a kind
as to require any degree of skill for their performance. When the
medical public seemed bitten with what was called `practical
physiology,' many were ready to advocate the performance of all kinds
of experiments on living animals by uninstructed students. Against
this notion we were first to protest, as being at once cruel and worse
than useless; for an experiment performed by bungling fingers is no
experiment at all, but wanton cruelty."
After explaining his position in favour of scientific research, the
editor refers to a recent discussion on vivisection in London:
"Dr. Walker declared that his desire was not to stop scientific
research, but the abuses which were connected with it. In the first
place, he would not allow vivisection to be practised by incompetent
students. This was nothing but wanton and unrighteous cruelty.
THEREFORE HE WOULD OBLIGE EACH VIVISECTOR TO OBTAIN LEGAL PERMISSION
FROM COMPETENT AUTHORITY. Another abuse related to operations
performed merely to demonstrate physiological phenomena already
verified and established. Again, the number of animals vivisected was
shamefully high. Persons unacquainted with physiological laboratories
could form no idea of the lavish way in which animals were made to
suffer days and weeks of anguish and acute pain. If the people knew
of these sufferings, they would insist that the number of animals
annually vivisected should be limited, and that no animal rearing its
young should be experimented upon. Nor should it be allowable to
operate on an animal more than once.... Lastly, every licensed
vivisector should be obliged to send in an annual return, showing the
number of vivisections performed, and the scientific results attained,
which would prevent repeated operations with the same object. Nothing
in any of these proposals, urged Dr. Walker, would interfere with the
progress of science; they would simply stop the abuses which
existed."[1]
[1] Medical Times and Gazette (Editorial), June 27, 1874.
In January, 1875, we find the London Lancet also suggesting legal
supervision and restriction:
"We are utterly opposed to all repetition of experiments for the
purpose of demonstrating established doctrines.... We believe an
attempt might be made to institute something in the way of regulation
and supervision. IT WOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT, FOR EXAMPLE, TO IMPOSE
SUCH RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRACTICE OF THESE EXPERIMENTS as would
effectually guard against their being undertaken by any but skilled
persons, for adequate scientific objects."[2]
[2] The London Lancet (Editorial), January 2, 1875.
A month later the Lancet devotes its leading editorial to a discussion
of the ethics of vivisection. After criticizing the position taken
by the antivivisectionists, the writer says:
"On the other side, the discussion has been conducted as if it
concerned physiologists alone, who were to be a law unto themselves,
and each to do what might seem right in his own eyes; that the matter
was one into which outsiders had no right whatever to intrude; in
fact, that `WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT,' and so unquestionably right as to
stand in no need of investigation or restriction. We have, from the
first, striven to take a middle course, not because it was safe, but
because it seemed to us the sound and true one. Without disguising
the difficulties, we have nevertheless expressed our conviction that
the subject was one about which it was impossible not to feel a sense
of responsibility, and a desire to ascertain whether the line between
necessary and unnecessary could be defined; and whether any attempt
could be made to institute something in the way of regulation,
supervision, or restriction, so as to secure that, while the ends of
science were not defeated, the broad principles of Humanity and duty to
the lower animals were observed. Animals have their rights every bit
as much as man has his...."
Admitting the probable necessity of some repetition of experiments in
research, the writer continues:
"It is for the purposes of instruction, however, that it becomes
questionable whether and to what extent experiments of this kind
should be performed. A chemical lecturer teaches well, in proportion
to the clearness with which he can demonstrate the correctness of his
statements by experiment, and there is no doubt it is the same with a
Lecturer on Physiology. Some persons seem to regard the advance of
knowledge as the whole duty of man, and they would perhaps consider
experimentation as justifiable in the one case as in the other. We
cannot so regard it, for the simple and sufficient reason (as it seems
to us) that the element of Life and Sensibility being present in the
one case and not in the other, carries a responsibility with it. We
contend that in any case where certain phenomena are known to follow a
given experiment, when the fact has been established by the separate
and independent observation of many different persons, a lecturer is
not justified in resorting to it FOR THE PURPOSE OF MERE DEMONSTRATION
WHERE ITS PERFORMANCE INVOLVES SUFFERING TO THE ANIMAL."[1]
[1] The London Lancet, February 6, 1875.
It is an instructive and interesting fact that one of the first steps
toward the legal regulation of vivisection in England was taken by
scientific men. The Lancet of May 8, 1875, contains the following
paragraph:
"Some eminent naturalists and physiologists, including Mr. Charles
Darwin, Professor Huxley, Dr. Sharpey, and others, have been in
communication with Members of both Houses of Parliament to arrange
terms of a Bill which would prevent any unnecessary cruelty or abuse
in experiments made on living animals for purposes of scientific
discovery. It is understood that these negotiations have been
successful, and that the Bill is likely to be taken charge of by Lord
Cardwell in the House of Lords, and by Dr. Lyon Playfair in the House
of Commons."
A week later, the Lancet gives an outline of the proposed Act:
"The Bill introduced by Dr. Lyon Playfair, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and
Mr. Evelyn Ashley, `To Prevent Abuse and Cruelty in Experiments on
Animals, made for the Purpose of Scientific Discovery,' has been
printed. It proposes to enact that painful experiments on living
animals for scientific purposes shall be permissible on the following
conditions:
"`That the animal shall first have been made insensible by the
administration of anaesthetics or otherwise, during the whole course
of such experiment; and that if the nature of the experiment be such
as to seriously injure the animal, so as to cause it after-suffering,
the animal shall be killed immediately on the termination of the
experiment.
"`Experiments without the use of anaesthetics are also to be
permissible provided the following conditions are complied with: That
the experiment is made for the purpose of new scientific discovery and
for no other purpose; and that insensibility cannot be produced
without necessarily frustrating the object of the experiment; and that
the animal should not be subject to any pain which is not necessary
for the purpose of the experiment; and that the experiment be brought
to an end as soon as practicable; and that if the nature of the
experiment be such as to seriously injure the animal so as to cause it
after-suffering, the animal shall be killed immediately on the
termination of the experiment.
"`That a register of all experiments made without the use of
anaesthetics shall be duly kept, and be returned in such form and at
such times as one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State may
direct.
"`The Secretary of State is to be empowered to grant licences to
persons provided with certificates signed by at least one of the
following persons: the President of the Royal Society, the President
of the Royal College of Surgeons or of the College of Physicians in
London, Edinburgh, or Dublin; and also by a recognized Professor of
Physiology, Medicine, or Anatomy.'"[1]
[1] Lancet, May 15, 1875.
The Bill, though introduced in Parliament, was not pressed. Another
and more stringent measure for the regulation of vivisection had been
introduced a few days earlier through the efforts of Miss Frances
Power Cobbe and the Earl of Shaftesbury. In the conflict of opposing
statements and opinions, the Government wisely concluded that more
light on the subject was necessary, and a Royal Commission was
appointed to investigate and report.
But if the Continental party was to conquer in England, its members
undoubtedly felt that it must be through audacity quite as much by
silence and secrecy. At the annual meeting of the British Medical
Association, therefore, Professor William Rutherford delivered an
address, wherein for the second time an English physiologist openly
advocated the vivisection of animals as a method of teaching well-
known facts. Commenting upon this address, the editor of the Lancet
remarks:
"We confess that we think Dr. Rutherford presses his principle too far
when he argues that, teaching by demonstration being the most
successful method, we are thereby always warranted in having recourse
to it. Physiology and chemistry are both experimental sciences. The
chemical lecturer can have no hesitation in employing any number of
experiments, or repeating them indefinitely to illustrate every step
he takes; but we may fairly assume that the physiologist would be
restrained by the thought that the materials with which he has to deal
are not so much inert, lifeless matter, but sentient, living things.
We hold, therefore, that it would be both unnecessary and cruel to
demonstrate every physiological truth by experiment, or to repeat
indefinitely the same experiment, simply because by such
demonstrations the lecturer could make his teaching more definite,
precise, and valuable."[1]
[1] The London Lancet, (Editorial) August 21, 1875.
Again, somewhat later the same journal brings into prominence one of
the greatest difficulties attending all discussion of vivisection--the
lack of agreement upon the meaning of words:
"It is extremely difficult to get at the exact meaning of the terms
used. The physiologist would be ready to declare his utter abhorrence
of all `cruelty,' BUT THEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS OWN DEFINITION OF THE
WORD. We hope Sir William Thompson was not justified in stating that
revolting cruelties are sometimes practised in this country, in the
name of vivisection, although we may concur with him in reprehending
the performance of experiments on animals in illustration of truths
already ascertained.... When the Cardinal (Manning) laid it down as
the expression of a great moral obligation that we had no right to
inflict NEEDLESS pain, he begged the whole question. By all means lay
down and enforce any restriction that will prevent the infliction of
NEEDLESS pain."[1]
[1] The London Lancet (Editorial), March 25, 1876.
We see how valueless, therefore, is the assertion so frequently made
in this country that "no NEEDLESS pain is ever inflicted." The
physiologist has his own interpretation of the word.
The testimony given before the Royal Commission was of utmost value.
Leading members of the medical profession, such as Sir Thomas Watson,
physician to the Queen, and Sir William Fergusson, surgeon to the
Queen, gave evidence against the unrestricted practice of animal
experimentation. Physiologists after the Continental school stated
their side of the controversy, usually with significant caution; but
one of them, Dr. Emanuel Klein, with an honest frankness of confession
that astounded his friends, made himself for ever famous in the
history of the vivisection controversy. It is hardly accurate to say
that no cruelty was uncovered by the Royal Commission. Everything
depends on the meaning of words, but the evidence of one of the most
noted of English physiologists as to his own personal practices in
vivisection was quite sufficient to justify the legislation that
ensued. How seriously this evidence was regarded at the time is
clearly shown in an extract from a confidential letter of Professor
Huxley to Mr. Darwin, dated October 30, 1875:
"This Commission is playing the deuce with me. I have felt it my duty
to act as counsel for Science, and was well satisfied with the way
things are going. But on Thursday, when I was absent, --- was
examined; and if what I hear is a correct account of the evidence he
gave, I might as well throw up my brief. I am told he openly
professed the most entire indifference to animal suffering, and he
only gave anaesthetics to keep the animals quiet!
"I declare to you, I did not believe the man lived who was such an
unmitigated, cynical brute as to profess and act upon such principles,
and I would willingly agree to any law that would send him to the
treadmill.
"The impression his evidence made on Cardwell and Foster is profound,
and I am powerless (even if I desire, which I have not) to combat
it."[1]
[1] Huxley's "Life and Letters," vol i., p. 473. This
characterization seems by no means fair, and probably it would have
been so regarded by the writer in calmer moments. Is indignation
chiefly directed to the "indifference to animal suffering," or to the
"OPEN PROFESSION" of the feeling? For men, perfectly familiar with
Continental indifference, to condemn with holy horror a young
physiologist because he "openly professes" the generally prevalent
sentiment of his class, is very suggestive.
The result of the Commission's report was the introduction by the
Government of a Bill placing animal experimentation in Greta Britain
under legal supervision and control. As first drawn up, it appears to
have been regarded by the medical profession as unduly stringent and
unfair. Protests were made, amendments of certain of its provisions
were requested, concessions were granted, and at the close of the
Parliamentary session, August 15, 1876, the practice of vivisection,
like the study of human anatomy by dissection, came under the
supervision of English law.
It is curious to observe how those who had vehemently opposed the Act
were able to approve it when once the law was in operation, and
criticism could no longer serve any purpose of delay. The British
Medical Journal of August 19, 1876, announcing to its readers the
passage of the Bill, says:
"Taking the measure altogether, we think the profession may be
congratulated on its having passed.... So far, the Act facilitates the
prosecution of science by competent persons, while it protects animals
from the cruelty which might be inflicted by ignorant and unskilful
hands. THE ACT IS A GREAT STEP IN ADVANCE TOWARD PROMOTING KINDNESS
TO ANIMALS GENERALLY...."
The Medical Times and Gazette also regained its equanimity, and an
editorial referring to the Act admits that "the profession may regard
it without much dissatisfaction."[1] There are even advantages to be
discerned:
"It gives scientific inquirers the protection of the law; it protects
animals from cruelties which might be inflicted by unscientific and
unskilled persons, and it satisfies to a great extent a demand made by
a hypersensitive ... portion of the public."
[1] December 30, 1876.
Nor did further experience with the working of the Act appear greatly
to disturb this favourable impression. For instance, after the law
had been in operation nearly three years, the London Lancet in its
issue of July 19, 1879, editorially remarked:
"There is no reason to regret the Act of 1876 which limits vivisection,
except on the ground that it places the interests of science at the
arbitration of a lay authority.... MEANWHILE, THE ACT WORKS WELL, AND
FULFILLS ITS PURPOSE."
There can be no doubt, however, that the law has always been regarded
with marked disfavour by the extreme vivisectionists of Great
Britain. They had planned, as we can see, to introduce in the United
Kingdom the freedom of vivisection which obtained on the Continent.
They had failed, and instead of liberty to imitate Be'rnard, Magendie,
and Brown-Se'quard, they saw between them and the absolute power they
had craved and dreamed of obtaining, the majesty of English law.
Among American representatives of the same school--the strenuous
opponents of all legal supervision--it has been the fashion on every
possible occasion to cast discredit upon this Act. For obvious
reasons they have sought to represent it to the American public as
having proven a serious detriment to medical science and an
obstruction to medical advancement. The idea is absurd. English
physicians and surgeons are as well educated and equipped in every
respect as are the graduates of American schools. The complete
refutation of all such misstatements regarding the effect of the
English law will be found elsewhere. The Act is far from being an
ideal law--it is capable of amendment in many respects--but it is an
evidence of the acceptance by the English people of the principle of
State regulation, and of their wish that between the will of the
vivisector and the irresponsible and unlimited torment of the victim,
there hall be some power capable, if it so desires, of making
effective intervention.