THE ETHICS OF VIVISECTION VIVISECTION. The torturing of dumb animals in the presence of a class of young people for the purposes of instruction is inhuman, brutalizing and infamous. Far better is* it, for both society and the individual, that the scholar should know nothing that is taught in the schools, than that he or she should be thus degraded and turned into a brute. The monster in human form who could give such an exhibition to young persons, or who could defend it in another, ought not one hour longer to be tolerated for a teacher of youth. He ought to be dismissed instantly. And a Superintendent of a School Board who could tolerate such a wickedness ought not longer to be suffered to misrepresent a community of men and women. Words fail me to express the horror with which doings of this kind fill my soul. Very truly yours, W. W. Niles, Bishop of New Hampshire. Printed for the SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, 62^ Strand, London, W.C. 1900. THE ETHICS OF VIVISECTION BY Mrs. MONA CAIRD Printed for the SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, 62, Strand, London, W.C. 1900. CONTENTS. Part I. — The Facts Regarding Vivisection. Part II. — Is Torture for a good end justifiable ? Part III. — A Rejoinder (to criticism by Mr. Hickson, F.R.S. — See Prefatory Note). PREFATORY NOTE. The following articles were written for the magazine published by the South Place Ethical Society, in response to the invitation of the Editor, who desired to open a discussion on the subject of Vivisection. He informed me that a prominent man of science had undertaken to support the pro-vivisectional side of the controversy, and I was asked to open the discussion by stating the anti-vivisectional position. My two first articles were devoted to this purpose. My opponent, Mr. Sydney J. Hickson, M.A., F.R.S., then criticised my position, and stated his own. His permission was asked to reprint his article here, but he writes requesting that this shall not be done. My third article in this series is a rejoinder to Mr. Hickson. Mona Caird. VIVISECTION. Professor Henry J. Bigelow, M. D., late professor of surgery in Harvard University — '"The horrors of vivisection have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present value to a man as the knowledge of a new comet, . . . contemp- tible compared with the price paid for in agony and torture. . . . " I have heard it said that ' somebody must do this.' I say it is needless. Nobody should do it. "Watch the students at vivisection. It is the blood and suffering, not the science, that rivets their breathless attention. If hospital service makes young students less tender of suffering, vivisection deadens their humanity and begets indifference to it. " The reaction which follows every excess will in time bear indignantly upon this. Until then it is dreadful to think how many poor animals will be subjected to excruciating agony as one medical college after another becomes penetrated with the idea that vivisection is a part of modern teaching, and that, to hold way with other institutions, they, too, must have their vivisector, their mutilated dogs, their Guinea pigs, their rabbits, their chamber of torture and of horrors, to advertise as a labora- tory." — [From the annual address before the Massa- chusetts Medical Society. More Medical Opinions on Vivisection. Sir Thomas Watson, M. D., ex-President Royal College of Physicians— " One of the greatest phy- sicians who ever lived . . . Sir Thomas Watson, told me himself, not long before he died, that young men had to unlearn at the bedside what they had learnt in the laboratory." — [From speech of Canon Wilberforce, June 22, 1892. Surgeon General Charles Gordon, C. B., Honorary Physician to the Queen — " I hold that the practice of performing experiments upon the lower animals, with a view to benefiting humanity, is fallacious." — [Speech, June 22, 1892. W. Martin, F. R. S.— " I have come to the conclusion that no good has ever been derived from any painful experiments on living animals. ... I have never heard that practical surgeons have ever resorted to operations on living animals in order to teach them how to operate on the living subject, i. e., on man." OPPOSE VIVISECTION. Dr. J. D. Buck, of 116 West Seventh Street, said: " Vivisection is seldom, if ever, justifiable. Nothing is to be gained that would be of practical benefit to mankind." Fourteen prominent physicians, who do not desire that their names be printed, said to a Post reporter that vivisection was of no practical benefit, chiefly because the anatomy of the human system cannot be learned from that of one of the lower animals. Even in mankind, said they, there are variations in the relative positions of the various organs. Nerves, veins and arteries do not run alike, there being as great a variance as there is in the size of people. The wholesale vivisection of animals, birds, etc., as practised in many of the colleges, was declared by them to be cruelty. The ethics of the profession kept many from say- ing all they wanted to about the matter. Cincinnati Post. BACTERIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. The Presidential Address in the Section of State Medicine, Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, Portsmouth, August, 1899. by george wilson, m.a., m.d., ll.d. " After all these long years of flickering hope, I am prepared to contend that the indiscriminate maim- ing and slaughter of animal life with which these bacteriological methods of research and experimen- tation have been inseparably associated cannot be proved to have saved one single human life, or les- sened in any appreciable degree the load of human Buffering. " I have not allied myself to the anti-vivisection- ists, but I accuse my profession of misleading the public as to the cruelties and horrors which are per- petrated on animal life. When it is stated that the actual pain involved in these experiments is com- monly of the most trifling description, there is a suppressio veri of the most palpable kind, which could only be accounted for at the time by ignorance of the actual facts. I admit that in the mere opera- tion of injecting a virus, whether cultivated or not, there may be little or no pain, but the cruelty does not lie in the operation itself, which is permitted to be performed without anaesthetics, but in the after- effects. Whether so-called toxins are injected under the skin, into the peritoneum, into the cranium under the dura mater, into the pleural cavity, into the veins, eyes, or other organs — and all these meth- ods are ruthlessly practiced — there is the long-drawn- out agony. The animal so innocently operated on may have to live days, weeks, or months, with no anaesthetic to assuage its sufferings, and nothing but death to relieve. And what triumphs has bacteriology achieved in stemming the tide of human disease on these empiri- cal lines? Pasteur's anti-rabic vaccination is, I be- lieve — [and others with me] — a delusion. Koch's tuberculin cure for phthisis has long since been labeled as worse than worthless " (From the Boston Journal of June 19.) NO VIVISECTIONIST. The Famous Surgeon Tait and His Interesting Testimony. It is worthy of remark that Prof. Lawson Tait, whose death deprives surgery of one of its most bril- liant leaders, was strongly opposed to vivisection. Any one who ever heard Lawson Tait speak and i recalls his virile personality and the impression of immense power his mere look conveyed, knows that he was no sentimentalist. Students intoxicated with their first experiment, and older men under the spell of the dogmatic biolo- gist who knows not mercy, would do well to read his words in the Birmingham Daily Post (England), of Dec. 12, 1884: "Like every member of my profession, I was brought up in the belief that by vivisection had been obtained almost every important fact in physiology, and that many of our most valued means of saving life and diminishing suffering had resulted from ex- periments on the lower animals. I now know that nothing of the sort is true concerning the art of surgery, and not only do I not believe that vivisec- tion has helped the surgeon one bit, but I know that it has often led him astray. In the interests of true science its employment should be stopped." June 15, 1899. B - M - c - The late Dr. Charles Clay—" As a surgeon, I have performed a very large number of operations, but I do not owe a particle of my knowledge, or skill, to vivisection. I challenge any member of my pro- fession to prove that vivisection has in any way advanced the science of medicine or tended to im- prove the treatment of disease."— [Letter in Times, July 31, 1880. PART I. THE FACTS REGARDING VIVISECTION. In almost all hotly-discussed subjects, the impartial enquirer has much difficulty in discovering how far either side has stated the case fairly; both sides being more or less biassed. But in the vivisection controversy, the situation is less chaotic than usual, because all the facts are in the possession of one side ; and although these facts, perforce, reach us through a biassed medium, we have only one bias to deal with, which greatly simplifies matters for the enquirer. He has to allow for the bias of the vivisector in favour of vivisection, and for none other ; except, of course, for the natural bias common to all men, who find insuper- able difficulty in believing that the deeds which they spend their lives in committing can be, in anyway, liable to reasonable objection. There is, of course, an opposite bias on the part of anti- vivisectionists ; but this cannot touch the evidence as to the nature of the practice, or the pain it involves, since even the most rabid anti-vivisectionist — (I employ the orthodox term) — can adduce as testimony regarding vivisection only the works of vivisectors themselves ; unless, indeed, he should set to work to calumniate innocent vivisectors out of sheer devilry, in which case his false statements could be easily disproved. Eccentric indeed must that person be who should go out of his way to call down upon himself, for no object whatever, all the abuse and scorn that is heaped upon the advocate of an unpopular cause ; abuse and scorn which even Richard Martin did not escape, scarcely seventy-five years ago, when he introduced into the House a Bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals ; * his pleading on behalf of these helpless fellow-creatures being greeted by honourable members with shouts of laughter. As a matter of fact, complete evidence of the methods of vivisection no out- sider is ever likely to obtain. The darkest secrets of laboratory practice we shall never know; though, indeed, it is impossible to conceive anything more awful than the facts that are recorded, with a frankness and cynicism that is beyond measure startling. t In studying this subject, a slight knowledge of physiological terms and facts is necessary to complete understanding of the experiments recorded, and the language employed in the records is so colourless and technical, that a little thought is needed before the mind can grasp, even slightly, any idea of the martyrdom which is being thus calmly described. * " The Ill-treatment of Cattle Bill," commonly known as " Martin's Act," passed 1822. f Professor Friedrich Goltz, in his work " Ueber die Verrichtungen des Grosshirns," has a chapter headed " On the disturbances of motion after mutilation of one half of the brain (Grosshiru)." On p. 31, the Professor speaks of" these numerous experiences," of which, in the foregoing pages, he has given examples. On the same page he describes " a very clever, lively, young female dog, whose head was trepanned in two places, and the left side of the brain (linke Grosshirn) washed out (durchspillt). After the operation, the animal had a slight inclination to turn in a circle towards the left .... If one asked the dog to give the left paw, this was willingly placed upon the hand." The Professor goes on to say that if the animal was very energetically asked for the right foot, yet the foot remained rooted to the ground, but if one continued more insistently to ask for it " the dog had a disturbed expression, and at last reached its left foot over, as if instead of the right, which it was unable to offer." For the purposes of experiments such as this, Professor Goltz mentions " that the servant of the Institute was commissioned by me, in the purchase of animals, to pay special attention to procuring dogs which had already learnt this trick" (p. 31). The vast majority of people are persuaded, or try to persuade themselves, that all experiments are performed under anaesthetics. This, alas, is one of the popular fallacies that are peculiarly dangerous, because of the grain of truth that lies in them. Many experiments are, indeed, performed wholly or partly under an anaesthetic or a narcotic (the latter is not a true ancesthetic), but the real suffering often begins after the animal has recovered from its influence, when the pain caused by the muti- lation, or drug, or vein-injection commences to be felt. This suffering often goes on for hours, or days, or months, till the animal dies, or is required for further experiment. Dr. Hoggan, who studied in a great physiological school, but abandoned the practice from disgust at its cruelty, writes as follows : — " 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."* Moreover, let it not be forgotten that the Vivisection Act of 1876 contains a clause allowing the vivisector to obtain a certificate which gives permission to dispense with anaesthetics altogether; and another clause dis- pensing with the obligation to kill the animal before recovery from the anaesthetic. t I will now quote from the works of the celebrated vivisector, Claude Bernard, who describes the action of curare, so much used in vivisectional practice. If anyone not understanding the nature of the drug were to go into a laboratory where a curarised animal was being operated upon, he would see before him a perfectly motionless * In a letter to the Morning Post, February 1st, 1875. f See page 2 of "An Act to Amend the Law relating to Cruelty to Animals, 15th August, 1876, chap. 77, 39 & 40 Vict." 8 creature, apparently insensible, and would go away ready to testify to the painlessness of vivisection and to the humanity of vivisectors. Yet this is what Claude Bernard says of an animal under the influence of the drug: — " Curare, acting on the nervous system only suppresses the actions of the motor nerves, leaving sensation intact.'''' (Italics mine.) " . . . . Curare is not an anaesthetic."* In his famous paper on curare this prince of vivisectors says : — " .... we discover that this death which appears to steal on in so gentle a manner, and so exempt from pain, is, on the con- trary, accompanied by the most atrocious sufferings that the mind of man can conceive."f (Italics mine.) On page 182 he says : — " In this motionless body, behind that glazing eye, .... sensitiveness and intelligence persist in their entirety. This corpse before us hears and distinguishes all that is done around it. It suffers when pinched or irritated ; in a word, it still has feeling and volition, but it has lost the instruments which served to manifest them." (The action of curare has been experienced by human beings, who describe their sensations, and feelings of helplessness, as unspeakably awful.) That the reader may judge of the position occupied by curare in the work of the laboratory, I quote the following from the " Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory," 1873, p. 108 : — " If the animal [i.e., a. frog] is not curarized, the arrangement must be employed which was described in chapter iii. It is, how- ever, better to employ curare, as described in chapter xvii. The animal is laid on an oblong plate of glass, on which a cork disk is placed The disk must have a hole in the middle. . . . . At the edges of this aperture pins are stuck, to which ligatures attached to the toes may be secured The * Revue Scientifique, 1871, p. 892. t Revtie des Deux Mondes, September, 1864, p. 173. preparation of the mesentery is not so simple. A snip is made in the right side of the belly .... the incision is then continued upwards and downwards, in such directions as to avoid bleeding . . . . the muscles are divided in the same vertical line. This having been done, the intestine and mesentery are drawn out carefully, and laid on the anterior surface of the belly The intestine then lies in the trough C, while the mesentery rests on the glass plate B. So much of the intestine as does not occupy the trough must be replaced. If the observation is prolonged (as in researches on inflammation), it is well to place in the trough, outside of the intestine, a layer of filter paper, on which half per cent, solution of salt is dropped from time to time." The preparation of the tongue for the next experiment commences : — " The animal must be curarized as before." The editor, in his preface to this volume from which I quote, begins as follows : — " This book is intended for beginners in physiological work. It is a book of methods, not a compendium of the science of physiology, and consequently claims a place rather in the laboratory than in the study." I might, alas, fill volumes with quotations of experi- ments of every conceivable, and, to most of us, inconceivable kind : — experiments on the eye,* the sensory tracts, t the action of the brain after parts of it have been sliced away,| on the nature of pain and its action on different parts of the system ;§ experiments with burning]' and freezing,H subjecting the creature to atmospheric pressure until it becomes as stiff" as a * " Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory," 1873, pp. 160-1-2. t Ferrier's " Functions of the Brain," 1886, p. 325. % Ueber die Verrichtungen des Grosshims, F. Goltz, p. 31. § Mantegazza's Eisiologia del Dolore (" Physiology of Pain"). Florence, 1880, p. 95. || Dr. G. W. Crile's An Experimental Research into Surgical Shock. Philadelphia, p. 118. The first series of these experiments were performed at University College, London, with the permission of Professor Victor Horsley. IT Kirke's " Physiology," 13th Edition, 1892, p. 538. " It appears that rabbits can be cooled down to 48 F. before they die." IO board ;* tormenting a dog in order to test its feelingst by successive cruelties, which make one almost despair of human nature, or of human society, which permits a practice wherein such things are possible, to remain under the protection of the law. Many of the experiments can scarcely be set down in black and white, so sickening are they in the hideous anguish which the operators coldly, sometimes jestingly record ; so haunting and heart-breaking are the revelations of the torments, which man — not content with the pain and misery already abounding in the world — deliberately and systematically inflicts upon defenceless fellow-creatures, who have done him no wrong. Is man justified in so acting ? It is a question par excellence for an Ethical Society to consider. In spite of the most complete ignorance of the whole subject, popular opinion is entirely firm and confident that vivisection is a justifiable and necessary proceeding, " when properly conducted and in due moderation " ; — a delightfully nebulous definition which must rejoice the heart of the true vivisector ! For clearly, it is left to him and to his friends to decide what " vivisection properly conducted " really is, and it is also confided to them to determine the precise limits of "moderate vivisection." Would it, for instance, be considered "moderate," if the operator inoculated one eye of an animal with virus for some experimental purpose, and not the other ? % Or would it be " moderate vivisection " to bake merely a paltry ten cats or so to * Paul Bert, La Pression Barunutrique, p. 800. t Elliotson's " Human Phy.-iology," p. 450. J For eye inoculations see " Further Report on the Etiology of Diphtheria," by Dr. E. Klein, F.R.S., Appendix B, Medical Report to the Local Government Board, 1889. II death,* in order to study the effects of a rise of tempera- ture on the action of the heart, when one might quite as easily have baked twenty cats ? When the moderate person talks on this question in that balanced spirit, and in the particular tone which corresponds to it, one feels that it would be a simple matter to make out a case for moderate and properly conducted murder, under careful supervision, or for properly restricted burglary, or for mitigated arson. Without comparing the respective natures of these crimes with the practice of vivisection, and without begging the question by calling vivisection a crime, I think it is very clear that if it is a crime, then the number of eyes or the number of cats does not alter the fact of its criminal character ; and if it be innocent, then it also does not matter how often an experiment is performed, while to restrict and regulate an innocent practice is entirely inconsequent. The relatives of a murdered man would not be likely to be mollified if the murderer pleaded that, after all, this was only his third victim. There are, indeed, many actions which do depend for their character upon the moderation or excess with which they are committed (such as smoking, or drinking, and so forth), but it can scarcely be con- tended that vivisection is among them. Either it is wrong to torture creatures for our own ends, or it is not wrong, and no amount of " moderation " alters the character of the deed. Now vivisection — by which I imply not that which most people believe it to be, but * Experiments by Dr. Lauder Brunton and Theodore Cash, quoted by Mark Thornhill from the October number of the Practitioner, 1884. The words " baked to death " are naturally not employed by ihe experimenters ; but the particulars and figures which they give showing ,to what exact temperature the animals were raised before they died of " hyperpyrexia," i.e., over-heating, reveal the fate of these unfortunate animals, a fate which, in unprofessional language, is that of being baked to death. 12 that which it really is, viz., the torturing of animals in the most prolonged and exquisite manner, in the pursuit of knowledge — vivisection is a practice which it is not possible to regard with indifference, (unless questions of right and wrong are of no interest to us). If it be not wholly and completely justifiable, and, indeed, laudable ; if the principle involved in it be not triumphantly sound and capable of application in all questions of morality and social life, then vivisection must be among the blackest and most dastardly of crimes, however admir- able and even humane, in other directions, may be the men who devote themselves to that pursuit. To the examination of that question and that principle I propose to devote a second article in the October number of this magazine. I shall then ask my readers to consider what must be the social effect of an open acceptance of the principle involved in vivisection ; viz., that the weak (if only they are weak and friendless enough) may be maltreated for the benefit of the strong, the inferior for the superior, the unimportant for the important ; that after all, and by the pronouncement of the most advanced and civilised peoples, Might is Right. >> = 45 '$. § ft & o B a U !0 c3 „ & T3 Jti ■ ■? - .2 S -5 ia §•* * b g « - S l a 3 n I s « £ * .- S o 2 ■- „ s 3 &< CO >, H ° =2 ~ . to a, 9 Q a, "INFERNAL INTELLECT." [From November, iSgj, Our Dumb A>u'nials.~\ 111 1876 we bad the pleasure of addressing the great Biennial National Unitarian Conference, held once in two years at Saratoga Springs, for the pur- pose of bringing before that denomination the claims of the lower animals. While waiting for our turn to speak, the question of building a Unitarian church in Washington, D. C, came before the con- vention, and the distinguished Rev. Dr. Bellows, of New York city, in advocating it said "that there was probably no place in the known world where could be found a greater gathering of ' infernal in- tellect' than at Washington." We wonder whether what Dr. Bellows said in re- gard to Washington is not coming too true over a large part of our whole country, and what our col- leges and educational institutions are doing to prevent it. We can hardly take up a newspaper in this month of October without reading of college foot- ball and base-ball fights [with gambling accompani- ments] or some other kind of fights between colleges, or between classes in the same colleges. And then we read of biological studies in colleges which require all students, as a part of their education, to dissect cats, and how cat farms are being estab- lished near these colleges to raise animals for the use of the students — and how the same education is being carried not only into our colleges and higher schools, but also in many cases even into our gram- mar schools ; and then how our millionaires are pouring their gifts into educational institutions to increase this education, and we wonder what all this business is coming to in the neoct generation, or what the benefit would have been to us if President Lin- coln, Charles Sumner, Daniel Webster, and other distinguished men, north and south, had been simi- larly educated. ■ ^ c "Infernal Intellect." And there seems to be growing up all over our country a love of fighting — more battle-ships, more armed cruisers, more torpedo boats, more great .guns, more military training in our schools. The newspapers say that we are going to take the Sand- wich Islands, and there is some talk of our birying a part of Greenland, and it is even suggested that we buy the Island of Madeira on the other side of the Atlantic, while at the same time we ai^ pro- claiming to the world that no other nation shall ever acquire by purchase or otherwise a single acre of territory in this western hemisphere. There were nearly eleven thousand murders in our (country last year, while in England and "Wales there' J were during the same length of time year before last only one hundred and sixty-three. We wonder what all this is coming to, and what our colleges and educational institutions and our Christian churches even are doing to hasten the coming of "peace on earth" and [saying nothing \ of the lower creatures] " good ivill to men." But while we wonder we shall continue to work with such means as we can obtain [so long as we have power to work] to send out into all our schools the teachings of peace and mercy which seem to us best calculated to promote civilization and humanity, the pi'osperity of our country, the protection of property and life, arid to make the world happier and better. Geo. T. Angell. A RE EX PERI MENTS ON LIVI NG AN IMA LS JUSTIFIABLE ? MILTON asks: C Shall I abuse this consecrated gift of strength ? " SHAKESPEARE says: "Your highness shall from this practice but make hard your heart ; besides the seeing these effects will be both noisome and infectious." (Speech of the Doctor to the Queen in "Cymbeline.") Issued by INDEPENDENT ANTI-VIVISECTION LEAGUE. Hon. Sec, 11, Woronzow Road, London, N.W. L. 41. "Watch the students at a vivisection. It is the blood and suffering, not the science, that rivets their breath- less attention. If hospital service makes young students less tender of suffering, vivisection deadens their humanity, and begets indifference to it." (Prof Henry J. Bigelow, M.D., (late) Professor of Surgery in Harvard University. Annual Address before ihe Massachusetts Medical Society. June 7th, 1871). PART II. / IS TORTURE FOR A GOOD END JUSTIFIABLE? In the last number of this magazine, I tried to show, as well as a few words on so vast a subject would permit, that the pain endured by the victims of vivisection is extremely severe ; so horrible, indeed, in many cases, as to task one's powers of belief, recorded though these martyrdoms are by those who inflict them. I gave references with every assertion I made, so that the reader could verify all statements for himself, if he wished to do so. Let the reader then — for the moment at least — grant that torture to animals is involved in vivisection, by the very nature of the practice and its aims. The question of fact being settled, the question of ethics arises : Is the infliction of such torture on man's helpless depen- dents justifiable, and if so, on what grounds ? The usual, and in fact, the only answer given is : It is justifiable on the ground that man is superior to animals, and that the suffering of the inferior is of no moment, in comparison with the hoped-for benefit to the superior. Now, I propose to examine the principles involved in this reply, and to ask my readers to enquire whether those principles are in line with ethical development, whether they are progressive or retrograde in character, whether their acceptance by the public, and their sanction by law, is likely to further the movement of human society in the direction of security and liberty, in the growth of brotherly harmony, and of general well-being. Let us consider the vivisector's contention. " It is 14 justifiable," he asserts, " to inflict torture on the weaker inferior for what we may happen to believe will bring benefit to the stronger superior. It is justifiable to commit a deed that is, in itself, atrocious, so long as our object can be shewn to be important. In that case, the atrocity changes its character, and becomes laudable." / This theory is no new discovery; indeed, it savours of /the Middle Ages, when the Church held just such a / creed, and carried out her views with the help of fire and / sword, thumbscrew and rack — very much as science now carries out her aims by means strangely similar. The Church claimed that for the sake of her important end she_ might employ all necessary means (as she con- sidered them) : the good end sanctifying the hideous means. To this sacerdotal superstition the high priests of science have become heirs. It is not a little singular and significant that the scientific priesthood have stepped into the place once usurped by the Church, repeating her tyranny over the public conscience, repeating the stupendous claims which she made for her special objects ; demanding a privilege which, in these days, is granted to no other avocation or interest or body whatso- ever, viz., to pursue just ends by cruel and unjust means. Putting aside, for the moment, all other points, why should science enjoy a monopoly of this privilege? It is surely an offence against public liberties, which every other body and interest has a right to resent, on this ground alone. If cruelty is to be justified by its object in one case, why, in the name of common justice, not in another ? A law exists in the statute-book of England which forbids cruelty to (domestic) animals. Another law exists which permits a particular class of men to obtain certificates by which, for their -special ends, cruelty may 15 nevertheless be perpetrated. Why, then, may not religion, whose ends (from her own point of view and that of vast numbers) are far more vitally important than those of science, obtain a special charter for cruelty, on the same plea of a good object ? Why may not commerce, or agriculture, or art, claim the same right ? In Florence in the sixteenth century, the injustice of granting such a monopoly was evidently felt, for while physiologists were provided with victims from the state prisons to aid their learned researches, art also, it is said, put in a successful claim to a similar indulgence; a religious painter having obtained a prisoner from the Duke of Florence, with permission to have the miserable man crucified, in order to study his anguished face, and so be enabled to paint a moving picture of the crucifixion. The artist, doubtless, believed he could thus move men's souls and bring them to salvation, and he felt that the pangs of this wretched criminal were not worth a moment's consideration, in comparison with the im- portance of the service to art and to religion, which those pangs might render. And if the principle of the vivisector is to be accepted (that important ends justify atrocious means), then the painter was perfectly right — from his own point of view — as the vivisector is from his. But does the general public really accept this principle which has justified every atrocity that has eve r been committed by powerful monopolies, since the world began ? If the inferiority of a victim compared with the importance of an object has really anything to do with the matter, then the painter was right and the vivisector is right, and their principle (being right) ought to be universally appjied_ in social life — that is to say, the importance and superiority of a sentient being should be recognised as the sole reason for exempting him from maltreatment under the law, for i6 the sake of science, or humanity, or whatever object we may happen to consider of most vital importance to the State. That being so, the question of superiority becomes a burning one indeed ! It is, of course, idle and impossible to attempt to decide exactly how inferior a sentient being must be, in order to exonerate his tormentors from blame. That clearly would involve a purely arbitrary decision, devoid of all logic or principle. There are idiots and maniacs and criminals who are certainly not superior, in any sense, to the dogs and horses so indescribably tortured by physiologists ; yet if the principle on which they profess to justify these tortures were generally and honestly applied, there could be no sound reason for exempting those luckless products of our social state from the torments of the laboratory. The idiot, the maniac, and the criminal, would become the legitimate prey of the humane physiologist. In fact it would all become a mere matter of comparison — and what is worse — of opinion ; those below the average being regarded as fair game for the vivisector, who benevolently wishes to benefit the average : the average, again, being utilized, in the same way, for the good of the exceptionally noble and superior — though one wonders how long men and women exceptionally noble would continue to appear in this vivisectional order of society ! As a matter of fact, the race would inevitably degenerate into something worse than savage ; and with increasing criminality and selfishness, even the physical type would be rapidly lowered — science notwithstanding. The moral law will not be so cheated. Let the reader try to find a principle which justifies vivisection, and at the same time allows itself to be applied to civilized society, without showing itself laughably absurd. I defy him to logically achieve that 17 feat. Is it not plain to anyone admitting the existence of a moral obligation at all, that the claim to exemption from torture of either man or animal rests on the fact that he can feci it? Superiority has clearly nothing to do (with the matter. As Jeremy Bentham so well says, in claiming the right of animals to this exemption : " The question is not, Can they reason, or can they speak ? . . . . but, Can they suffer ? " If the test question were really, in all strictness : " Can they reason ? " it is difficult to see how the majority of the human species would escape the hands of the physiologist. Certainly the average supporter of vivisec- tion ought, in such a case, to beware of explaining why he thought it justifiable to vivisect animals ! Nor is this a mere gibe. In this, as in all other subjects which are still in the stage of ridicule or opposition, the reasoning powers of opponents are not brought into real action. The issues and principles, and their relation to principles already accepted, have never forced themselves upon the understanding ; and intellects that are, in other directions, keen and honest, assume in regard to the luckless topic all the attributes of a feeble and even of a disingenuous mind. I have purposely abstained, in these articles, from making a special appeal to the hearts and sympathies of my readers, for I am convinced that it is not primarily the heart, but the intellect that is usually at fault, on this question. What heart could be so base as to cheer on the man who dissects living animals, unless some intellectual conception, some theory or idea had redirected the heart and conscience, and thus over- powered every prompting of chivalry and pity ? It is, in fact, this preposterous theory which I have been examining, viz., that the inferior may be justly tortured for the good of the superior (if the inferior be i8 only sufficiently defenceless), which lies at the bottom of the strange perversion of feeling (as I regard it) now so common even among kind and conscientious people. It is to this intellectual confusion that I especially desire to call attention, in these articles. It has been impossible, in the space at my command, to do more than this. The practice is increasing, year by year, and it is leading, as it naturally must, to human vivisection, under various disguises and pretexts. Part of the natural penalty is already beginning to fall upon the human race, which thus tries to evade the moral law. All who believe in that law ought to ask themselves whether they can conscientiously support, or rather whether they can refrain from strongly opposing this practice, resting as it does on a principle which would reduce human society to savagery if generally applied, a principle which checks the tendency of developing humanity to include in its sympathies and its justice other races and kinds of suffering beings ; which teaches the sacrifice of the weak for the strong, and puts to utter confusion all that we have so slowly and grudgingly learnt of moral truth, every generous and protective instinct, every fine impulse of justice and chivalry : — in short, every quality that ennobles the human character, and justifies hope for the future of the race. [Mr. Hickson's Reply occurred here in the Original Series.] " Dr. Albert Leffingwell of New York, in- vestigator for twenty-five years, says that in Paris he " visited the Pasteur Institute " where he "was told there were over 2,000 rabbits awaiting their fate . . . But neither the great number of victims . . . nor the vast iron cage with dogs tearing at their chains so impressed his memory as the scores of rabbits that he saw tying in com- partments slowly dying with their eyes rot- ting out." Prof. Lawson Tait, one of the most Eminent Surgeons in England. " Like every member of my profession, I was brought up in the belief that by vivisection had been obtained almost every important fact in physiology, and that many of our most valued means of saving life and diminishing suffering had resulted from ex- periments on the lower animals. I now know that nothing of the sort is true concerning the art of sur- gery, and not only do I not believe that vivisection has helped the surgeon one bit, but I know that it has often led him astray." Sir Thomas Watsun,. M.D., (Ex-President Royal h - Clay Paddock, M. D., New York city:— "I am op- College of Physicians.) posed to vivisection, for my own experience of years in "One of the greatest physicians who ever lived ^ e Moratory, and that of others, has convinced me . . Sir Thomas Watson, told me himself, not that i these experiments are misleading, useless and cruel " long before he died, that young men had to unlearn at the bedside what they had learned in the labora- tory."— (From speech of Canon Wilberforce, Jun« 22d, 1892, reported in the Zoophilist, July, 1892, p. 80/ PART III. A REJOINDER. In speaking of the statements made in my two previous articles in this magazine, Mr. Hickson says: — " . . . . neither the statements themselves, nor the denial of their truth, can materially assist those earnest thinkers .... who really wish to form an opinion as to whether vivisection is, or is not, justifiable." In the next paragraph, however, Mr. Hickson proceeds to deny, with some warmth, those very statements, as if, on second thoughts, he felt that, after all, they were not entirely alien to the point at issue. Indeed, how the truth or falsity of statements respecting the pain involved in vivisection could possibly be considered of little moment to those who are trying to form their opinion on the subject, is difficult to understand. Forgetting that he considers the matter of no importance, Mr. Hickson then gives us the results of his wide experience in English and foreign laboratories, and says that he cannot conceive on whose authority I state that animals " are tortured in a prolonged and exquisite manner." I made the statement on the strength of all that I have read in the works of physiologists ; and in my articles I quoted, with chapter and verse, accounts of experiments that seemed to me to bear out what I said. One could scarcely expect vivisectors to describe their operations in such unprofessional terms as mine. Yet, as it happened, curiously enough, in the very article which Mr. Hickson criticises, I quoted a description by the celebrated vivisector, Claude Bernard, of experi- ments performed on animals under the influence of 20 curare. They are subjected, he says, "to the most (atrocious sufferings that the mind of man can conceive. 9 '* \ I may claim, then, that one of my authorities is Claude Bernard himself; and I do not think that any anti- vivisector, even if perversely bent on exaggeration, could say anything much stronger than is said by this king among vivisectors ! It is somewhat difficult to understand what position Mr. Hickson really means to take up, for he wanders uneasily from position to position, and back again, all through his article ; first denying indignantly that animals are tortured, and then devoting much ingenuity to prove that it is perfectly justifiable to torture them. Numerous cruel customs are adduced as justification, and Mr. Hickson brings forward the whole question of the rights of animals ; and throws in the teeth of his opponents the captive horse pressed into the service of man, the dog deprived of liberty, and even the cater- pillars among the leaves of cauliflowers possibly destroyed when the vegetable is eaten. If the principles of the anti-vivisectionists were pressed to their con- clusion, Mr. Hickson contends, " our homes would be infested with rats and our bodies with vermin." That is to say, we must not shorten the existence of an animal which invades our houses, nor deprive of life creatures so low in the scale of being as to be scarcely sentient, if we venture to protest against the infliction of torments on highly organised, and, therefore, highly sensitive animals : creatures with a nervous organisation not unlike our own, with feelings and intelligence and warm affections, to be outraged by the cruel treachery of the being whom they so loyally trust and serve. * See page 8 of this pamphlet. ) 21 The anti-vivisectionist (qua anti-vivisectionist) does not go further into the problem of animals' rights than is involved in his protest against the supreme and culmi- nating outrage of man against them : viz., the organised and systematic torture of these creatures for human ends. Whatever other wrongs (and they are many) may be done them, thisjs the supreme and crowning wrong (according to the opponent of the practice) ; this is the summing up, and justifying, and systematising of all man's tyranny and baseness towards those beings who lie so utterly at his mercy. Nothing can justify it, unless we deny to weakness all rights, and deprive strength of all moral responsibility. And in that case, there would be no question of justification for anything, as there would be no moral standard or perception to demand it. We find, in vivisection, the extreme case of strength taking advantage of weakness, with the added evil that it erects the outrage into a legal practice, and gathers round it all the sentiment and instinctive submission with which the average man or woman regards an institution backed by law, and by the authority of a powerful and justly-respected profession. As for delaying our protest against this supreme outrage until we have taken a definite stand on all the minor and more recon- dite questions regarding the rights of animals — as well might a man postpone rescuing his neighbour from the attack of an intending murderer, until he had quite made up his mind also to set his face against war and capital punishment ! Killing and torturing stand on entirely different planes, and man acknowledges the fact in his laws and customs and sentiments. Even the laws of civilised warfare recognise the distinction. A soldier is applauded for killing his enemies, but he would scarcely meet with the same reception if he were to torture them. The 22 murderer is hanged (rightly or wrongly), but he is not tortured. (These instances are adduced merely to remind my readers of the acknowledged difference between the two acts, among civilised mankind.) Therefore, it is not necessary, I contend, to wait until (for instance) the whole world has decided against a carnivorous diet, before we may protest against the torturing of animals by vivisection. It is not incumbent upon a man to make up his mind to ascend the highest steps of a flight, before he ventures to put his foot on the first one. If it were so, it is hard to see how any sort of human progress would be possible. All that is asked by the opponent of vivisection (in that capacity), is that human beings should apply to this question the same ordinary moral tests that they would apply in other departments of existence. He asks merely that they do not descend below the level required by the commonly accepted standard of their day, nor drag their genera- tion back to a darker stage of moral consciousness. The standard which humanity has achieved, in general, in all departments of social life, (with the exception of this one secret department), is obviously above that which suddenly confuses killing with torturing, and professes to see no difference between a surgeon and a vivisector. As to the vermin question, cleanliness is the best protection against their aggressions : but if we are un- willing or unable to adopt this extreme measure, then we may cut short the existence of parasites, without feeling obliged to discontinue our protest against the systematic torturing of highly organised and, therefore, highly sensitive animals. But, once more : if vivisection does not cause torture to animals, why does Mr. Hickson resort to these truly desperate measures in order to justify it ? It seems 23 irreverent to suggest it in relation to the arguments of science, but the well-known anecdote irresistibly recurs to the memory, of the defence of the Irishwoman accused of stealing her neighbour's saucepan : " I niver set eyes on the saucepan, yer honour — and, besides, it was broken ! " However, as Mr. Hickson shifts his ground in this confusing manner, there is nothing for it but to follow him to his new stronghold. Assuming (necessarily at this point) that my opponent has conceded that, after all, the vivisector does sometimes get carried away by the force of his good motive to inflict a little torture on his victims, we have to examine the justifica- tion for this torture — justification other than that behind which all cruelties and wrongs may find shelter, viz., that other people commit wrongs and cruelties too. Mr. Hickson says that the motive gives the real character to a deed, and adduces, as proof, an instance of a doctor "torturing" a boy by removing his aching tooth. This suggests the astonishing inference that the doctor and the vivisector are equally justified in their deeds by their good motives. Mr. Hickson thus ignores the difference between inflicting pain on a consenting patient for his own good, and inflicting pain on a non- consenting victim for the good (real or supposed) of o ther s. The motive, he insists, is the all-important matter. This theory opens a wide field for human enterprise. The bomb-thrower, the fanatic, the per- secutor for the sake of the " truth ", would all, (on this principle), be in a position to demand of society not only submission to their drastic proceedings, but legal sanction and protection while they pursued their excellent object — of course with proper certificates and under careful , supervision. This is what a vivisector demands and gets_ from an indulgent country, convinced of the amiability of his motives. But in justice to enterprises of other kinds, 2 4 society should be reminded that there are many practices besides vivisection that can plead a good motive. Can it be really necessary to point out that the motive is all- important as regards a man's own moral stains, but that society has to prevent aggression and outrage upon the weak, quite irrespective of the aggressor's motive for his assault and battery ? Mr. Hickson says that " it is not difficult to write pages about the sacrificing of the weak to the strong, and columns to prove that might is not right, which are after all a meaningless jargon of words." Of course, one may be unlucky enough to produce a meaningless jargon of words on any subject on which one undertakes to write. But it does not seem to me that Mr. Hickson proves (for instance) that might is right, or that the weak ought to be systematically sacrificed to the strong, merely by repeating his opponent's assertions in a derisive manner. This particular form of argument strikes one as more popular than scientific. That the weak are generally sacrificed to the strong is indeed true ; but surely the test of the ethical develop- ment and civilisation of a nation, is precisely the degree of protection which the community affords to right irrespective of might. Surely it is not necessary to plead with the members of an ethical society on such a point. The principle on which vivisection rests is, in fact, in flat contradiction to the principles by following which the human race develops morally, and therefore pro- gresses also intellectually and physically, in the long run. Dominion, indeed, as Mr. Hickson contends, is the natural heritage of the strong over the weak. But as the moral perceptions of the race enlarge, and we thereby learn to solve some of our most difficult problems, it is clear that man will no longer be able to face the idea of shifting, or trying to shift, the burden he has made for himself, by his 25 own sin and folly, on to the shoulders of his weaker brethren. To hope that he could really ultimately gain by so dastardly an outrage, seems to imply a deep-seated unbelief in the reality of the moral law, and of the harmony of the forces — moral and physical — that govern the universe. Whatever our immediate successors may decide as to the general question of the rights of animals, and the duties of men towards them, it is certain that the human conscience already protests against systematically inflicting torture upon them, for any object, good or bad ; and that, in proportion as the moral sense grows in clearness and insight, strength of all kinds will be used less and less for the ends of personal dominion, and more and more for purposes of chivalry and of mercy. Blessed are the merciful." be o , 8°J 2 h. •v s o g o 32 P-. i— I > I— I > h o E-i » «H O -f-C ° .2 P. 2 © o *e » W — ! r- 0) rt > .2 .Si J= ~ .O 0) OS « a, Q, O ■•—■ H «S^t; a a 3 o "5 ~ >•• a 5 « ■° B a a fe s i 11 -t 3 a o "e : - s > •M S '? O 1 0) t, S O M SH J, _H TH |JH > a 5 - «|5 S a o o 8 8 x a ~ a s .q a i o o .- '■3 ^ "d *=" ^^ p. &a 3 3 ° s § G £ c a * 5 o g5 , * h n a 5 „ jS o3 St — u u s ^ " i 2 k o - > a 3 2 . S oj S • 3 £ ■* ■* ° o o a, os .a -S ^ ■" >> - a s .2 o 8 3 -^ o' * 8 8 -8 Pewtress & Co., Printers, 28, Little Queen Street, High Holborn, London, W.C ^0tktu fox tljt ^bnlition of ftitrimttott. ESTABLISHED 1875. [president : Miss CHARLOTTE A. DE WINTON. Ibonorary treasurer ; Mr. WILLIAM JOHNSON. Ibonorarg Secretary : Mr. CHARLES G. OATES. Council : Miss C. A. DE WINTON. Miss GEORGIANA SELFE. Mr. WILLIAM JOHNSON. Mrs. E. H. NASH. Mr. C. G. OATES. Miss ELLEN TAYLOR. Secretary : Miss E. M. WRIGHT. SHORT LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF THE Society for tbe Bbolition of Direction. What is Vivisection ? By Edith Carrington . Appeal to the Ministers of Religion. Short Appeal to the Public. Lord Carnarvon on Vivisection. Dr. Martineau and Mr. Ruskin on Vivisection. Protest Against Vivisection. By William Huifiit. Letter on Vivisection. By William Hoivitt. The Poets and the Physiologists. Dr. Chalmers on Vivisection. The Trichina Spiralis; "Animals were Sent for our Use.'" Nine Reasons Against the Scientific Torture of Animals.. By Professor F. W. Nezvman. Anaesthetics and the Lower Animals. By George Hoggan, M.B.. Cerebral-Localization and Brain-Surgery. Man's Injustice to Animals ; the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution. Third Edition. The above and other publications of the Society may be obtained on application to the Secretary, Miss E. M. Wright, 62, Strand, London, YV.C. DUKE MED. CENTER UB^ HISTORICAL COLLECTION