N
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 s
|