ied torment
for the wretched victims.

Human beings are not submitted on the surgeons' table to operations of
this character, prolonged for hours. If, in the interest of Science,
some experimenter would place himself in like condition to that of the
animals upon which he worked; if, under anaesthesia--complete or
incomplete--he would permit a hand to be "crushed," a nerve trunk
"stimulated," his feet placed in boiling water "for a considerable
time," and a Bunsen's flame applied for two minutes to some part of
his body--we might possibly learn whether the acutest pains inflicted
could be absolutely suppressed. Perhaps he would survive to tell us;
but the animal cannot speak. No assurances suffice to clear our
doubts; assurances prove nothing. It may be, to use the words of a
great surgeon, that "in this relation, there exists a case of cruelty
to animals far transcending in its refinement and in its horror,
anything that has been known in the history of nations."

Such are some of the reasons which induce doubt of the theory that all
of the experiments of these vivisectors were conducted upon animals
wholly insensible to painful impressions. To become the victim of the
anaesthetic delusion regarding them is to justify; and to justify is
to share responsibility. But this is not all. There would seem to be
other evidence of the most convincing character, that some of the
animals thus subjected for hours to the stimulation of nerves and to
the most frightful mutilations were not at all times in such state of
unconsciousness as to prevent the occurrence of one most significant
indication of pain. It is proof to which the attention of the public,
so far as known, has never yet been directed; and I propose to
illustrate somewhat at length what has been done in the name of free
and unlimited vivisection, not only during the closing years of the
past century, but down almost to the present time.

CHAPTER XII

VIVISECTION OF TO-DAY

If the reform of vivisection may only be hoped for, when the secrecy
concerning it shall have been dispelled, the beginning of the present
century is not propitious of any changes. Against all intrusion upon
its rites, the physiological laboratory in England and America
maintains as successful an opposition as ever characterized the
Eleusinian mysteries of the pagan world. No laboratory--so far as
known--dares to invite inspection at any h