APPENDIX IV
A LETTER OF DR. JOHN BASCOM, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
To the Editor of the "Springfield Republican."
SIR,—In the complexity of our many social problems, it does not quite do to extemporize an opinion. In a recent issue the Republican came very near falling into this fault. Taking as its text a striking example of locating a clot of blood in the brain, and referring the knowledge by which this was done to vivisection, it spoke lightly of the limitation which many have sought to put upon this practise. It is noot the assertion of the opponents of vivisection, that itis always useless, but that it has been carried much beyond the demands of any desirable and humane purpose. Even the example given is not so striking if we remember that it has long been known that each half of the body is governed not by the adjacent, but by the opposite, lobe of the brain.
Considering the uncertainty, and the costly nature, of the knowledge gained by vivisection, and the great abuse the practice has suffered, its opponents demand that animals should not be subjected to this suffering except in view of some definite and important question to be answered; that the pain involved in such an investigation should be reduced to its lowest possible terms; that experiments once satisfactorily made should not be indefinitely repeated; and that vivisection should not be left in the hands of every tyro acquiring the rudiments of knowledge. These claims are almost as much a demand of accuracy in knowledge as of humanity in temper. The pain involved in vivisection often creates such an abnormal state as to weaken or invalidate the conclusions drawn in connection with it. The careless student may easily confirm, as he thinks by observation, opinions not well grounded.
Vivisection has been objected to not theoretically or sentimentally simply, but on account of the monstrous abuses that have been associated with it. In Europe men of distinguishing ability have seemed to revel in this form of inquiry and to have prosecuted it without the slightest reference to the cruel and revolting features associated with it. They have made of it a school of Nero in which brutality became a passion of the mind.
One of the most deadly sins of men has been cruelty, cruelty to animals, to children, to women, to men. The basest of these forms is in some respects cruelty to animals, since animals are so thoroughly committed into our hands. It is not easy to devise a more hardening process than careless vivisection; and the claim that it is done in the name of knowledge is, unless it is profoundly and deeply true, an aggravation of the offence. Inhumanity is the worst possible temper for the medical profession to entertain, and the worst possible suspicion to attach to them. If the physicians cannot approach all suffering with an intense desire to relieve it, he is not true to his calling. It is with more or less fear that the defenceless human subject is committed to them lest they should make of him an experiment.
JOHN BASCOM.
Williamstown,
December 15, 1902.