EXTIRPATION
To make a part "rigid" is equal to the "extirpation" of such part. While it is in a state of rigidity, it ceases to take part in any action whatsoever; it is inert and the same as if it had ceased to exist. What advantage, then, let me ask, is there in extirpating parts in animals, when we can, by making parts rigid, directly extirpate such parts in ourselves? We can in this manner suppress the action of any muscle, or the participation of any vessel, or part of such vessel, in any act, by the simple exercise of our volition. I find no difficulty in thus "extirpating" any such part from myself for the time being, and then observing the consequences. I can take hold of the innermost part of myself, so to say, and take it out of myself. In regard to vocal utterance, these consequences are positive and direct. That these operations must be very carefully conducted in connection with vital parts goes without saying. The action of muscles participating in the production of vocal utterance, however, or in the act of breathing, except the muscles of the heart, can be suppressed without danger. I am thus in a position to modify extirpation of parts to any extent, almost, I desire. I can add to and detract therefrom at will, and can shift the act of extirpation from the anterior part of a vessel to its posterior, or from its superior to its inferior, or vice versa, now making one side rigid, then the other, now one end, and then the other; or take hold of its centre and leave the other parts free, or suppress its circumference and leave the centre free. There is scarcely a limit to the action of my will in handling my subject. All this while, my feelings, my intelligence, my mind, take in every phase of these proceedings, and enable me to give a correct account of the results I have been observing.
This discovery—for a discovery it must be, as I can find no account of any similar proceeding ever having been carried on—should, and I hope will, put an end to vivisection, when it is resorted to for the purpose of learning anything whatever in respect to the action and the process of life. By this proceeding I have more or less successfully observed the acts of breathing, of vocal utterance, motion and locomotion, hearing, seeing, and thinking.
I beg leave to here insert without comment the following clipping from the press:
The following extracts are from a lecture on "Vivisection in Relation to Medical Science," delivered by Edward Berdoe, M. R. C. S., etc., at Cambridge. Lovers of animals may be glad to know how the medical fraternity amuse themselves:
"You may open the abdomens of living cats, guinea-pigs, and rabbits, and apply irritating chemicals to their exposed intestines, causing what you are pleased to term 'peculiar rhythmic movements' and 'circus movements,' but what the unlearned would call violent spasms and convulsions, as was done by Dr. Batten and Mr. Bokenham, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, last year. You may dissect out the kidneys of living dogs and cats which you have first paralyzed by curare—the 'hellish oorali' of Lord Tennyson's poem, so called because the animal's sufferings are intensified by its use, and it is unable to move a limb, or to bite, scratch, howl, or otherwise interfere with the operator's comfort. You may do this, as was done by Dr. John Rose Bradford, at University College, London. You may infect ninety cats with cholera poison, and bake numbers of them alive, as did Dr. Lander Brunton. You may inoculate the eyes of rabbits and guinea-pigs with the material of tubercle, fix glass balls filled with croton oil—a horribly irritating drug—and stitch them into the muscles of the backs of rabbits, then crush them amongst their tissues, as did Dr. Watson Cheyne, at King's College, London. You may slice, plough, burn, and pick away the brains of monkeys and dogs, as did Dr. Ferrier. You may slowly starve to death animals whose vagi nerves have been cut and stimulated by electricity, as was done by Dr. Gaskell, of this University, in 1878. You may cut out the spleens and livers from living rabbits, pigeons, and ducks, as was done by Dr. William Hunter, of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1888, or do a thousand other acts which in a coster-monger or a farm laborer would be termed and dealt with as acts of atrocious cruelty, punishable by imprisonment. But you have not learned the cure for a single malady which afflicts the human body."