"Though now a Minister of the Gospel, I was educated to the profession
of medicine, and was graduated from the College of Physicians and
Surgeons (Medical Department of Columbia College) New York, in 1870.
In the class-room I SAW VIVISECTIONS SO UNQUALIFIEDLY CRUEL THAT EVEN
NOW THEY REMAIN IN MY MEMORY AS A NIGHTMARE."
(From letter to The American Humane Association.)
"All medical students in America know that similar outrages are perpetrated in our medical colleges every winter. I have witnessed vivisections SO CRUEL AND UNNECESSARY THAT I AM ASHAMED TO REMEMBER THAT THEY WERE UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF MY ALMA MATER." (From sermon preached at Portland, Oregon.)
Dr. Henry M. Field, Professor Emerituss of Therapeutics, Dartmouth
Medical School, Dartmouth College, writes:
"I well remember my experience as a student of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York…. I well remember the poor dogs, brought out from their dungeon, perhaps famished and tortured with thirst, should the experiment require such condition; their appealing eyes and trembling limbs, I shall never forget…. Indeed, SOME FORM OF TORTURE AND ATROCITY WAS EXPECTED AT EVERY LECTURE, AND SURE TO BE APPLAUDED…. The student who found entertainment in the unnecessary torture of animals, learned something besides physiology; his humane nature was perverted…." (From letter to the Vivisection Reform Society, dated April 28, 1905.)
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.