Again, on August 16, 1862, the Medical Times and Gazette gives an expression of its views on the subject. It condemns the cruelty of Magendie, concerning which one will seek vainly to-day in medical periodicals for any similar expression of reprobation. Referring to the subject, the editor says:
"No person whose moral nature is raised above that of the savage would defend the practices which lately disgraced the veterinary schools of France, or in past years the theatre of Magendie.[1] Professor Sharpey, in his address to the British Medical Association, has accurately drawn the required limits, fully obtained and confirmed, ITS REPETITION IS INDEFENSIBLE; and `as the art of operating may be learned equally on the dead as on the living body, operations on the latter for the purpose of surgical instruction are reprehensible and unnecessary.'"
[1] The lecture-room in which vivisections were publicly performed.
To the London Lancet the cause of humaneness to animals is also indebted, for its repeated condemnation of the cruelties of vivisection. As the exponent and representative of British surgery, its words undoubtedly carried great weight among medical practitioners. In its issue of August 11, 1860, after pointing out the utility of certain physiological inquiries, the Lancet's editor thus defines what it regards as reprehensible cruelty:
"On the other hand, when at any moment the practice overpasses the rigorous bounds of utility, when its object is no longer the pursuit of new solutions of scientific problems, or the examination of hypotheses requiring a test; when vivisection is elevated into an art, and this art becomes a matter of public demonstration—then it is degraded by the absence of a beneficent end, and becomes a cruelty. The THE EXHIBITIONS OF EXPERIMENTS WHICH AIM ONLY AT A REPETITION OF INQUIRIES ALREADY SATISFACTORILY CONCLUDED, and the DEMONSTRATION OF FUNCTIONS ALREADY UNDERSTOOD, appear to us to rank among the excesses which must be deplored, if not repressed. The displays in these amphitheatres are of the most painful kind, and it is to be deeply regretted that curiosity should silence feeling, and draw spectators to mortal suffering…. The Commission (of the Societies for Prevention of Cruelty) asks for nothing which the most zealous devotees of science cannot—and ought not—to grant. It demands only the cessation of experiments which are PURELY REPETITIVE DEMONSTRATIONS OF KNOWN FACTS."
This is a remarkable utterance. It is quite probable that it voiced an almost unanimous opinion among English physicians and surgeons of half a century ago. How far have we strayed since then! The Lancet of to-day would doubtless earnestly oppose any legal prohibition of experiments which it once ranked among the "excesses which must be deplored, IF NOT REPRESSED."
Two or three months afterward the Lancet again expressed its condemnation of experiments made for the demonstration of known facts. In its issue of October 20, 1860, the Lancet editor says:
"The moment that it [vivisection] overpasses the bounds of necessity; when it ceases to aim at the solution of problems in which humanity is interested, and becomes a new means of public demonstration, having no benevolent end—then it is degraded to the level of A PURPOSELESS CRUELTY. The repetitive demonstration of known facts, by public or private vivisections, is an abuse that we deplore, and have more than once condemned."
On January 12, 1861, the Lancet opens its columns to a correspondent, who invites attention of its readers to the views of Professor Owen, afterward Sir Richard Owen, and the most distinguished anatomist of his time:
"Professor Owen, one of the first physiological authorities of the present day, observes: `That no teacher of physiology is justified in repeating any vivisectional experiment, merely to show its known results to his class or to others. IT IS THE PRACTICE OF VIVISECTION, in place of physiological induction, pursued for the same end, AGAINST WHICH HUMANITY, CHRISTIANITY, AND CIVILIZATION SHOULD ALIKE PROTEST.'"