Referring to the experiment upon a cow mentioned in Dr. Brown-Se'quard's Journal of Physiology, and already described, the editor adds:
"We are not disposed, in a question of this kind, in which some of the highest considerations are concerned, to allow our opinion to be swayed by the opinions or the proceedings of even the greatest surgeons and the greatest physiologists. That such authorities performed vivisection is a fact; but it does not satisfy us that the proceeding is justifiable. Under any circumstances, this much, we think, is evident enough: that IF VIVISECTIONS BE PERMISSIBLE, THEY CAN ONLY BE SO UNDER CERTAIN LIMITED AND DEFINED CONDITIONS. We need hardly add that these conditions have not yet been laid down. Altogether, the subject is one well worthy of serious discussion, and gladly would we see the interests of medical science in the matter properly reconciled with the dictates of the moral sense."
Nothing could be more clearly stated. One reads almost with a feeling of amazement the sentences we have italicized in the foregoing quotation. Here, in the editorial columns of the principal medical journal in the world, is expressed doubt of the justification of any destruction of animals whatever, "for mere experimental research." What magnificent independence of the opinions and experimentation "of even the greatest surgeons and the greatest physiologists" is here displayed!
Five months later the British Medical Journal in its editorial columns again refers to the peculiarly atrocious vivisection which it had once before denounced; it is evident that the journal intends that such actions shall not be forgotten. In the issue of October 19, 1861, it says:
"The brutalities which have been so long inflicted upon horses, etc., in the veterinary schools of France under the name of Science are perfectly horrible. Some idea of what has been daily going on in those schools during many past years may be obtained from such a statement as the following, taken from a paper by M. Sanson, in the Journal of Physiology [edited by Dr. C. E. Brown-Se'quard]. M. Sanson is speaking incidentally of the condition of animals upon whose blood he was himself experimenting: `A small cow,' he writes, `very thin, and which had undergone numerous operations—that is to saw, WHICH HAD SUFFERED DURING THE DAY THE MOST EXTREME TORTURE—was placed upon the table,' etc. M. Sanson adds `…Those who have seen these wretched animals on their bed of suffering—lit de douleur—know the degree of torture to which they are subjected; torture, in fact, under which they for the most part succumb!' THE POOR BRUTES ARE ACTUALLY SLICED AND CHOPPED, PIECEMEAL, TO DEATH, in order that the e'le`ves (students) may become skilful operators!"
Almost a year passes, and on September 6, 1862, we again find the editor of the British Medical Journal discussing the ethics of animal experimentation. He admits that there is useless vivisection and unnecessary infliction of pain. Significant, indeed, it will seem to the physician of to-day to find one of the leading exponents of medical opinion condemning as "unjustifiable" demonstrations of well-known facts, which are now considered as essential to medical education. After stating that some restrictions should be imposed, the editor adds:
"We will venture to suggest that these restrictions should be well and clearly defined; that some high authority like Dr. Sharpey himself should lay down certain rules on the subject, and for the purpose of preventing, if possible, any needless suffering from being inflicted experimentally on the lower animals. All of us must be well aware that many needless experiments are actually performed, and until some clearly defined rules on this head are laid down, we venture to think such needless suffering will still continue to be inflicted on animals. If, for example, it were publicly stated by authorities in the profession that experiments of this nature, made for the mere purpose of demonstrating admitted physiological facts, are unjustifiable, a great step would be gained, and a great ground of complaint cut from under the feet of the enthusiastic antivivisection societies. The very fact of an authoritative sanction to the legitimate performance of such experiments…."
The denunciations of cruel vivisection by the British Medical Journal extend over a considerable period. Occasionally the Journal quotes the opinions of some of its medical contemporaries in Paris, admitting the need for reform. For instance, in its issue of May 2, 1863, in its editorial columns, the Journal presents us with a quotation from L'Union Me'dicale of Paris, suggesting distinctions that should be made in the selection of vivisection material:
"Vivisection is often useful and sometimes necessary, and therefore not to be absolutely proscribed; but I would gladly petition the Senate to forbid its performance on every animal which is useful to, and a friend of, man. The mutilations and tortures inflicted upon dogs are horrible. The King of Dahomey is less barbarous than these merciless vivisectors. HE cuts his victims' throats, but without torturing them; while THEY tear and cut to pieces these wretched dogs in their most sensitive parts. Let them operate on rats, foxes, sharks, vipers, and reptiles. But no; our vivisectors object to the teeth, the claws, the beaks of these repulsive animals; they must have gentle animals; and so, like cowards, they seize upon the dog—that caressing animal, which licks the hand, armed with the scalpel!"
Think of a such quotation in the columns of the British Medical Journal—a periodical which to-day rarely ventures to criticize any phase of animal experimentation.