"… Very different, on the other hand, is the character and objects of physiological demonstrations performed in French Schools of Medicine…. These most painful practices are unjustifiable because they are unnecessary…. They afford no instruction to the student which may not be equally well obtained in another way. The pain, moreover, attendant on such proceedings is unlimited and unceasing. If they are to be accepted as a necessary part of the systemic instruction of the student, then must every veterinary student practice these experimental surgical operations, AND EVERY MEDICAL STUDENT BE MADE A WITNESS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DEMONSTRATIONS ON LIVING ANIMALS. In all veterinary schools, under such conditions, an incalculable amount of pain inflicted on animals becomes a part of the regular instruction of students. At such a conclusion Humanity revolts.
"Experiments performed on living animals for the demonstration of facts already positively acquired to science are unjustifiable, and especially unjustifiable are such experiments when made a part of a systemic course of instruction given to students."
Here, then, we have a view of vivisection presented less than forty years since by a professional teacher of physiology in a London medical school. That the author was mistaken in his outlook, that the practice of vivisection instead of diminishing has a thousand times increased, and that operations then regarded as "especially cruel" have become the prevalent methods of instruction, are matters evident to all. Peculiarly significant is the fact that a creed, once almost universally held, may be so thoroughly obliterated by its antagonists within so brief a time. One may safely assert that not a single recent graduate from any Medical College in America, not a single student of physiology in any institution of learning in our land to-day, has ever been told that the practice of animal experimentation was once thus regarded by a large majority of the English-speaking members of the medical profession. So completely has the Continental view of the moral irresponsibility of science established itself in American colleges that the former preponderance of other ideals has passed from the memory of the present generation of scientific men.
The subject of vivisection does not again appear to have engaged the attention of the English medical Press for several years. The abuses and cruelties on the Continent, against which it had so vigorously protested, continued as before. In a brief editorial, the London Lancet, on April 3, 1869, again referred to the subject:
"VIVISECTION.—The subject of vivisection has been again brought on the tapis, owing to some remarks made by Professor (Claude) Be'rnard … at the Colle`ge de France…. He admits on one occasion having operated on an ape, but never repeated the experiment, THE CRIES AND GESTURES OF THE ANIMAL TOO CLOSELY RESEMBLING THOSE OF A MAN.
"As the Pall Mall Gazette remarks, M. (Claude) Be'rnard expatiates on the subject with a complacency which reminds us of Peter the Great, who, wishing, while at Stockholm, to see the WHEEL in action, quietly offered one of his suite as the patient to be broken on it….
"We consider that vivisection constitutes a legitimate mode of inquiry when it is adopted to obtain a satisfactory solution of a question that has been fairly discussed, and can be solved by no other means….
"We hold that for mere purposes of curiosity, OR TO EXHIBIT TO A CLASS what may be rendered equally—if not more—intelligible by diagrams or may be ascertained by anatomical investigation or induction, VIVISECTION IS WHOLLY INDEFENSIBLE, and IS ALIKE ALIEN TO THE FEELINGS AND HUMANITY OF THE CHRISTIAN, THE GENTLEMAN, AND THE PHYSICIAN."
It is very probable that much of the criticism of foreign vivisection, which at this period appeared in the medical journals of England, was inspired by the abhorrence felt regarding the cruelty of certain French physiologists. We now know that the worst and most cruel of them all was Claude Be'rnard, Professor of Experimental Physiology at the Colle`ge de France, and the fit successor of Magendie. Just as pirates and freebooters have added to geographical discoveries, so science admits that regarding the functions of certain organs he added to accumulated facts. But the peculiar infamy of Be'rnard was the indifference displayed toward animal suffering long after the discovery of chloroform and ether, and his practical contempt for any sentiment of compassion for vivisected animals. Of this savagery one will look in vain for criticism or condemnation in the writings of the opponents of vivisection reform at the present day. Two physicians, however, have told us what they witnessed in the laboratory of Be'rnard. On February 2, 1875, there appeared in the Morning Post a letter from a London physician, describing his personal experience in the laboratory of this physiologist.