CHAPTER XII
VIVISECTION OF TO-DAY
If the reform of vivisection may only be hoped for, when the secrecy concerning it shall have been dispelled, the beginning of the present century is not propitious of any changes. Against all intrusion upon its rites, the physiological laboratory in England and America maintains as successful an opposition as ever characterized the Eleusinian mysteries of the pagan world. No laboratory—so far as known—dares to invite inspection at any hour, even from men of the highest personal character, and leave them free to reveal or to publicly criticize whatever in the experiments upon animals there conducted seems worthy of caution or reproof. Silence and concealment, so far as the outer world is concerned—these are yet the strange ideals of modern vivisection.
Within the realm of scientific literature, however, this reticence is not maintained. Experiments may be there described in terms so abstruse and technical, that, while clear enough to the professional reader, they convey little or no meaning to the man in the street. There would seem to be a growing tendency to state certain facts in carefully shrouded phraseology, in complete confidence that the full meaning will not be discerned. Within the past few years, therefore, a large number of vivisections have been described in full— vivisections which half a century ago would have aroused the horror and execration of the English-speaking world—without exciting any very general condemnation beyond the circle of those who ask for reform. Experimentation of this kind, exhibiting the practice as it is carried on to-day, seems worth of a somewhat careful examination. It will not be necessary to go beyond the work of a single vivisector who has made his name a household word wherever experiments upon animals are discussed in England or America.
The principal point toward which inquiry must be directed is the question of pain. One reason why they have been partly condoned by the public is not difficult to discover. In language which seemed to have no element of ambiguity, the experimenter apparently affirmed the entire absence of sensation on the part of the dogs which he and his assistants subjected to operations of various kinds and of an extreme character. It is true that, as a general rule, this affirmation was not as explicit as might perhaps be desired. He was writing for professional men only, not for the general public, and it is quite unlikely that any physiologist or medical reader could have been at any time misled in the slightest degree. If the language used was capable of more than one interpretation, if possibilities of insensibility were exaggerated into definite assertions, nothing of the kind was apparent to the general reader. Glancing at the statement that "the animals were completely anaesthetized," his doubts were abolished. Indescribably disgusting and hideous as were some of the vivisections, if they were absolutely painless, their performance was a matter of taste. Can we criticize the humaneness of one who, at the butcher's bench, mutilates the body from which life has gone? Complete and perfect anaesthesia, maintained till death, is practically only premature death. Deprived of sensibility—a deprivation that is never to cease—a living creature is beyond the infliction of cruelty. But is it certain that all these various experiments, made upon nearly five hundred dogs were without pain? Reasons for doubt concerning some of them have been given. Let us now look into the question so far as concerns vivisection in its relation to the pressure of the blood.
A little over two centuries ago the Rev. Stephen Hales, the rector of an obscure country parish in England, became interested in problems pertaining to the circulation of sap in plants, and blood in the higher animals. By various experiments he discovered that the blood of a living animal is subject to a definite pressure, and with some approach to accuracy he succeeded in measuring it. The subject seems to have attracted but little attention for over a century after the discovery of Hales; it was then again investigated by physiologists, and certain conclusions definitely reached. Without going into the subject at length, it suffices to state that this blood-pressure constantly varies slightly, being somewhat influenced by every disturbing condition, and probably by every physiological act. Any injury tending to lower the tone of the general system, or to induce the condition of shock, tends to cause the blood-pressure to fall. On the other hand, if the animal is sensible to pain, the stimulation of sensory nerves, or any sharp or sudden pang, TEND TO CAUSE A RISE IN THE PRESSURE OF THE BLOOD, unless the creature has become exhausted by the experimentation to which it has been subjected.
Upon this point the attention of the reader should be specially directed. What authorities support this conclusion? Only a few need be named, for there would appear to be no difference of opinion among physiologists regarding the fact.
Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton, one of the leading medical writers in
England, in a contribution to the latest edition of the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica," tells us:
"IRRITATION OF SENSORY NERVES tends to cause contraction of the bloodvessels, AND TO RAISE THE BLOOD-PRESSURE."[1]
[1] Enc. Brit., Art. "Therapeutics," p. 800.