What is the necessity for all this burning? The smell of scorched and charred living flesh may have hung as heavily in the laboratory of the hospital as before the altars of Baal; it could hardly have been an attractive savour. Here are other instances:
EXPERIMENT 62. "Dog, in good condition; fox-terrier. As a control,
THE RIGHT HIND-FOOT WAS BURNED BEFORE THE CONJUNCTIVAL REFLEX WAS
ABOLISHED. There was RISE IN BLOOD-PRESSURE."
Here, then, was sensation; the eye responded to the touch.
EXPERIMENT 72. Dog; weight 12 pounds. (Spinal) cord exposed.
5.5. Burning foot was followed BY RISE IN BLOOD-PRESSURE.
5.10. BURNING FOOT. "A RISE IN BLOOD-PRESSURE FOLLOWED."
Cocaine was then injected, and burning of paws "produced no effect."
There was a difference in the phenomena produced.
In the year 1909 the same vivisector published stll another volume recording experiments upon haemorrhage and the transfusion of blood. To many of these experiments we should take no exception on the ground of inutility or excessive production of pain. Others, however, are to be criticized, particularly when studied in connection with the claim put forth of complete absence of animal sensation. In his introduction the experimenter seems to assert in the most distinct and emphatic way the complete unconsciousness of each victim. He says:
"No experiment was performed in which the particular animal used was not reduced to complete insensibility by means of ether, or some other equally efficient anaesthetic. If the statement is made that the anaesthetic was stopped during an experiment, it does not mean that the animal could suffer pain, but that death was threatened from too much anaesthetic, more being given as soon as signs of revival were shown. In every experiment in which necessary mutilation was performed, the animal was killed before coming out of the anaesthetic; therefore absolutely no suffering was undergone. Very few recovery experiments were performed, no more than were necessary to prove a given fact."
What is the scientific value of this assurance—that "absolutely no suffering was undergone"?
It can have no value, except as an opinion on the part of one extremely interested in the maintenance of a particular view. So far from being a series of painless experiments, we do not hesitate to suggest that IF RISE OF BLOOD-PRESSURE BE A SIGN OF PAIN, then, in all probability many of them involed torments as exquisite as it is possible to imagine.
Take, for example, the folloowing vivisections:
EXPERIMENT 10. The subject was a dog, said to be in a good
condition. From time to time blood was abstracted from the body.
4.26. ON BURNING A PAW UNDER LIGHT ANAESTHESIA, THERE WAS A RISE OF
PRESSURE OF 16 MILLIMETRES.
10.16. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE.
11.13. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE of
13 millimetres.
1.42. On burning a paw, there was A RISE OF PRESSURE of
13 millimetres.