The gain arising from such registration is obvious. It would mark the entrance within the laboratory of every creature intended for experimentation of any kind. It makes possible to an extent the tracing of pet animals, lost or stolen, which now find themselves devoted to vivisection. The inspection of such a register should be permitted to any person whatever endeavouring to trace a lost or stolen pet. A summary should be regularly furnished for publication, attested by oath, precisely as the cashier of a national bank periodically attests the accuracy of his reports. Such a report is but a promulgation of facts which ought to be within the reach of the public. By no stretch of the imagination can one honestly declare that such knowledge will constitute an impediment to justifiable research. Yet no one acquainted with this subject can doubt that every resource of the laboratory will be brought forward to resist to the uttermost even the giving of so little information as this.
But we must go beyond this. To trace animals to the door of the laboratory, and there to drop them, leaves the curtain unlifted; they enter the darkness, and that darkness must be dispelled. It must be the privilege of the public to know as completely as possible EXACTLY WHAT IS DONE AFTER THEY PASS THE DOOR. How is this to be accomplished? How may we know what is done to the animals thus traced to the door of every laboratory without being charged with impeding the legitimate researches of science? For reasons stated, inspection will not accomplish it. As carried out in England, it certainly has accomplished but little for the protection of animals. The published reports of experiments made in that country under one or another "certificate," are practically of no value whatever except to show the constant increase of such experiments every year. The plummet must sink to deeper depths. If Society is to grant to the physiological laboratory that isolation and freedom from interference which it craves, THEN SOCIETY HAS THE RIGHT TO ASK IN RETURN THE COMPLETEST DISCLOSURE THAT CAN BE GIVEN OF METHODS AND RESULTS.
It has the right. Unfortunately it cannot persuade or compel. That is the province of Legislation.
Vivisection, we must always remember, is an exceedingly complex practice. It is a means of demonstrating well-known facts; it is also a method of original research. How many animals in any given laboratory are used in each of these phases of experimentation? No one can tell us. If the laboratory keeps no account, it is unlikely that the information could be given by anybody else. A strong impression exists that "original research" for any object of conceivable utility to mankind is vastly more infrequent than vivisection for the repetition—painful or otherwise—of facts perfectly well known. We need to have the question settled with an accuracy upon which as much reliance may be placed as upon the oath of the cashier of a bank. "Every laboratory," said Dr. George M. Guld, in an address before the American Academy of Medicine, "should publish an annual statement setting forth plainly the number and kind of experiments, the objects aimed at, and, most definitely, the methods of conducting them." This wise suggestion, however, bore no fruit. No such "annual statemnet" has ever been issued by any American laboratory, so far as I am aware. Even if thus issued it would not go far enough. Such reports should be attested under oath by each individual experimenter, exactly as the officers of a bank are required by law to make reports regarding its financial standing. Every experimenter should therefore be required to state what he has done during the three preceding months; to give the number of animals of each species which have been delivered to him, the object of each experiment, and the cases in which curare was employed. Especially should a careful distinction be drawn between original investigations made in private and experiments made before students or by students themselves, solely for the illustration of well-known facts. An outline of a report that would cover these facts will be found in the appendix.
And yet this is hardly enough. It is not sufficient to have the results of individual experience; we should have a summary of all experimental work made upon the higher animals in each laboratory given us by the responsible head of that institution. An outline of a report that would give us the information desired is not difficult to devise.[1]
[1] See Appendix.
There is little doubt but that violent objection will be made to any such reports. But in the opinion of very many persons the truth about a vivisection laboratory is quite as desirable as the truth about a country bank. Verification in either case implies the same. It would mean that the statement was not made carelessly, but with a due appreciation of the solemnity of an oath. Any gross misstatement on the part of a bank cashier would almost certainly subject him to a rigid examination, and to the penalty of dismissal. It should be the same with a laboratory. If gross missatements should be made with apparent design to hide something that should have been made known, it seems to me that those who thus offend should have their licences suspended or revoked. We cannot forget that Society is here dealing with a peculiar institution, where secrecy is regarded as a virtue. If one could imagine a bank or an insurance company, where every official or employee, from the president down to the scrub-woman, was seeking in every way to keep its affairs hidden from the general public, we should in one respect have the counterpart of the physiological laboratory of to-day.
On the other hand, when the law asks for the truth, whether it be of a bank or a laboratory, under penalties for concealment that cannot be easily disregarded, we may be very certain that in the vast majorty of instances compliance will be accorded to its demands. Instances of attempted concealment will, of course, occur; the cashier who has speculated with the funds of the bank will endeavour to conceal his crime, and the vivisector who has carried his private experiments or his demonstrations before students to cruel and unwarrantable lengths will seek by all possible means to prevent revelation of his transgression. In both cases there will be occasional success. But as regards vivisection, it cannot be questioned that whenever in future the law makes a demand for such reports as are here outlined, a vast amount of information, now carefully concealed from the possibility of public judgment, will become known. We shall obtain it, too, withut crossing the threshold of a single laboratory, without hindering in any way whatever the least important investigation of a single scientific inquirer.
Ought we not to go beyond this and require reports to state the facts regarding anaesthetics? Eventually such information should undoubtedly be required. So far as the immediate present is concerned, it would seem perhaps the wiser course not to complicate the inquiry in this way. There are vivisectors who would declare that "anaesthetics are always used" when ether or chloroform has been given in quantity and in time absolutely insufficient to secure for the vivisected animal immunity from pain. Sometimes we shall ask how many animals and of what species are subjected to mutilations and observations that last for days and weeks, and how many, if any, have had "nerves torn out by the roots," as one American physiologist connected with a medical school tells us he has repeatedly done. Into the thousand and one phases of experimentation Society must one day make inquiry. But may it not be best to wait till some knowledge of the leading facts are secured? A report regarding anaesthesia might be utterly useless, except to keep hidden the very facts we wish to know. What some of these facts are may be indicated hereafter, but it would seem best not to include them in any present demand.
What may we conceive will be the attitude of the laboratory interests toward any attempt to secure information concerning the practice, not by State inspection, but by and through reports made by themselves? If the popular conceoption of physiological investigation were true, should we not be sure of the hearty approval of all physiologists regarding any measure so calculated to remove misunderstanding and distrust? Here would be the wished-for opportunity to demonstrate the vast importance of the problems pursued, and the wonderful results attained compared with the small cost of animal life, the humane and ever-present solicitude of the experimenter, the immunity from suffering. Here, too, we should have that "organized, systematic, and absolute frankness" in regard to the practice of vivisection, for which one of its greatest American defenders once appealed. But, on the other hand, suppose that the laboratory in England and America dare not permit the whole truth to be known? Suppose that it would not willingly permit the general public to know even the number of animals which are now sacrificed in the demonstration of well-known facts? Then assuredly the laboratory interests will unite to prevent any legislation that could tend to destroy the secrecy that now exists, or to bring the facts of vivisection to the light of day. Which hypothesis is the true one, some day will reveal. We shall then discover whether the laboratory will yield to a demand for publicity, or whether, contending for continued secrecy, faithless to Science, it will resist every attempt to make known the whole truth, and cling to the ideals and traditions of the Spanish Inquisition of three hundred years ago.