"State-regulated vivisection should be differentiated from antivivisection or from no vivisection, just as civilized and necessary war should be from the impossible abolition of all war. Between reulation and prohibition is a difference. Between responsibility and wantonness is a difference. Yet regulated vivisection has been confounded with antivivisection by the union of zany cranks and trade-unionized men of medicine, who have not refrained from the coercion of patients, from the deception of the public, from the inoculation of legislators with mendacity, capsuled in sophistry, and from the direct or indirect corruption or intimidation of not a few public journals. The discovery of the ways and means and men is bringing the evil to an end.
"That discovery coincides with the arousal of the public conscience against political corruption, party corruption, and interparty as well as intraparty bribery and tyranny. There is accord between all the forces for betterment. Barbarism and cruelty toward the brute creation are as certainly doomed as polygamy and human slavery were. The needs of surgery will be preserved from wanton slaughter in the name of surgery, in times past, and now wrought by men called doctors and by cub-boys called students. The statesmen in politics are realizing this. The demagogues and opportunists in Legislatures are, too. So are the men of mercy, conscience, and vision in medicine itself. The impact of banded pretension in trade-unionized medical schools and societies is resented and resisted by teachers and practitioners, who are becoming ashamed not to be free, and who are abetting those who would free them.
"There is a good time coming around the whole circle of uplift. The time will not be long coming; but when it shall come, its duration will have no end, and its progress will be perpetual."[1]
[1] Editorial, Brooklyn Eagle, April 4, 1910.
It is an interesting fact that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded by Henry Bergh, the first organization of its kind in America, joined in the demand for further investigation. Under the heading, "The Facts Demanded," the editor of its periodical makes known its position regarding vivisection:
"The above caption defines the attitude of the Society to-day toward the practice of `animal experimentation.' In the common phrase, `we want to know,' and we are not to be deterred from what we believe to be a duty by being told from sources more or less reputable that it is none of our business. For many years this Society has been the chief representative in this country and in this city of that large class among our people who feel and cherish an interest in and a sense of humanity for what are called the `dumb animals.' One great life—that of the founder, Henry Bergh—was spent in this service, and prematurely sacrificed in his devotion to these interests. With faults and failures to reach his ideal, with stumbles and falls, freely admitted, but with a persistent purpose to attain it in the end, this Society has never faltered in its effort to follow the path where he had blazed the way. It has never been seriously accused of acting from fear or favour or from other than altruistic motives, and by so doing it has gained and kept the confidence and respect of a great part of what is best in our community. It is far too late in the day for any newspaper or anay group of citizens, no matter how influential in the one case or highly respected in the other, to say to this Society: `You shall not do the work for which you were chartered, and which for forty-five years you have performed in this community.'
"Now, what is that work in the present instance? Expressed in its simplest terms, it is a demand that the practice of animal experimentation shall be investigated by the State to determine what is actually being done, and that thereafter legislation shall be had that shall place it under such supervision and restriction as shall insure differentiation between scientific investigation performed for wise and adequate ends and purposes on the one hand, and on the other acts of a painful and brutal character performed from unworthy motives, with no adequate benefit possible as a resultant, and which clearly come within the classification of cruelty.
"We submit that this is an eminently fair proposal, and one that should not be opposed by any friend of scientific work, and least of all by the physicians of this city. Yet what do we find? The attitude of that profession is clearly shown by the letter of Mr. Bergh, which we reproduce in our columns, and which will unquestionably receive credence from its frankness and from the eminent name attached to it, now borne by a worthy and devoted descendant of our first president.
"The attitude of the medical profession on this subject is this: `We know what we are about.' `We practice vivisection for wise purposes.' `We surround it with as humane conditions as the object sought will permit.' `We have made great and beneficial discoveries by its means.' `We assert that we con trol it within the above limits.' `But we will not state what we do, or how.' `We will not permit our assertions to be verified if we can help it.' `We will oppose any movement in the Press or the Legislature looking to this end.' `And we will encourage the Press to defeat such an effort, not only by ridicule and irony but by a definite misrepresentation of the motives and views of the Society that seeks "to know."'
"We do not at this moment question the truth of the assertions as to the practice and control which we have put (accurately, we think) into the mouths of the medical profession; but it is startlingly evident that these assertions can only apply TO THAT PART OF ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION WHICH THEY PRACTICE OR CONTROL. What of the other part? Will those who champion unrestricted, uninvestigated, unsuperintended vivisection assert that they will guarantee to the people of this city that no act of cruelty or wantonness is or ever shall be committed here by a medical practitioner under the guise of scientific investigation? Will they guarantee that such acts are not, and never shall be, committed in this State? Will they guarantee the humanity and the practice of the thousands of medical students who annually graduate from the colleges? Will they enter into bonds to the community for the acts of those who, from time to time, they expel, for cause from the medical societies? Will they place their own great reputations and highly esteemed characters behind, and as vouchers for, many a practitioner with whom they would not meet in consultation, and whom they would not allow to practice or malpractice in the house of a friend or a patient? We think not—we KNOW they would not, for such endorsements and guarantees would be impossible of fulfilment. And if they will not and cannot, they wshould cease to stand between the society that seeks `to know' and the evils it seeks to expose and eliminate.