"Gentlemen of the medical profession, understand once for all that this Society does not seek to abolish vivisection. It recognizes the good, the great good, that has and that may come to the human race from its careful, humane, and scientific use. But it aims to abolish its ABUSES, and in that aim it is entitled to your advice and co-operation."
Enough has been given to indicate the purpose of the present movement for vivisection reform. It is not the same as antivivisection, and although it has been persistently misrepresented as such by the advocates of unrestricted freedom in the physiological laboratory, perhaps we have no reason to expect from that quarter any other course. Yet in expressing appreciation both of purpose and accomplishment, it may perhaps be well to suggest a single caution. The time is probably coming when those who have most persistently opposed all appeals for more light concerning vivisection will announce willingness to accede to the public demnad, provided the vivisector may himself appoint the investigators, and define the limitations of the inquiry. It needs but little discernment to foresee that an inquiry so conducted may be no better than a farce, and conduce to no real change in the present obscurity. To be of any value the commission of inquiry regarding vivisection must be so intelligent regarding all phases of the practice that it shall know how to penetrate to hidden recesses, where things not desired to be revealed shall be concealed; capable, too, of distinguishing between the work of the expert scientist and that of the ignorant and careless student, untouched, it may be, by any sense of pity or compassion for the creature in its power. The greatest cruelties may yet be found, not in the laboratory of the investigator, but in that of the demonstrator of well-known facts. Perhaps no investigation of the practice of vivisection can be expected until public opinion shall have been educated to demand it, and then, in point of thoroughness, let us trust it may leave nothing to be desired. Meantime the work of agitation for reform must continue; no matter how slight the accomplishment, surely something is done. "All work," said Carlyle, "is as seed sown; it growns and spreads, AND SOWS ITSELF ANEW, and so in endless palingenesia lives and works."
CHAPTER XV
UNFAIR METHODS OF CONTROVERSY
One phase of the vivisection controversy is of singular significance. It is the peculiar tendency to unfairness which the advocates of unrestricted experimentation seem to display in every discussion regarding the practice. In all controversy there is something to be said on both sides of the question, yet it would seem to be impossible for anyone writing in advocacy of unlimited and unrestricted vivisection to state fairly the views to which he is opposed. Statements, the inaccuracy of which may easily be ascertained, are again and again repeated, until it would almost seem that upon reiteration of error and untruth a certain degree of dependence has been placed for the creation of prejudice against reform.
To demonstrate the truth of such a charge would require a volume. Let it here suffice to mention a few instances of what may at least be termed an unfairness in controversy. Partly, of course, it is the result of ignorance, and of imperfect acquaintance with the past history of vivisection; partly it is due to that enthusiasm of youth which sometimes prefers a seeming victory to any close fidelity to truth. Other instances cannot be thus explained. Some of them are worth consideration as problems for which no solution is easily to be found.
In January, 1913, a Bill was introduced into the New York Legislature providing for an inquiry into the practice of animal experimentation. There was no suggestion of any restriction of vivisection; it was simply an attempt to get at the real facts concerning the practice as now carried on. If it be assumed that no objectionable practices exist, it would seem difficult to oppose such inquiry upon any reasonable grounds. It might possibly have been expected that the Laboratory would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate to the general public that nothing deserving censure could be found to exist.
For reasons not difficult to understand, the proposal to investigate the laboratory and its methods has been resisted quite as strongly as if it had been an attempt to prohibit experiments altogether. To justify rejection of inquiry would not appear to be an easy task. To create a sentiment of approval of the policy of secrecy it doubtless seemed necessary to make an appeal to the general public by editorial utterances, in journals supposed to be impartial and of high standing in other directions. In a New York daily paper which claims to be conducted with special regard for respectability and avoidance of unseemly sensationalism, there appeared, therefore, an editorial opposing all inquiry on the part of the legislature into the methods of animal experimentation. It is worth while to see how matters of history were placed before its readers by one of the most reputable of New York journals:
"… An outcry was raised against the English doctors in the early seventies, and it was decided to investigate their laboratories. A Royal Commission was appointed in 1875 by Queen Victoria. The Commission took elaborate testimony, and found no material abuse; but owing to the inflamed state of the public mind, and the attitude of many members of the medical profession, who at that early date did not appreciate the importance of the experimental method, a restrictive law was recommended, which resulted in the calamitous measure of 1876.
"Far from allaying the British agitation, as was expected, the investigation only served to stimulate it…. A demand was made in 1906 for a second full investigation of laboratory methods. Again a Royal Commission was created, which took testimony for a year and half. Its report, submitted in March last year, overwhelmingly disproved the charges that the medical experiments upon animals are immoral and unjustifiable…. THE DOCTORS OF ENGLAND HAVE FOR A GENERATION HAD TO FLEE TO THE CONTINENT to prosecture their necessary labours. Is the experience of Great Britain to be repeated in the United States at the hands of persons who have become deluded into insensibiity to human suffering?"[1]