[1] The relation between diseased meat and human ailments is treated at length in my work on "American Meat," New York, 1909.
These are suggestions only. They constitute merely an outline of the information that is necessary, concerning the living sufferers, in whom the disease has made its appearance. Doubtless the average reader will discern no reason for all these inquiiries. Yet each one has some pertinency to the possible discovery of the great secret. Does inquiry concerning family history seem useless? It should have a decided bearing on any theory of heredity. Does the occurrence of near-by cases have no significance? We are not yet in a position to state this as a fact. Does inquiry concerning religion seem especially impertinent? What if some future investigation should prove that cancer everywhere, is more prevalent among the Christians than the Jews? Does the social condition of the sufferer seem to have no relation to cause? What if we discover, that everywhere,—and not among the foreign population of Chicago only,—cancer finds an undue proportion of its victims among the poorest and most poverty-stricken element of every nationality? Does suggestion of inquiry concerning diet induce a smile? It should not, as long as meat derived from cancerous animals is permitted by Government authority, to pass inspection, and to be distributed throughout the world. And no inquiry concerning cancer can be deemed complete which has not fully investigated the extent to which this atrocious practice has been carried on for the past quarter of a century.
But this State-wide inquiry is only a part of the work. Every year, for a period of at least ten years, the record must be revised, the result of surgical operations recorded, the deaths enumerated, the new cases added. The expense of each annual revision would be far less than that of the original inquiry; but the inquiry will be costly, and should be costly, if it is to be accurate and complete. Here, indeed, would be the opportunity for the co-operation of organizations devoted to "cancer research," and particularly of that new foundation, the income of which for a single year is far more than the original investigation would cost.
And when the inquiry is completed; when all attainable information concerning the occurrence of malignant disease shall have been secured not for a single year, but for a period of successive years, not for one community, but for an entire state, and for each of its constitutuent parts, what then? Then I believe a knowledge of the cause of cancer will soon be attained. When we know the cause, then there will be hope for prevention, which is far better than cure. All the various experiments upon mice, for example, whatever they may teach concerning the disease in the lower animals, have not enlightened us concerning the cause of the malady in mankind. The greatest and most promising fields for scientific research, now almost untrodden, awaits the explorers of the future. In a world where now there is comparative unconcern, there may soon be fearful apprehensions of the increasing prevalence of an almost irremediable disease. Within the coming century, the investigation I have here outlined, will sometime be made; and, as a result, the cause of cancer may be as well known to medical science, as the causes of typhoid fever or malaria,—mysteries that seemed insoluble less than a century ago. And I venture with assurance to predict, that some time within the next fifty years, the Governments of England and of the United States, alarmed, it may be, by a continually increasing mortality from cancer, will condemn under severest penalties, the sale for human food of meat deriveed from animals affected by malignant disease,—no matter how great may be the pecuniary loss to every slaughtering establishment and packing-house in either land. The public awakening to danger that must precede legislation cannot yet be discerned; and before the national apprehension is aroused and apathy ceases, probably more than a million lives will be sacrificed to cancer, in England and America alone. ——————————————— Note.—"The deaths ascribed to cancer or malignant disease in England and Wales during 1912, numbered 37,323. The mortality of males was 913 per million living, as compared with 891 in 1911, and that of females, 1,117, as compared with 1,098. IN THE CASE OF EACH SEX, THESE RATES ARE THE HIGHEST ON RECORD."—From 75th Report of Registrar-General, 1914, p. lxxxiii.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FUTURE OF VIVISECTION[1]
[1] Address delivered at Washington, D.C., before the International Humane Congress, December 10, 1913.
Attempts to forecast the future development of Humanity in any direction have always possessed for some minds a peculiar fascination. Plato and Bacon had their visions of a State superior to that in which they lived; Burton foresaw improvements in the administration of justice, and the condition of the poorer classes, which waited for two centuries for some measure of realization; even Defoe had his list of "projects," some of which, laughed at in their day, are the realities of our time. No great reform in any direction was ever effected which had not been the unrealized vision of a dreamer.
And such dreams are the romance of history. For any one to have imagined two centuries ago, that the African slave-trade and negro slavery would some day be condemned by every civilized nation, not because they were pecuniarily unprofitable, but because they contravened the conscience of Society and its sense of righteousness, requierd a faith in the ultimate triumph of justice over greed, that not one man in ten thousand possessed. For Calvin or Torquemada to have imagined the coming of a time when the burning of an unbeliever would not be regarded as pleasing to the Deity, demanded a sublimer vision than either of them possessed. Custom and universal acceptance would sometimes seem to create impregnable barriers against change. But with the slow lapse of years, the venerated custom is attacked by doubt; the superstition is undermined, and the great evil gradually passes from the sight. No great wrong is so securely entrenched, as to be absolutely safe from the ultimate condemnation of mankind.
What is to be the future of vivisection, as conducted in America to- day? Is it to continue, without other limitations against cruelty than those which are self-imposed, without legal restriction or restraint, so long as civilization endures, ever widening its scope, ever increasing the hecatombs of its victims, until uncounted milions shall have been sacrificed? Is protest against excess to grow weaker, until the ideal of humaneness in the laboratory shall become a scoff and a byword? Is approval of any research in the name of Science to become stronger until it shall cover the vivisection of human beings as well as the exploitation of animals? Or are we to expect, as the result of agitation, the legal suppression of all scientific research requiring animal life, within the limits of the next half-century? It is easier to ask questions than to answer them. Yet, as one who for over thirty years, has taken some part in the agitation for reform, you may be willing to permit a forecast of probabilities, vague, it may be, as the vision of a sailor peering through the darkness that environs the ship,—but the best he can do.