"The day after observation No. 5, MARY WAS DECIDEDLY WORSE. She remained in bed, was stupid and incoherent. In the evening she had a convulsive seizure…. AFTER THIS, SHE LAPSED INTO PROFOUND UNCONSCIOUSNESS, AND WAS FOUND TO BE COMPLETELY PARALYZED ON THE RIGHT SIDE…. The pupils were dilated and motionless."
[1] Italics not in original.
When did death come to her release? We do not know; the omission is significant; it may have been within a few moments. The next sentence in the report is headed by the ominous word, "AUTOPSY." The brain was taken out, and the track of the needles traced therein. One needle had penetrated an inch and a half. There was evidence of "INTENSE VASCULAR CONGESTION."
In cases like this, the investigation of a coroner apparently is not required. The experimenter himself was the physician to the hospital. He tells us of course that Mary's death was due to an extension of the disease, for the relief of which she had been led to the "Good Samaritan Hospital." Of the real cause of death, there was apparently but little doubt among scientific men. An English vivisector, Dr. David Ferrier, whose experiments upon monkeys had perhaps first suggested their repitition on a living human brain, questioned somewhath the propriety of the American experiments. In a letter to the London Medical Record, he referred to "the depth of penetration of the needles"; the "occurrence of epileptiform convulsions FROM THE GENERAL DIFFUSION OF THE IRRITATION WHEN THE CURRENTS WERE INTENSIFIED," and declared that the "EPILEPTIC CONVULSIONS AND ULTIMATE PARALYSIS are clearly accounted for by the inflammatory changes" thus induced.
That the experiments had been to some extent injurious to his victim, the vivisector himself, in a letter to the British Medical Journal, very cautiously admitted.[1] He regretted, he said, that the new facts which he had hoped would further the progress of Science were obtained at the expense of SOME injury to the patient. She was, however, "HOPELESSLY DISEASED,"—as if that fact tended to justify her martyrdom! "THE PATIENT CONSENTED TO HAVE THE EXPERIMENTS MADE." Is not this excuse the very height of hypocrisy? Twice, he had stated in his report of the case, that the young woman was "RATHER FEEBLE- MINDED"; he suggests that this poor, ignorant, feeble-minded servant- girl was mentally capable of giving an intelligent consent to repeated experiments upon her brain, the possible result of which even HE could not foresee!
[1] British Medical Journal, May 30, 1874, p. 727.
Who made these experiments? It was Dr. Roberts Bartholow, at that time the physician of the "Good Samaritan Hospital" in Cincinnati. His biographer says that he gained no credit "for his candour in reporting the whole affair,"—a hint, the significance of which for future experimenters, it is not very difficult ot perceive. Yet his treatment of Mary Rafferty was no bar to his professional advancement. Not long after his victim was in her grave, one of the oldest medical schools in the country,—Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia—offered him a professor's chair; and for several years he was Dean of the medical faculty of that institution.
It might seem impossible that any physician of the present day would care to come forward in defence of this experiment. Yet forty years after the deed was perpetrated, such justification was apparently attempted in an American journal, and republished in a pamphlet issued by the American Medical Association.[1] It would seem at the outset that only by suppression of the worst facts relating to the case, could any defence be essayed. WAS THERE ANY SUCH SUPPRESSION OF MATERIAL FACTS? Let us see.
[1] "The Charge of Human Vivisection," by Richard M. Pearce, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association, February 28, 1914.
Did any injury to Mary Rafferty result from these experiments upon her brain? Bartholow himself admits some injury; he says that to repeat the experiments "would be in the highest degree criminal." The modern apologist, however will have it otherwise. At the beginning of the experiment, she smiled as if amused; and this, he tells us, "whows that she did not object, that the pain was not severe, AND THAT NO HARM WAS DONE HER." Is this a fair summary of the symptoms elicited during these experiments upon the brain? Why did the apologist mention only the "smile," and neglect altogether to mention the other symptoms reported by Dr. Bartholow? Why does he pass in silence her complain of "ACUTE PAIN IN THE NECK," the "GREAT DISTRESS" EXHIBITED, THE ARM AGITATED WITH CLONIC SPASMS, THE FIXED EYES, THE WIDELY DILATED PUPILS, THE BLUE LIPS, THE FROTHING AT THE MOUTH, THE STERTOROUS BREATHING, THE VIOLENT CONVULSION lasting for five minutes and the succeeding unconsciousness lasting for twenty minutes? Why does the apologist leave unmentioned the symptoms following the subsequent experiments,—the pallor and depression, the blue lips, the difficulty in locomotion, the decided paresis and rigidity of muscles, the profound unconsciousness, THE FINAL PARALYSIS? Do omissions like these suggest an ardent desire to present the whole truth of the matter for the information of the public?