I.
For reasons sufficiently stated in the preceding pages, the writer does not advocate the total abolition of all experimentation. It is only fair to acknowledge, however, that very strong and weighty arguments in favor of legal repression have been advanced both in this country and abroad, some of which are herewith presented, as the other side of the question.
The cause of abolition has no more earnest and eloquent advocate than Miss Frances Power Cobbe of England. Through innumerable controversies with scientific men in the public journals, magazines and reviews, she has presented in awful array, the abuses of unlimited and uncontrolled experimentation on the continent of Europe, and the arguments in favor of total repression. The following letters, extracts from her public correspondence, will indicate her position.
TENDER VIVISECTION.
(To the Editor of the "Scotsman.")
1, Victoria Street, London, S. W.,
January 10, 1881.
Sir.—An Italian pamphlet, Dell'Azione del Dolore sulla Respirazione (The Action of Pain on Respiration), has just reached my hands, and as it is, I think, quite unknown in this country, I will beg you to grant me space for a few extracts from its pages. The pamphlet is by the eminent physiologist, Mantegazza, and was published by Chiusi, of Milan. Having explained the object of his investigations to be the effects of pain on the respiratory organs, the Professor describes (p. 20) the methods he devised for the production of such pain. He found the best to consist in "planting nails, sharp and numerous, through the feet of the animal in such a manner as to render the creature almost motionless, because in every movement it would have felt its torment more acutely" (piantando chiodi acuti e numerosi attraverso le piante dei piedi in modo da rendere immobile o quasi l'animale, perché ad ogni movimento avrebbe sentito molto piu acuto il suo tormento). Further on he mentions that, to produce still more intense pain (dolore intenso) he was obliged to employ lesions, followed by inflammation. An ingenious machine, constructed by "our" Tecnomasio, of Milan, enabled him likewise to grip any part of an animal with pincers with iron teeth, and to crush, or tear, or lift up the victim, "so as to produce pain in every possible way." A drawing of this instrument is appended. The first series of his experiments, Signor Mantegazza informs us, were tried on twelve animals, chiefly rabbits and guinea pigs, of which several were pregnant. One poor little creature, "far advanced in pregnancy," was made to endure dolori atrocissimi, so that it was impossible to make any observations in consequence of its convulsions.
In the second series of experiments twenty-eight animals were sacrificed, some of them taken from nursing their young, exposed to torture for an hour or two, then allowed to rest an hour, and usually replaced in the machine to be crushed or torn by the Professor for periods of from two to six hours more. In the table wherein these experiments are summed up, the terms molto dolore and crudeli dolori are delicately distinguished, the latter being apparently reserved for the cases when the victims were, as the Professor expresses it, lardellati di chiodi—("larded with nails").
In conclusion, the author informs us (p. 25) that these experiments were all conducted "con molto amore e pazienza!"—with much zeal and patience.
I am, etc.,
Frances Power Cobbe.