"No regard at all," was the strange reply; and, after a little further questioning, the witness explained:
"I think that, with regard to an experimenter—a man who conducts special research and performs an experiment—he has no time, so to speak, for thinking what the animal will feel or suffer!"
Of Magendie's cruel disposition there seems only too abundant evidence. Says Doctor Elliotson: "Dr. Magendie, in one of his barbarous experiments, which I am ashamed to say I witnessed, began by coolly cutting out a large round piece from the back of a beautiful little puppy, as he would from an apple dumpling!" "It is not to be doubted that inhumanity may be found in persons of very high position as physiologists. We have seen that it was so in Magendie." This is the language of the report on vivisection, to which is attached the name of Professor Huxley.
But the fact which, in my own mind, constitutes by far the strongest objection to unrestrained experiments in pain, is their questionable utility as regards therapeutics. Probably most readers are aware that physiology is that science which treats of the various functions of life, such as digestion, respiration and the circulation of the blood, while therapeutics is that department of medicine which relates to the discovery and application of remedies for disease. Now I venture to assert that, during the last quarter of a century, infliction of intense torture upon unknown myriads of sentient, living creatures, has not resulted in the discovery of a single remedy of acknowledged and generally accepted value in the cure of disease. This is not known to the general public, but it is a fact essential to any just decision regarding the expediency of unrestrained liberty of vivisection. It is by no means intended to deny the value to therapeutics of well-known physiological facts acquired thus in the past—such, for instance, as the more complete knowledge we possess regarding the circulation of the blood, or the distinction between motor and sensory nerves, nor can original investigation be pronounced absolutely valueless as respects remote possibility of future gain. What the public has a right to ask of those who would indefinitely prolong these experiments without State supervision or control is, "What good have your painful experiments accomplished during the past thirty years—not in ascertaining facts in physiology or causes of rare or incurable complaints, but in the discovery of improved methods for ameliorating human suffering, and for the cure of disease?" If pain could be estimated in money, no corporation ever existed which would be satisfied with such waste of capital in experiments so futile; no mining company would permit a quarter-century of "prospecting" in such barren regions. The usual answer to this inquiry is to bring forward facts in physiology thus acquired in the past, in place of facts in therapeutics. Thus, in a recent article on Magendie to which reference has been made, we are furnished with a long list of such additions to our knowledge. It may be questioned, however, whether the writer is quite scientifically accurate in asserting that, were our past experience in vivisection abolished, "it would blot out all that we know to-day in regard to the circulation of the blood, * * the growth and regeneration of bone, * * * the origin of many parasitic diseases, * * * the communicability of certain contagious and infectious diseases, and, to make the list complete, it would be requisite * * to take a wide range in addition through the domains of pathology and therapeutics." Surely somewhat about these subjects has been acquired otherwise than by experiments upon animals? For example, an inquiring critic might wish to know a few of the "many parasitic diseases" thus discovered; or what contagious and infectious diseases, whose communicability was previously unknown, have had this quality demonstrated solely by experiments on animals? And what, too, prevented that "wide range into therapeutics" necessary to make complete the list of benefits due to vivisection? In urging the utility of a practice so fraught with danger, the utmost precaution against the slightest error of overstatement becomes an imperative duty. Even so distinguished a scientist as Sir John Lubbock once rashly asserted in Parliament that, "without experiments on living animals, we should never have had the use of ether"! Nearly every American school-boy knows that the contrary is true—that the use of ether as an anæsthetic—the grandest discovery of modern times—had no origin in the torture of animals.
I confess that, until very recently, I shared the common impression regarding the utility of vivisection in therapeutics. It is a belief still widely prevalent in the medical profession. Nevertheless, is it not a mistake? The therapeutical results of nearly half a century of painful experiments—we seek them in vain. Do we ask surgery? Sir William Ferguson, surgeon to the Queen, tells us: "In surgery I am not aware of any of these experiments on the lower animals having led to the mitigation of pain or to improvement as regards surgical details." [1049.] Have antidotes to poisons been discovered thereby? Says Doctor Taylor, lecturer on Toxicology for nearly half a century in the chief London Medical School (a writer whose work on Poisons is a recognized authority): "I do not know that we have as yet learned anything, so far as treatment is concerned, from our experiments with them (i.e. poisons) on animals." [1204.] Doctor Anthony, speaking of Magendie's experiments, says: "I never gained one single fact by seeing these cruel experiments in Paris. I know nothing more from them than I could have read." [2450.] Even physiologists admit the paucity of therapeutic results. Doctor Sharpey says: "I should lay less stress on the direct application of the results of vivisection to improvement in the art of healing, than upon the value of these experiments in the promotion of physiology." [394.] The Oxford professor of Physiology admitted that Etiology, the science which treats of the causes of disease, had, by these experiments, been the gainer, rather than therapeutics. [1302.] "Experiments on animals," says Doctor Thorowgood, "already extensive and numerous, cannot be said to have advanced therapeutics much."[5] Sir William Gull, M. D., was questioned before the commission whether he could enumerate any therapeutic remedies which have been discovered by vivisection, and he replied with fervor: "The cases bristle around us everywhere!" Yet, excepting Hall's experiments on the nervous system, he could enumerate only various forms of disease, our knowledge of which is due to Harvey's discovery, two hundred and fifty years ago! The question was pushed closer, and so brought to the necessity of a definite reply, he answered: "I do not say at present our therapeutics are much, but there are lines of experiment which seem to promise great help in therapeutics." [5529.] The results of two centuries of experiments, so far as therapeutics are concerned, reduced to a seeming promise!
On two points, then, the evidence of the highest scientific authorities in Great Britain seems conclusive—first, that experiments upon living animals conduce chiefly to the benefit of the science of physiology, and little, if at all, at the present day, to the treatment of disease or the amelioration of human suffering; and, secondly, that repetition of painful experiments for class-teaching in medical schools is both unnecessary and unjustifiable. Do these conclusions affect the practice of vivisection in this country? Is it true that experiments are habitually performed in some of our medical schools, often causing extreme pain, to illustrate well-known and accepted facts—experiments which English physiologists pronounce "infamous" and "atrocious," which English physicians and surgeons stigmatize as purposeless cruelty and unjustifiable—which even Huxley regards as unfitting for teaching purposes, and Darwin denounces as worthy of detestation and abhorrence? I confess I see no occasion for any over-delicate reticence in this matter. Science needs no secrecy either for her methods or results; her function is to reveal, not to hide, facts. The reply to these questions must be in the affirmative. In this country our physiologists are rather followers of Magendie and Bernard, after the methods in vogue at Paris and Leipsic, than governed by the cautious and sensitive conservatism in this respect which generally characterizes the physiological teaching of London and Oxford. In making this statement, no criticism is intended on the motives of those responsible for ingrafting continental methods upon our medical schools. If any opprobrium shall be inferred for the past performance of experiments herein condemned, the present writer asks a share in it. It is the future that we hope to change. Now, what are the facts? A recent contributor to the "International Review," referring to Mr. Bergh, says that "he assails physiological experiments with the same blind extravagance of denunciation as if they were still performed without anæsthetics, as in the time of Magendie." In the interests of scientific accuracy one would wish more care had been given to the construction of this sentence, for it implies that experiments are not now performed except with anæsthetics—a meaning its author never could have intended to convey. Every medical student in New York knows that experiments involving pain are repeatedly performed to illustrate teaching. It is no secret; one need not go beyond the frank admissions of our later text-books on physiology for abundant proof, not only of this, but of the extent to which experimentation is now carried in this country. "We have long been in the habit, in class demonstrations, of removing the optic lobe on one side from a pigeon," says Professor Flint, of Bellevue Hospital Medical College, in his excellent work on Physiology.[6] "The experiment of dividing the sympathetic in the neck, especially in rabbits, is so easily performed that the phenomena observed by Bernard and Brown-Sequard have been repeatedly verified. We have often done this in class demonstrations."[7] "The cerebral lobes were removed from a young pigeon in the usual way, an operation * * which we practice yearly as a class demonstration."[8] Referring to the removal of the cerebellum, the same authority states: "Our own experiments, which have been very numerous during the last fifteen years, are simply repetitions of those of Flourens, and the results have been the same without exception."[9] We have frequently removed both kidneys from dogs, and when the operation is carefully performed the animals live for from three to five days. * * Death always takes place with symptoms of blood poisoning."[10] In the same work we are given precise details for making a pancreatic fistula, after the method of Claude Bernard—"one we have repeatedly employed with success." "In performing the above experiment it is generally better not to employ an anæsthetic,"[11] but ether is sometimes used. In the same work is given a picture of a dog, muzzled and with a biliary fistula, as it appeared the fourteenth day after the operation, which, with details of the experiment, is quite suggestive.[12] Bernard was the first to succeed in following the spinal accessory nerve back to the jugular foramen, seizing it here with a strong pair of forceps and drawing it out by the roots. This experiment is practiced in our own country. "We have found this result (loss of voice) to follow in the cat after the spinal accessory nerves have been torn out by the roots," says Professor John C. Dalton, in his Treatise on Human Physiology.[13] "This operation is difficult," writes Professor Flint, "but we have several times performed it with entire success;" and his assistant at Bellevue Medical College has succeeded "in extirpating these nerves for class demonstrations."[14] In withdrawal of blood from the hepatic veins of a dog, "avoiding the administration of an anæsthetic" is one of the steps recommended.[15] The curious experiment of Bernard, in which artificial diabetes is produced by irritating the floor of the fourth ventricle of the brain, is carefully described, and illustrations afforded both of the instrument and the animal undergoing the operation. The inexperienced experimenter is here taught to hold the head of the rabbit "firmly in the left hand," and to bore through its skull "by a few lateral movements of the instrument." It is not a difficult operation; it is one which the author has "often repeated." He tell us "it is not desirable to administer an anæsthetic," as it would prevent success; and a little further we are told that "we should avoid the administration of anæsthetics in all accurate experiments on the glycogenic function."[16] It is true the pleasing assurance is given that "this experiment is almost painless"; but on this point, could the rabbit speak during the operation, its opinion might not accord with that of the physiologist.
There is one experiment in regard to which the severe characterization of English scientists is especially applicable, from the pain necessarily attending it. Numerous investigators have long established the fact that the great sensory nerve of the head and face is endowed with an exquisite degree of sensibility. More than half a century ago, both Magendie and Sir Charles Bell pointed out that merely exposing and touching this fifth nerve gave signs of most acute pain. "All who have divided this root in living animals must have recognized, not only that it is sensitive, but that its sensibility is far more acute than that of any other nervous trunk in the body."[17] "The fifth pair," says Professor John C. Dalton, "is the most acutely sensitive nerve in the whole body. Its irritation by mechanical means always causes intense pain, and even though the animal be nearly unconscious from the influence of ether, any severe injury to its large root is almost invariably followed by cries."[18] Testimony on this point is uniform and abundant. If science speaks anywhere with assurance, it is in regard to the properties of this nerve. Yet every year the experiment is repeated before medical classes, simply to demonstrate accepted facts. "This is an operation," says Professor Flint, referring to the division of this nerve, "that we have frequently performed with success." He adds that "it is difficult from the fact that one is working in the dark, and it requires a certain amount of dexterity, to be acquired only by practice." Minute directions are therefore laid down for the operative procedure, and illustrations given both of the instrument to be used, and of the head of a rabbit with the blade of the instrument in its cranial cavity.[19] Holding the head of our rabbit firmly in the left hand, we are directed to penetrate the cranium in a particular manner. "Soon the operator feels at a certain depth that the bony resistance ceases; he is then on the fifth pair, and the cries of the animal give evidence that the nerve is pressed upon." This is one of Magendie's celebrated experiments; perhaps the reader fancies that in its modern repetitions the animal suffers nothing, being rendered insensible by anæsthetics? "It is much more satisfactory to divide the nerve without etherizing the animal, as the evidence of pain is an important guide in this delicate operation." Anæsthetics, however, are sometimes used, but not so as wholly to overcome the pain.
Testimony of individuals, indicating the extent to which vivisection is at present practiced in this country might be given; but it seems better to submit proof within the reach of every reader, and the accuracy of which is beyond cavil. No legal restrictions whatever exist, preventing the performance of any experiment desired. Indeed, I think it may safely be asserted that, in the city of New York, in a single medical school, more pain is inflicted upon living animals as a means of teaching well-known facts, than is permitted to be done for the same purpose in all the medical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. And cui bono? "I can truly say," writes a physician who has seen all these experiments, "that not only have I never seen any results at all commensurate with the suffering inflicted, but I cannot recall a single experiment which, in the slightest degree, has increased my ability to relieve pain, or in any way fitted me to cope better with disease."
In respect to this practice, therefore, evidence abounds indicating the necessity for that State supervision which obtains in Great Britain. We cannot abolish it any more than we can repress dissection; to attempt it would be equally unwise. Within certain limitations, dictated both by a regard for the interest of science and by that sympathy for everything that lives and suffers which is the highest attribute of humanity, it seems to me that the practice of vivisection should be allowed. What are these restrictions?
The following conclusions are suggested as a basis for future legislation: