2.—“... the quivering nerve ...”
M. Chauveau states that his object was ‘To ascertain the excitability of the spinal marrow, and the convulsions and pain produced by that excitability.’ His studies were made chiefly on horses and asses, who, he says, ‘lend themselves marvellously thereto by the large volume of their spinal marrow.’ M. Chauveau accordingly ‘consecrated eighty subjects to his purpose.’ ‘The animal,’ he says, ‘is fixed upon a table. An incision is made on its back about fourteen inches long; the vertebræ are opened with the help of a chisel, mallet, and pincers, and the spinal marrow is exposed.’ (No mention is made of anæsthetics, which of course would nullify the experimenter’s object of studying “the excitability of the spinal marrow, and the convulsions and pain produced by that excitability.”) “M. Chauveau gives a large number of his cases.... Case 7: ‘A vigorous mule. When one pricks the marrow near the line of emergence of the sensitive nerves, the animal manifests the most violent pain.’ Case 20: ‘An old white horse, lying on the litter, unable to rise, but nevertheless very sensitive. At whatever points I scratch the posterior cord I provoke signs of the most violent suffering.’”—(Journal de Physiologie, du Dr. Brown-Séquard. Tome Quatrième. No. XIII.)
4.—“... living butchery with learned knife.”
“We are told what Professor Brücke says with reference to section of the trigeminus:—‘The first sign that the trigeminus is divided is a loud piercing cry from the animal. Rabbits we know,’ he adds, ‘are not very sensitive; all sorts of things may be done to them without making them utter a cry; but in this operation, if it succeeds, they invariably send forth a prolonged shriek.’”—“Lectures on Physiology,” Vol. II., p. 76.
5.—“... cruel anodyne that chained the will ...”
It is dubious whether curare be even an anodyne, i.e. a deadener of pain. M. Claude Bernard, himself a vivisector, says:—“Curare acting on the nervous system only suppresses the action of the motor nerves, leaving sensation intact. Curare is not an anæsthetic.” (Revue Scientifique, 1871–2, p. 892.)
6.—“... the shuddering victim conscious still.”
“Everyone has heard of the dog, suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.”—Darwin (“The Descent of Man,” Part I., Chap. II.).
8.—“Nor yields her holiest truths on such a murderer’s rack.”
“It is fit to say here, once for all, that laws which govern the animal kingdom below the human, can no more be accepted as final and determining to man, in physiological, than in intellectual and moral, action.... For neither the knife of the anatomist, nor the lens of the microscopist, are infallible interpreters of function. We do not possess ourselves of all of Nature’s secrets by cutting up her tissues and fabrics, neither by the keenest inspection of their ultimate atoms, whether fluid or solid. There are some truths withheld from the investigator, however brave, patient, and nice his methods and means, which are given up, in due time, to the truth-seer, without any method or means, save the intuitive faculty and its unambitious, guileless surrender to the service offered it. Such, it is at least possible, we may find has been Nature’s dealing in this occult department.”—Eliza W. Farnham (“Woman and Her Era,” Vol. I., pp. 47, 50).