Experiments on Animals

by Stephen Paget

Here, in these five sentences taken merely out of the heap, is the ethical argument; so facile, so pleasant to self, so confident of a good hearing. No wonder that the societies, now that the facts of science are too strong for them, are falling back on the facts of ethics. In the beginning, thirty years ago, they were created out of ethics; they were born auspiciously. What a welcome they had! Tennyson and Browning and Ruskin, Westcott and Martineau, the late Lord Shaftesbury, and her Majesty the late Queen—these all, and many more, among whom were some of the best men and women of the Victorian Age, were their friends. There never was a cause that enjoyed a better send-off. Everything was in its favour. Magendie and Schiff and Mantegazza had made people sick of experiments on animals. The advocates of the method had not very much to show on its behalf; no bacteriology, save as a far-off vision; no great discoveries lately in physiology or pathology. Thirty years ago, good and true men fought a way for the Act; and there are few now who think the worse of them for it, or grudge them that victory. But, though ethics may be the same always, yet the arguments from them are not. The ethical argument now—we try to find it, and it takes all shapes, and vanishes in a cloud of foul language. That text about the sparrows, which is never quoted in full; that fear about the vivisection of hospital patients; and all that nonsense about moral shrouds, and serpents in the desert, and developed tastes for blood; and Mr. Bernard Shaw, who on May 22nd, 1900, suggests to the National Society that "the laceration of living flesh quickens the blood of the vivisector as the blood of the hunter, the debauchee, or the beast of prey is undoubtedly quickened in such ways,"[48] and a week later, before the London Society, dogmatically postulates humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character; and the lady who says, Oh, Pharisees and hypocrites! Oh, cruel and ruthless egotists! and the Falstaff's army of the osteopath, and the fruitarian, and the anti this, that, and the other, who follow the cause; and all these discordant societies, and the begging for money—where, in all this confusion, can we find the ethical argument? Mercy is admirable, but I will wait till mercy and truth are met together. Let us leave the societies to their ethics, and see what they have to say for themselves in the lower realms of science.

I

First, there are the general arguments. That experiments on animals are useless, or of very little use; that they contradict each other; that you cannot argue from animals to men, or from an animal under experiment to a man not under experiment; that the discoveries made by the help of experiments on animals might have been made as well, or better, without that help; that the way to advance medicine and surgery has been, and is, and always will be, not by experiments on animals, but by clinical and post-mortem studies. These and the like arguments we may call general; they are the complement of the horrible stories and magic-lantern slides of the itinerant lecturer.

1. The vague statement that these experiments are of little use, may be answered in several ways. It does not come well from those who say that the question is ethical, not utilitarian; who neither know, nor care, nor are agreed, what is the real value of these experiments. "I challenge you," says one, "to show me what good they have done." Another says, "I admit that they may perhaps have done a little good; but so little; they are a bad investment; you would get a better return from other methods of work." Another says, "I don't care whether they have or have not done good; this is a matter of conscience; we must not do evil that good may come; I grant all, or nearly all, your instances—malaria, and diphtheria, and cerebral localisation, and so forth; but the question is a moral question, and we must not inflict pain on animals, save for their own good." Probably the best answer is, that good has indeed come, and is coming, and so far as we can see will come, out of these experiments; that the instances given are indeed true; that these results were won out of many failures, and contradictions, and fallacies, and harkings-back; and that they have stood the test of time, and will underlie all better results, all surer methods, that shall take their place.

2. The statement that "you cannot argue from animals to man" is not true. Why should it be? Take tubercle, tetanus, or rabies. The tubercle-bacillus is the same thing in a man, a test-tube, or a guinea-pig; the virus of rabies is transmitted from dogs to men; oysters harbour typhoid, fleas carry the plague, diverse mosquitoes carry malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, and dengue. Take the circulation of the blood, the nature and action of the motor centres of the brain, the vaso-motor nerves, the excretory organs, the contractility of muscle, the blood-changes in respiration—where are the differences to support this statement that you cannot argue from animals to men?

3. The twin statements, that all the results got by the help of experiments might have been got some other way, and that clinical study and post-mortem study are infinitely more fruitful than experimental study, may be taken together. We are told that anybody could have discovered the circulation by injecting the vessels of a dead body. Well, Malpighi tried to discover the capillaries by this method, and failed. We are asked to admit that phrenology, long before physiology, discovered the truth about the surface of the brain; I have been told, says Mr. Coleridge at an annual meeting of his society, that the physiologists can now triumphantly map out the human brain. I think the phrenologists have always been able to do that, and whether they or the vivisectors do it best does not much matter. We are told that the use of thyroid extract could have been discovered right away by mere chemistry and thinking. We hear of a proposal for a bacteriological laboratory on anti-vivisectionist principles, where no inoculations shall be made. This argument, that the whole thing might have been done some other way, must repair its wit, and find better instances. Then comes the incessant appeal: "Stick to clinical work; study diseases at the bedside, in the post-mortem room, in the museum, anywhere but in the laboratory. The Hospital taught you to neglect these methods; it made experiments on its patients, it cheated the public, it sheltered malignant cruelty in its most repulsive form under illustrious patronage. Set aside pathology; just sit by your patients long enough; that is the way of discovery."

Or the appeal takes another tone: "Stick to sanitation. If only everybody were healthy, everybody would be well. Diseases are due to dirt, to vice, to overcrowding, to want of common-sense. Abolish all slums, disinfect all mankind, body and soul, make every house clean and wholesome, no bad drainage, or ventilation, or water, or food. Leave your torture-chambers, and open your eyes to the blessed truth that, if everybody were healthy, and everybody were good, everybody would be well." What is the use of talking in this way? Suppose that all the physiologists suddenly rushed into practice, and all the bacteriologists were turned into medical officers of health. What would be gained? What difference would it make? The physiologists, of course, would merely vivisect their hospital patients; and the bacteriologists would hardly feel the change, for many of them are medical officers of health already, public servants, appointed by the State.

This argument, that practice is fruitful of discoveries, and science is barren of them, reaches its highest absurdity in the National Society's official journal; which praises extravagantly those methods of practice which were not discovered by the help of experiments on animals; praises them without experience, criticism, or understanding. It finds a statement, in the Medical Annual, that a year has passed without any great improvement in practice; and at once it lays the blame not on practice but on science. It fights hard against a fact which began in science, though it has been proved a thousand times over in practice. It accuses the bacteriologists now of caring nothing for human suffering, now of rushing after every new method of treatment and flooding the market with drugs. There is money in the business—that is the phrase of the Zoophilist. But there is money, also, in the anti-vivisection business. If you can provide for the society's future in your will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now, says the London Society: this is the most alive humane organisation in the world. But the National Society says, A grave injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid secretaries.

II

Let us leave the general arguments and come to the special arguments. Some of them are concerned with the experiments themselves, some with the men who made them, some with the administration of the Act. These special arguments must be arranged in some sort of order; but they cross and recross, and are of diverse natures, and any attempt at strict arrangement would fail. That the arrangement may be useful for immediate reference, and may help anybody to answer statements made at debates and lectures, a separate heading has been given to each argument. Those arguments are put first which are concerned with the experiments themselves, or with the men who made them; afterward come those which are concerned with the administration of the Act.