i 7 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



note that the performance of the ten experiments above described in- 

 volves only the pain of a hypodermic injection or of pithing, since, 

 whenever the animal is alive during the operation, complete insensi- 

 bility is produced by anaesthetics. Most of the experiments, however, 

 are done upon dead animals that is, a man treated in like manner 

 would be legally defunct. In the ordinary sense of the word, there- 

 fore, such experiments are not vivisections at all, although they are so 

 by virtue of the persistence of vitality in certain organs and tissues.* 

 According to information from various sources, it is probable that the 

 large majority of experiments in this State, whether in medical col- 

 leges or other institutions, whether for research or for teaching, are, 

 like those described above, performed upon animals completely anaes- 

 thetized or actually dead.f 



II. Many persons find it difficult to dissociate the word vivisection 

 from the sufferings which were, perhaps, unavoidable before the dis- 

 covery of ether and chloroform, and from those which are inflicted at 

 the present day by careless or unfeeling experimenters. The proposed 

 laws likewise ignore the difference between experiments in respect to 

 pain. In England the question has been similarly befogged by the 

 use of a single term for two different ideas. In the face of the official 

 reports showing, according to Dr. Gerald Yeo's later estimate,! that 

 only twenty-five out of one hundred experiments caused any pain at 

 all, Frances Power Cobbe has the hardihood to say,* "We find it 

 practically impossible to separate torturing from non-torturing vivi- 

 section." In view of all this ambiguity, whether due to ignorance or 

 design, I have ventured to suggest || that painful vivisection be known 

 as sentisection, and painless vivisection as callisection. The desirabil- 

 ity of some verbal distinction was presented to Mr. Bergh, both in the 

 article referred to and in private letters, dated February, 1880, and 

 October 1882. His only reply is the following, dated November 3, 



* It is stated that the Danish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has 

 offered a prize for the best essay upon the performance of physiological experiments 

 upon recently killed animals. 



f Opinions to the same effect have been expressed by well-known teachers in a sister 

 State, and in Great Britain. In "Scribner's Monthly," September, 1880, page 7G6, Pro- 

 fessor Horatio C. Wood says, " So far as concerns the medical schools of Philadelphia, 

 vivisection without anaesthetics is not practiced to any extent, if at all, for class demon- 

 stration." In "The Popular Science Monthly," April, 1874, Professor Michael Foster 

 says, "So far as I know, in this country at least, physiologists always use anaesthetics 

 when they can." See also the very comprehensive and important " Facts and Consider- 

 ations Relating to the Practice of Scientific Experiments on Living Animals, commonly 

 called Vivisection," issued by the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Re- 

 search, "Nature," March 13, 1883, which appeared after this articlo was in type. 



% "The Practice of Vivisection in England," "Fortnightly Review," March 1, 1882, 

 pp. 352-368. 



# "Vivisection: Four Replies," "Fortnightly Review," January 1, 1S82, pp. 88-104. 

 [| In the article referred to on page 1 70. 



