174 Dr Drummond on Humanity to Animals. 



One would suppose that the determining such a question, as 

 whether, in vomiting, the stomach acts alone, or is assisted by 

 the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, or is altogether passive, 

 would scarcely be thought worth the sacrifice even of one dog — 

 by any man, at least, who had ever himself felt what pain is, 

 were it but that from the prick of a needle, or of a thorn lodged 

 in the finger. Yet this unimportant matter, this subject of cu- 

 riosity alone, which is not of the slightest consequence, whatever 

 way it might be settled, has been the cause of innumerable liv- 

 ing dissections, the very least of which is sufficient to make one's 

 blood run cold. Let any one who has ever experienced nausea 

 and sickness for ten minutes, think what must be the sufferings 

 of a creature whose belly is ripped open, and emetics injected 

 into its stomach ; or what must be the agony produced by cut- 

 ting away its stomach altogether, and sewing a bladder in its 

 place — thereby substituting, for the purpose of experiment, an 

 artificial stomach. These, and similar barbarous, but really use- 

 less, experiments, have been repeated over and over^ with a per- 

 severance which is perfectly disgusting. Think of a dog being 

 tied down to a table, the whole fleshy walls of its belly being cut 

 away with a knife, and experiments made on it in that dreadful 

 and pitiable state, for the purpose merely of ascertaining whether 

 it will vomit or not. " An animal,*" Magendie observes, " still 

 vomits, though the diaphragm has been rendered immoveable 

 by cutting the diaphragmatic nerves ; it vomits in the same 

 manner, though the whole abdominal muscles have been taJcen 

 away by the linife^ with the precaution of leaving the linea alba 

 and the peritoneum untouched." * 



Now, you will observe, that I do not mean to inculcate the 

 positive abstinence from experiments on any account whatever, 

 for there may be circumstances which will fairly warrant their 

 adoption, though a humane or just man will never have recourse 

 to them, either for the purpose of determining a question of 

 mere curiosity, or of light importance ; neither will he repeat 

 them unnecessarily. But the practice, especially of the French 

 physiologists, is very different. They torture animals innumer- 

 able, almost without end or aim, farther than hoping to get at 

 something, hke a child who breaks a watch in pieces, thinking 

 to obtain thereby a knowledge of the reason why it ticks. Many 

 • Magendie's Physiology, translated by Dr Milligan, ed. 3. p. 287. 



