178 Dr Drummond (yfi Humanity to Animals. 



the strength of its action, dividing nerves, cutting away viscera, 

 and many other operations, which are accompanied with the 

 direst cruelty, and nine-tenths of which, after all, relate to mat- 

 ters of curiosity alone, and lead to no practical benefit of any 

 kind. 



It may be curious enough that, when a particular part of the 

 brain is wounded, the animal has a tendency to move forward ; 

 when another, to move backward ; and when a third and a 

 fourth, to turn round ; but I cannot think the knowledge of 

 these circumstances by any means worth the price it has cost ; 

 and, after all, it merely shows what takes place when the brain 

 is denuded, and wounded, and, consequently, its natural func- 

 tion deranged, if not destroyed. Putting aside the sufferings of 

 the thousands of animals which have been sacrificed in experi- 

 menting and exhibiting these phenomena in lectures and demon- 

 strations, I cannot but think that the witnessing of such cruelties 

 must have a very demoralizing effect. I cannot conceive how 

 a person can become cooly reconciled to the sight, let alone the 

 practice, of such murderous acts, and continue to retain proper 

 feelings of humanity for his own species. In this I may be 

 wrong ; but whether or not, I am satisfied, that to recommend 

 to students the pursuit, or even to exhibit to them the view of 

 such dissections as I have adverted to, is to run the risk of mak- 

 ing them at once cruel and speculative, and at the same time ne- 

 glectful of those branches of solid knowledge which will qualify 

 them to be truly useful in their profession. 



I know it is often urged, that medical knowledge has been 

 greatly improved by experimenting in this way on animals. 

 That it has been a little, I will grant, but only a little, for the 

 phenomena which take place in animals will often not apply to 

 ourselves in the practice or treatment of either wounds or dis- 

 eases. Experiments to determine the action of poisons, and as- 

 certain their antidotes, are, perhaps, or at least were, more al- 

 lowable than any others ; but the discovery of the stomach-pump 

 is of more value than all that ever have or could have been 

 made. And yet, so differently do poisons act on differet ani- 

 mals, that no observation drawn from their action can be applied 

 to man. Hemlock, as every one knows, is a wholesome food for 

 the goat, but it poisoned Socrates ; while, on the other hand, a 



