VIVISECTION. 437 



truth conveyed by the resulting average. Of course it hardly 

 need be observed, that the illustrations here cited, and the 

 arguments founded upon them, are restricted, by the very 

 nature of the case, to the limits of veterinary practice ; inas- 

 much as identical, not analogical, vivisection is that alone 

 contemplated for the present. Nobody, at this time, need be 

 at the trouble of controverting the proposition, that it is need- 

 ful and desirable to vivisect one living human being in order 

 to acquire facility of operating upon another. 



It being now shown that vivisection in aid of securing 

 dexterity is not used, that it cannot be used, and, I may add, 

 is not desired to be used, by surgeons operating upon human 

 individuals, it may seem conclusive to the minds of most, as 

 it does to me, reasoning analogically and a fortiori, that the 

 necessity of such aid to operation upon brutes is barred by 

 exclusion. If vivisection be not adopted in the case of major 

 importance, then what plea for its adoption in the minor ? 



The question "Whether it be necessary or desirable, for 

 the purpose of giving dexterity to the operator, that vivi- 

 section should be practised? has hitherto been discussed on 

 terms of manifest advantage to those who maintain the affirm- 

 ative. Premising, though the premiss may be hardly neces- 

 sary, that the discussion is limited to brute vivisection and 

 veterinary operations, an important concession hitherto made 

 must be noted, hypothetically merely, and for argument-sake. 

 It has been hitherto assumed, tacitly and inferentially, that 

 human surgical operations and veterinary surgical operations 

 stand on an equality, whether the gravity of them be regarded 

 or the interests involved. 



As to the interests involved, no argument is needed ; see- 

 ing that between the value and destinies of human life on 

 the one hand, and of brute life on the other, the difference is 

 infinite. Wherefore it only remains that we apply ourselves 

 to the question Whether the number and the gravity of 

 veterinary surgical operations are equal to the number and 



