442 VIVISECTION. 



self for the task. By what means what training ? That of 

 vivisection? Assuredly not; though, if the practice of vivi- 

 section in aid of surgical dexterity could admit of palliation 

 in any case, this might have been the one, inasmuch as be- 

 tween the bladebone and accessories of a dog and the blade- 

 bone and accessories of a man there is a very close struc- 

 tural analogy. Yet no sense of duty, no consciousness of 

 what would be a fitting exercise, prompted the surgeon whom 

 I have now in my mind to operate upon the bladebone of a 

 living animal. He repaired to the dissecting-room, where 

 upon the tranquil and unconscious dead he operated again 

 and again. It might have done good to certain men, who 

 profess the belief that cruelty, either natural or acquired, is 

 a profitable quality in operative surgeons, to have visited the 

 dissecting-room that day, and studied the operator. It was 

 but a corpse his bright scalpel lacerated the unconscious, 

 painless dead. Yet to see the pale look of resolute anguish 

 the operator's countenance wore to note the large sweat- 

 drops falling from his brow, as, glancing alternately from the 

 stop-watch beside the corpse to some new revelation of artery, 

 nerve, or vein each movement of his delicate hand calmly yet 

 rapidly and resolutely laid bare, he still worked on ; to have 

 seen all this as I saw it, would have left an impression never 

 to have been eradicated. On the hypothesis of cruelty being 

 needful to the operator, the surgeon whom I have so vaguely 

 sketched would have given small promise of acquitting him- 

 self well. He was then, as now, recognised as one of our 

 chief operative surgeons. When the excision had to be done, 

 it was well done ; rapidly, as behoves an operator, who shrinks 

 from needless prolongation of suffering, but not recklessly. 



We come now to the second point of discussion Whether 

 vivisection is necessary or justifiable for the general purposes 

 of science ? 



Irrefragable as is the chain of reasoning to my mind, 

 whereby I am led to the conclusion, that the practice of vivi- 



