NATURE 
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1882 
VIVISECTION 
HE discussion on this subject which has been carried 
on during tae last few months in the /Vinefeenth 
Century and Fortnightly Review has now, we think, pro- 
ceeded sufficiently far to render it desirable that we 
should give our readers a short summary of its progress. 
But as there are altogether some twelve or fourteen 
articles to be dealt with, we shall only have space to 
supply a general analysis of the facts and arguments, 
without being able to give an abstract of each article 
separately. 
As regards the general tone or manner of pleading, 
there can be no doubt that the advantage inclines largely 
to the side of the physiologists ; for while—with perhaps 
a slight exception in the case of some of the passages in 
the essays by Prof. Owen and Dr. Wilks—the physio- 
logists state their arguments in a calm and tolerant spirit, 
the essays on the other side—with the exception of one 
by Mr. Hutton—present, in a painfully marked degree, 
the features of bitterness and ill temper. But, disregard- 
ing this conspicuous difference in the style of writing, we 
shall endeavour to give an analysis of the arguments on 
both sides, the impartiality of which shall not be aftected 
by the fixed opinion which this journal has always held 
upon the subject. 
The w¢zlity of Vivisection is upheld by Sir James Paget, 
Prof. Owen, Dr. Wilks, Dr. Carpenter, Sir William Gull, 
Mr. Fleming, Dr, Brunton, and Dr. Yeo. This is done, 
not merely by stating the general truth, obviously @ frzor?, 
that “it would be more reasonable to hope to make out 
the machinery of a watch by looking at it, than to hope 
to understand the mechanism of a living animal by mere 
contemplation”; but chiefly by enumerating instances in 
the past history of research where important advances of 
knowledge have been made by vivisection, and could not 
have been made otherwise. The cases mentioned are 
very numerous, so we must restrict ourselves to re- 
mentioning the more important. 
Sir James Paget says—and on such a topic he is 
entitled to speak with at least an unsurpassed authority— 
“ Before Hunter’s time it is nearly certain that ninety-five 
out of a hundred persons who had aneurism of the prin- 
cipal artery of the lower limb died of it. ... At the 
present time it is as certain that of a hundred persons 
with the same disease less than ten die,” and if we con- 
template cases of aneurism in all other arteries, as well as 
deaths from bleeding after large operations, the saving of 
life due to Hunter’s experiments is seen to be “very 
large.” But Sir James does not needlessly prolong his 
article by enumerating specific instances; he says: 
“others have already abundantly illustrated them; I will 
rather suggest some general considerations on the whole 
subject. Looking back over the improvements of prac- 
tical medicine and surgery during my own observation of 
them in nearly fifty years, I see great numbers of means 
effectual for the saving of lives and for the detection, 
prevention, or quicker remedy of diseases and physical 
disabilities, all obtained by means of knowledge to the 
acquirement or safe use of which experiments on animals 
VoL. Xxv.—No, 645 
429 
have contributed. There is scarcely an operation in 
surgery of which the mortality is now more than half as 
great as it was forty years ago ; scarcely a serious injury 
of which the consequences are half as serious; several 
diseases are remediable which used to be nearly always 
fatal; potent medicines have been introduced and safely 
used ; altogether such a quantity of life and of working 
power has been saved by lately-acquired knowledge as is 
truly past counting. And in these advantages our 
domestic animals have had due share of the improvement 
of veterinary medicine.” 
The next paper in the series is by Prof. Owen, and is 
concerned mainly with the history of the indispensable 
part which vivisection played in Harvey’s discovery of the 
circulation of the blood and in Hunter’s experiments on 
the ligature of arteries. Although the latter topic occupies 
common ground with a part of Sir James Paget’s paper, 
the overlapping due to independent writing is not to be 
regretted, because Prof. Owen traces the history of the 
subject into more detail, in order to expose the fallacy of 
the anti-vivisectionists, who say that Hunter was antici- 
pated in his results by other surgeons working by other 
methods. This, we think, he is completely successful in 
doing—so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Algernon Kingsford 
M.D., who supplies an essay in a succeeding number of 
the Wineteenth Century on “The Uselessness of Vivisec- 
tion,” while disputing Sir James Paget’s mere statement 
of the fact that the surgical treatment of aneurism is due 
to Hunter’s experiments on deer, nevertheless finds it 
convenient entirely to ignore the historical details which 
are given by Prof. Owen ; and the same remarks apply to 
this lady’s treatment—or rather evasion—of the facts 
concerning Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the 
blood. 
Dr. Wilks makes utility the central portion of his argu- 
ment, and gives so many instances of the service which 
vivisection has rendered that we cannot here quote them. 
The instances he refers to concern the heart, circulation, 
functions of the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system 
generally, including its influence over the heart, lungs. 
stomach, kidneys, bladder, skin, and muscles, &c. 
“What,” he asks, quoting from Prof. Humphrey, “has 
been the influence of this upon medical treatment? .. . 
Take away the knowledge which we have received through 
vivisection, and conceive what a chaos would be our 
knowledge of the human body, and our ideas of the treat- 
ment of the diseases of the human body; you can 
scarcely conceive to what we should be reduced. Every 
man in the whole history of medicine, every man 
who has made real advances in the knowledge of the 
workings of the human body, has done it through 
vivisection.” 
The utility of vivisection is further shown by Sir W. 
Gull, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Fleming, and Dr. Brunton. 
The former alludes to the discovery of the lymphatic 
system, and of the capillary circulation, to “the great 
advances made by Boyle, Mayow, and Lower, in the 
same century” ; and more especially to the work of 
Claude Bernard on animal heat. Thisis specially alluded 
to in consequence of Miss Cobbe in her article “ writing 
of the title of Claude Bernard to be honoured by physio- 
logists, saying that such title is, at least partly, based on 
the invention of a stove which should enable him to 
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