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544 
NATURE 
[April 5, 1883 
disease, and more justly described as discomfort than as torture; 
and the trial of certain modes of treatment, as inoculation, and 
of various drugs, where the suffering produced is less than the 
familiar effects of corresponding remedies in human beings. 
Probably the most painful scientific experiments ever performed 
haye not been vivisections at all. Such are those of ascertaining 
the effect of starvation, carried out abroad many years ago; 
observations of great value and importance, but happily not 
needing repetition. 
Vivisections in the popular sense of the word, experiments 
comparable to surgical operations, involving cutting and irritation 
of sensitive parts, can, with few exceptions, be performed with- 
out the slightest pain, Hence the results of acutely painful 
experiments, comparable with the pain endured by rabbits and 
weasels caught in ordinary traps, by young animals being 
gelded, by wounded birds, or by rats poisoned with strychnine 
or phosphorus, are not to be found in our physiological la- 
boratories, 
That the utmost possible limitation of the infliction of pain 
has always been the object and practice of scientific workers in 
England,! is sufficiently proved by a Report which was drawn 
up by a Committee of the Physiological Section of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1871, several 
years before the appointment of the Royal Commission. 
While the suffering caused to animals by scientific experiments 
has been enormously exaggerated, both absolutely and relatively, 
no one denies that both pain and death are and must be inflicted 
‘thereby. Otherwise there would be no more reason for licensing 
and inspecting the physiologist’s laboratory than that of the 
chemist. The whole question is one of justification for causing 
the pain or death of brutes. Few who compare the extent of 
suffering and of slaughter thus caused with that generally recog- 
nised as right in other cases by enlightened Christian morality, 
or who compare the objects for which animals commonly suffer 
pain and death (for food, for dress, for profit, for convenience, 
or for amusement) with those of the scientific observer (for 
advance of knowledge and for relief of human suffering) will 
hesitate to conclude that so long as the principles and practice 
of scientific men in this country continue what they now are, 
their investigations should rather be fostered than impeded. 
But any possible danger of abuse is prevented by the Act 
passed in 1876, by which not only are all physiological labora- 
tories placed under the inspection of the Home Office, and exist 
only by its license, but, in addition, no experiment involving 
pain can be performed without a special, elaborate, and carefully 
guarded certificate. Indeed, so stringently has the law been 
‘administered that more than one investigation of great practical 
value has been prevented, others have been injuriously hampered 
or delayed, and a serious check has been given to medical science 
in England. In two instances eminent members of the pro- 
fession found it necessary to go abroad in order to carry cut 
investigations of great importance. The object of one was to 
decide a question in relation to treatment of wounds ; that of 
the other was to determine the action of certain new drugs, 
This was certainly not the intention of the Royal Commission 
in recommending, or of Parliament in passing, an Act for the 
purpose of preventing possible abuses without hindering scientific 
and useful work. What is now needed is such an expression 
of opinion in Parliament as will permit the Act to be worked 
in the spirit in which it was framed and loyally accepted, and 
according to its strict provisions. It may be remarked that 
attempts have been made, by the same methods of agitation, to 
check physiological research by legislation in Germany, Den- 
mark, Sweden, and the United States: but in each case the 
humane and enlightened judgment of the country has 1 efused to 
impede researches of which the usefulness is beyond dispute. 
§ 5. It has been imagined that students of medicine perform 
operations upon living animals in order to gain manual dexterity ; 
such a practice would be as useless as it would be reprehensible, 
and has neyer, we believe, been thought of. For our veterinary, 
surgeons it would be quite unnecessary, and they have a}v@ys 
reprobated the practice. 
It has also been supposed that students might, &* amuse- 
* The following quotation, from a Manual of Miysiological Experiment 
by a well-known German physiologist, will sve to show that humane con- 
sideration for animals is not confined to tS country :—‘‘ An experiment in- 
volving vivisection should never be performed, especially for purposes of 
demonstration, without previous consi,eration whether its object may not be 
otherwise attained ; ’’ and, as a seceud rule, “‘ Insensibility by chloroform or 
other drugs should be produced wadenever the nature of the experiment does 
‘not render this absolutely impossible.’”"—Cyon, Phystologische Methodik, p. 9. 
ment, perform physiological experiments upon living animals, 
This would be practically impossible, since not only are know- 
ledge and skill necessary, but a properly equipped laboratory 
and suitable appliances.1 If, however, any ill-disposed person 
without scientific object or training should be guilty of cruelty 
most alien from the practice and the training of the profession, 
there is no doubt that every member of it, teacher or student, 
would help to detect and punish such conduct.2 The case has 
never arisen; if it did, it could be efficiently dealt with under 
the law known as ‘‘ Martin’s Act.” 
§ 6. The real objects of scientific experiment on living animals 
are briefly as follows :— 
i. Zo extend, correct, and define our knowledge of the functions 
of the living body. 
Even apart from ulterior adyantage to medicine, physiology 
must be held to be a branch of science of at least equal im- 
portance with chemistry or geology; and to be successfully 
cultivated, it must be cultivated for its own sake, without per- 
petual or premature inquiry as to the immediate and material 
results which increased knowledge of the laws of Nature will 
bring. In physiology, as in other natural sciences, the investi- 
gator must have primarily in view the discovery of truth; for, 
in the words adopted by the Royal Commissioners, ‘‘if in the 
pursuit of science he seeks after immediate practical utility, 
he may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain.” There 
must be, to quote the words of an older authority, “light-bear- 
ing,” as well as ‘‘ fruit-bearing experiments.” 
As examples of this first kind of experiment, and of their 
success in extending useful knowledge, we may refer to the 
following :— 
(1) The great discovery of the circulation of the blood by 
Harvey, the firstfruits of the experimental method. Upon 
this as the foundation depends all the subsequent progress in 
the surgical treatment of hemorrhage and of aneurisms, and 
the recognition and treatment of diseases of the heart, the 
arteries, and the veins. 
(2) The discovery of the effects of electricity on animals by 
Galvani and Volta, from which have resulted not only the 
development of one great branch of electrical science, but also 
important means of diagnosis and treatment in cases of paralysis. 
(3) Artificial respiration, invented and improved in the case 
of animals with purely scientific objects by Vesalius, Hooke, 
Lower, and others, and long afterwards applied with complete 
success to resuscitation from drowning. 
(4) The experiments of the Rev. Dr. Hales on pressure of 
the blood in the arteries. 
(5) Those of Boyle, Hooke, Mayow, and other natural philo- 
sophers on respiration. 
(6) Transfusion of blood from one animal to another, ac- 
complished by Sir Christopher Wren and others of the early 
Fellows of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century, but only 
recently, owing to fresh physiological knowledge, applied with 
success to the saving of human life. 
(7) Experiments by a Committee of Physicians at Dublin, in 
1835; showing the way in which the sounds that attend the 
action of the heart are produced, and enabling physicians to 
judge of the condition of the organ by the alterations of the 
sounds. 
(8) The discoveries of reflex action and of the separate en- 
dowments of motor and sensory nerves, on which much of our 
present knowledge of the functions and disorders of the nervous 
system is founded, 
(9) The discovery of vasomotor nerves. 
* It is obvious that thissound general principle admits of exceptions when 
the’ skilled perscn with suitable appliances must, from the nature of the 
case, carry cut his researches on board ship, as for instance for investigation 
into the functions of jelly-fish, or the electric torpedo; or in the open fields, 
as in inquiries into means of protection from epidemic diseases of cattle: 
? For the real sentir .-*s of medical students, see Dr. Pavy’s evidence 
Sufore the Royal “MISSION, = B71¢ Book, p. 114. 
3 Some jeisons have ventured t-, deny that Harvey’s discoveries were due 
to vivisection, on the faith of 2 +-eported statement of his to the Hem 
Robert Boyle (another eminent ViVIS€~-tor), and in contradiction to Harvey's 
express words. Others have denied tlj2¢ ‘the circulation was proved by vivi- 
section, tecause Harvey having prove'q a)) but one point by a series of ex- 
periments on living animals, Malpight ¢- mpleted the demonstration by 
another experiment on another living anim.) “The full account of the matter 
is contained in Harvey's own treatise, ‘* De, \otu Cordis et Sanguinis.”” It 
is briefly referred to in the article Harvey of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,” 
and in the evidence of Professor Turner, 02; Edinburgh, before the Royal 
Commission (Blue Bock, pp. 157, 158); wher. aco are given the account of 
the discovery by vivisection of the great sYictem of lymphatic vessels, by 
Aselli and Be f 
cquet, and of the discovery ol; mails 
the same means by Bell and Magendie. Pic Care Acc Severe Lesa Oe 
