July 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



87 



profession whicli exists for the relief of suf- 

 fering. Unable to comprehend the reports 

 of biological investigations published for 

 professional readers, they recklessly de- 

 nounce perfectly painless experiments as 

 cases of fiendish torture. Deliberate and 

 authoritative statements setting forth the 

 necessity of animal experimentation for the 

 advancement of medical science, the vast 

 amount of good already accomplished and 

 the comparatively trifling amount of the 

 suffering involved, are treated simply as 

 falsehoods such as might naturally be ex- 

 pected from the ' cowardly criminals ' who 

 practice vivisection. 



This movement is, therefore, by no means 

 to be regarded as a simple humanitarian 

 effort to reduce to a minimum the amount 

 of animal suffering connected with vivisec- 

 tion. Eestrictive laws like that of Eng- 

 land are denounced as useless, and the to- 

 tal abolition of the practice is imperatively 

 demanded. That this will have the effect 

 of seriously checking the advance of med- 

 ical science some of the leaders ignorantly 

 deny, while others contemplate this result 

 with satisfaction, for they deny the right of 

 the human race to profit by animal suffer- 

 ing, and condemn the saving of a human 

 life by the sacrifice of that of a dog. That 

 this is not an exaggerated statement of the 

 position assumed by anti-vivisectionists, a 

 single quotation from the writings of Henry 

 Bergh will suffice to show. Mr. Bergh was 

 for many years President of the ISTew York 

 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals, and was throughout his life the 

 acknowledged leader of the anti-vivisection- 

 ists in America. In a lecture on this sub- 

 ject delivered in 1880 occurs the following 

 passage : *' As another proof of the profane 

 extremes to which these dissectors of living 

 animals will go, Eobert McDonald, M. D., 

 on being questioned, declared that he had 

 opened the veins of a dying person, remem- 

 ber, and had injected the blood of an ani- 



mal into them, many times, and had met 

 with brilliant success. In other words, this 

 potentate had discovered the means of 

 thwarting the decrees of Providence, where 

 a person was dying, and snatching away, 

 from its Maker, a soul which He had called 

 away from earth !" It seems to me that 

 this blasphemous denunciation of a physi- 

 cian for saving a human life needs abso- 

 lutely no comment. 



It might naturally be supposed that such 

 extravagances of statement would carry 

 their own refutation, and would demand 

 no more attention from serious people than 

 the utterances of those medical philoso- 

 phers who deny the utility of vaccination. 

 Acting upon this supposition, and unmind- 

 ful of the fact that lies travel faster than 

 truth, biological investigators have, as a 

 rule, not thought it necessary to contradict 

 specifically the various misstatements which 

 have been published with regard to their 

 work. The result has been that certain 

 excellent people, of emotional dispositions, 

 and without the special training which 

 would enable them to judge correctly of 

 such a question, have been led to believe 

 that so much smoke must indicate some 

 fire. They have, therefore, by joining anti- 

 vivisection societies, lent the weight of 

 their names and their purses to a move- 

 ment fraught with danger to the welfare of 

 the State. That members of our own pro- 

 fession have occasionally expressed them- 

 selves in such a way as to encourage this 

 agitation is to be deplored, but not won- 

 dered at, for no one listens more sympa- 

 theticallj^ to a tale of suffering than a true 

 tender-hearted physician ; and if he does 

 not happen to be in a position to contradict 

 from his own knowledge the heart-rending 

 stories which are poured into his ears, he 

 may be readilj^ convinced of the existence of 

 abuses requiring legislative interference. 



Kecognizing the true nature of the anti- 

 vivisection agitation, it is evident that edu- 



