2IO 



SCIENCE. 



THE TWO KINDS OF VIVISECTION— SENTI" 

 SECTION AND CALLISECTION. 



Professor Burt G. Wilder, M. D., of Cornell Univer- 

 sity, writing to the Medical Record, says: Is it not time tor 

 the distinct verbal recognition of the difference between 

 painful and painless experimentation upon animals? 



All we'l-informed persons are aware that the vast major- 

 ity of vivisections, in this country at least, are performed 

 under the influence of anaesthetics ; but the enthusiastic 

 zoolaters, who desire to abolish the objective method of 

 leaching physiology, practically ignore this fact, and dwell 

 chiefly upon the comparatively infrequent operations which 

 are attended with pain. 



Having read the arguments upon both sides, and had 

 some correspondence with leaders of the anti-vivisection 

 movement, I have been led to think that the discussion may 

 be simplified, and a right conclusion sooner reached, if we 

 adopt new terms corresponding to the two kinds of experi- 

 mentation. 



To use words with no warrant of ideas may be foolish, 

 but it is not necessarily a mark of wisdom to refrain from 

 the employment of terms which have a real significance. 



Let us consider an analogous case. Aside from color 

 and size, the cat and the leopard are almost identical, and 

 are commonly regarded as two species of one genus. Sup- 

 pose a community to be unacquainted with the cat, but to 

 have suffered from the depredations of the leopard, which 

 they call felis. Now, suppose some domestic cats to be in- 

 troduced and to multiply, as is their wont. In the first 

 place, for a time at least, it is probable that the same name, 

 felis, would be applied to the smaller animal, with perhaps 

 a qualifying word. In the second place, should there be 

 certain persons, both devoid of interest in the cats and filled 

 with pity for the mice devoured by them, is it not likely 

 that they would endeavor to include the cats under any ban 

 which might be pronounced against the leopards? Would 

 they not be apt to succeed, especially with the more ignor- 

 ant and impressionable members of the community, so long 

 as they could assert without contradiction that the " mouse- 

 eater" was only a. felis upon a smaller scale? Would not 

 even the reputation of the leopards suffer by reason of the 

 multitude of the cats thus associated with them ? In short, 

 would full justice be done to either animal until their dif- 

 ferences of disposition should be admitted to outweigh their 

 likeness of form and structure, and be recognized by the use 

 of distinctive names? 



In like manner there are those who ignorantly or wilfully 

 persuade themselves and others that all experiments upon 

 animals are painful because some of them are now, and most 

 of them were in former times ; also, that painful experiments 

 are common because vivisection in some form is generally 

 practiced. It is all vivisection, and as such it is "cruel, re- 

 volting, or brutalizing." 



Having waited long in the hope that some candid discus- 

 sion of the whole subject might contain the needed terms, 

 I venture to suggest that painful vivisection be known as 

 scntisection, and painless vivisection as caltiscction. The 

 etymol jgy of the former word is obvious ; the distinctive 

 element of the latter is the Latin callus, which rn a derived 

 sense, may denote a nervous condition unrecognized, strict- 

 ly speaking, by the ancients. 



some idea of the relative numbers of callisectionists and 

 sentisectionists may be gained from the fact that I have 

 been teaching physiology in a university for twelve years, 

 and for half that time in a medical school ; yet I have never 

 performed a sentisection, unless under that head should be 

 included the drowning of cats and the application of water 

 at the temperature of 60" C. (140" F.), with the view to 

 ascertain whether such treatment would be likely to suc- 

 ceed with human beings. 



1 think that even elementary physiological instruction is 

 incomplete without callisection, but that sentisection should 

 be tin- unwelcome prerogative of the very few whose natural 

 and acquired powers of body and mind qualify them above 

 Others to determine what experiments should be done, to 

 perform them properly, and to widely interpret the results. 

 Such men, deserving alike of the highest honor and the 

 deepest |<itv, should exercise their solemn office not only 

 unrestrained l>v law, but upheld by the general sentiment 

 of lhe profession and the public. 



FEELING AND FUNCTION AS FACTORS IN 

 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT.* 



By Lester F. Ward, A. M. 



Sociology is now recognized as a legitimate branch of 

 Anthropology. 



The great French philosopher, Auguste Comte, although 

 the first to introduce the word Sociology, did not venture to 

 use this term extensively himself, but preferred the expres- 

 sion Social Physics, winch must therefore be accepted as the 

 true definition of sociology as intended by the father of the 

 science. 



It is important to remember this fact and to preserve 

 throughout this necessary connection between social 

 science and physical science. This, however, has 

 not always been done. The phenomena of human 

 development, may be contemplated from two quite dis- 

 tinct points of view, only one of which has thus far 

 received sufficient attention. These two points of 

 view are those respectively of feeling and of function, 

 and it is the first of them that has been neglected. Accord- 

 ing to the usual method of approaching such questions, 

 man is regarded as a being requiring for his preservation a 

 certain amount of nourishment and for his perpetuation 

 the begetting of offspring. The two essential factors from 

 this point of view are the functions of nutrition and repro- 

 duction. Around the first of these cluster the industrial 

 activities, and upon the second is founded the family. Out 

 of these grow all the later and more complex characteristics 

 of civilization. According to the other method of contem- 

 plating human development, man is regarded as a being en- 

 dowed with feelings. These feelings are in the nature of 

 desires. The existence of such desires involves the effort 

 to gratify them, which effort in turn gives rise to human ac- 

 tivities. The condition of society at any time is the result 

 of these activities, just as from the point of view of func- 

 tion, nutrition and reproduction are the two primary es- 

 sential factors; so, from the point of view of feeling, the 

 gustatory and sexual appetites are the primary and essen- 

 tial factors. The advantage of the latter method over the for- 

 mer is that it affords, as the other does not, a scientific basis 

 for the investigation of the laws of anthropology. The ac- 

 tion of an organism in seeking the satisfaction of a desire 

 finds an exact parallel in the action of a chemical molecule 

 in seeking combination with others, or that of a column of 

 air in rushing in to fill a vacuum. The desires of individ- 

 uals constitute true forces, identical in all respects with the 

 physical forces which other sciences deal with, and all 

 branches of anthropology, including that of sociology, at 

 once take their places as true sciences. This antithesis 

 may perhaps be rendered more striking by considering 

 function as the object which nature seeks, and feeling as 

 that which man seeks. The object or end of nature is the 

 preservation and perpetuation of existing life; that of man, 

 and of all beings endowed with feeling, is the satisfaction 

 of existing desires. The former is objective and constitutes 

 a biological process ; the latter is subjective, and is a moral 

 or sociological process. 



Properly understood these precesses possess no natural 

 or necessaty relation to each other. It is easy to imagine a 

 person wholly destitute of taste. Indeed such cases are on 

 record. The pleasure derived from the contact of nutri- 

 tious substances with the tongue and palate is obviously 

 distinct from the benefit which it confers upon the system 

 after digestion. Such a person as we have supposed would 

 none the less need food because he had no desire to par- 

 take of it. 



It is still more easy to conceive of a total absence of the 

 sexual instinct, and this is a much more common patho- 

 logical condition found in practice. Here the feeling is 

 still more obviously distinct from the function. 



Why then do these desires and their functional results so 

 universally accompany each other ? The answer is that this 

 apparently "pre-established harmony "of things having no 



necessary relation or resemblance lias been the result of 

 natural adaptation. 



The agreeableness of the acts of nutrition and reproduc- 

 tion exists because without it nutrition and reproduction 



could nevei be secured. The existence of these pleasures, 



* Kcad before the A. A. A. S., Iioston, 1880. 



