VIVISECTION. 6 79 



which the use of chloral or other anaesthetics is, for various reasons, 

 inadmissible or undesirable. These form two classes. In the first 

 and most numerous, the experiment is generally a short one, and 

 quickly carried out, and the pain slight and transient. It is, of course, 

 impossible for any one to judge truly of the pain felt by any other 

 body, and we may err in two ways in estimating the pain felt by ani- 

 mals. We may over-estimate or under-estimate it. Perhaps a rough 

 but tolerably safe test of great pain or distress may be gained by 

 noting whether the animal is willing to eat or not. When a rabbit, 

 for instance, not previously starved, begins to munch carrots immedi- 

 ately after an operation, or even continues to munch during the 

 greater part of the time the operation is being performed, it is only 

 fair to conclude that the operation cannot be very painful. I may 

 add that, in the experience of experimental physiologists, the skin of 

 the dog and the rabbit — allowance being made for individual peculiari- 

 ties — is not nearly so sensitive as the human skin. 



The second class of experiments carried on without anaesthetics — 

 those entailing a considerable amount of pain — are not only by far the 

 least numerous, but must of necessity become less and less numerous 

 as physiology advances. The end which the physiologist has in view 

 is to analyze the life of any being into its constituent factors. As his 

 science advances, he becomes more and more able to disengage any 

 one of these factors from the rest, and so to study it by itself. He 

 can already, as we have seen, study the complicated phenomena of the 

 circulation of the blood, of respiration, of various kinds of movement, 

 quite apart from and independent of the presence of consciousness. 

 As his knowledge widens and his means of research multiply, this 

 power of analysis will grow more and more ; and by-and-by, if physi- 

 ology be allowed free scope for its development, there will come a day 

 when the physiologist, in his experimental inquiries, will cause pain 

 then, and then only, when pain is the actual object of his study. And 

 that he will probably study best upon himself. 



At the present day, the greatest amount of pain to animals is prob- 

 ably caused in experiments which perhaps hardly come under the title 

 of vivisection — experiments in which the effects of starvation or of in- 

 sufficient food, or the actions of poisons, are being studied. These, 

 however, lead to valuable results. The pain which is the greatest in 

 amount, and the least worthy in object, is the pain which comes to 

 animals whose bodies have been used as tests to ascertain the poison- 

 ous nature of some suspected material ; but this is a matter of the 

 witness-box, not of physiology. 



We may conclude, then, that physiologists are the cause to ani- 

 mals of much death, of a good deal of slight pain, and of some amount 

 of severe pain. A very active physiologist will, for instance, in a year, 

 be the means of bringing about, for the sake of science, as much death 

 as a small village will, in a week, for the sake of its mouths and its 



