864 The American Naturalist. [October, 
/ 
VIVISECTION. 
BY FREDERICK GAERTNER.’ 
N this essay I propose to examine the question whether vivi- 
section should be permitted in the interest of humanity and 
and science; and if so, with what restrictions. 
Vivisection is the term employed for designating the operation 
performed with the knife upon living animals. This term, 
although including operations upon the human being, is applied 
principally to those performed upon the lower animals, such as 
the cat, dog, rabbit, guinea pig, etc., even frogs and fishes. 
The performing of a surgical operation upon a human being, 
whether under the influence of anzsthetic or in a comatose or 
hypnotic condition, is simply one kind of vivisection. Now why 
should vivisection of the lower animals be prohibited when the 
same operation is performed upon human beings every day? 
What are the objects of vivisection? I answer: first, the 
increasing of our knowledge of physiology; second, the con- 
firmation of facts previously known; third, the acquisition of 
dexterity in operative surgery; and fourth, the experimental 
application of inoculative medicine, including vaccination and 
preventive and curative inoculation. 
Without this process commonly called vivisection the sciences 
of medicine, surgery, anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology, 
and pathology would even yet be in their infancy, and in some 
respects at least would remain forever undeveloped. 
Vivisection may be traced back as far as the years 377 and 
460 B.C. Hippocrates, the greatest of ancient scientists, was a 
vivisector. A%sculapius, Celsus, Aulus, Cornelius, and later, 
Galenus Claudius, and other great ancient scientists, practiced 
vivisection upon the lower animals, and even upon human beings. 
It is too well known to be disputed that Galenus Claudius 
(Galen), who lived from 131 to 201 A.D., was the first to discover 
that the arteries in the human body contained blood instead of 
1 A.M., M.D., Pittsburgh, Pa. 






