HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 311 
the need for sedatives if a dog has been “devocalized,” as the scientists phrase 
it. 
His answer was startling. He said, “It is the prevalent attitude in medi- 
cal schools now that dogs can’t feel pain — dogs do not suffer.” The prevalent 
attitude : meaning, in the simplest terms, that medical students are encouraged 
to believe that drugs to relieve the animals’ pain are not required. 
Among the conditions those voiceless dogs are enduring are artificially in- 
duced cancers, amputations, recording mechanisms placed inside their bodies, 
and postoperative complications. But their discomfort does not require merci- 
ful alleviation because — according to this preposterous theory — they cannot feel 
it. 
That theory is an astounding example of scientific hypocrisy. If a research 
worker seriously can reject the idea that animals suffer, how dependable are 
his conclusions from the results of his experiments? For did none of these 
medical students, when they were boys, ever step accidentally on a puppy’s 
paw? Did none of these young men ever pull porcupine quills out of the 
nose of a quivering dog? Did none of them ever see an aged dog endlessly 
licking, licking an arthritic joint? It is true that some dogs do not protest 
when they are suffering. They stand the pain mutely. But can the students 
deceive themselves into believing the pain is not there? It doesn’t seem pos- 
sible — and yet that is the prevalent attitude in today’s medical schools. 
When I expressed my surprise that such an idea could have taken hold, the 
young physician who had given the information challenged me with the ques- 
tion, “How can you prove that animals suffer?” 
I relayed the question to an older doctor. He answered, “Why, pain is na- 
ture’s mechanism, all through the animal kingdom, for self-preservation. Pain 
is nature’s warning. Without pain as a deterrent, animals would allow other 
animals to bite them, they would not learn to avoid danger, they would in- 
jure themselves fatally long before they were mature. Of course animals, in- 
cluding dogs, can feel pain. It is ludicrous to believe anything else.” 
Ludicrous — and yet, with the uses of pain so fundamental a part of all ani- 
mal life, medical students are allowed to ignore its inevitability. Without 
a basic understanding of pain, its causes and its signficances, what kind of 
doctors are being turned out by the medical schools today? 
This older physician (and he is not very old, at that — about 40) discussed 
further the treatment of animals used in experiments. He feels that a thor- 
oughly conscientious and mature scientists would try to alleviate pain in his 
animal subjects. “But,” he said, “in the medical schools there are a fair number 
of immature students who perform, as pranks, operations that are of no value 
but which they regard as amusing.” “In the case of such students,” he con- 
tinued, “there is not likely to be a very responsible attitude toward the relief 
of pain.” The physician felt that some means should be found to stop such 
wanton playfulness. The bill now under consideration would end it, and 
should be supported if for no other reason. 
Two years ago the medical students at one of the larger eastern schools 
were given a personality test. To everyone’s surprise, it was found that humani- 
tarian motives no longer impel the majority of students into the medical 
profession. The motive most often revealed, now, is at the other end of the 
personality scale. That is to say, these boys had embarked on their medical 
careers because of an authoritarian bent: because of their wish to rule, to 
dominate. 
It does not take a particularly strong type of character to dominate a very 
sick human patient, and the temptation to do so apparently is a growing one. 
Closely related to the domineering temperament is often, of course, a lack of 
sympathetic feeling. Indeed, for some time medical schools have recognized 
that their profession attracts an occasional sadist. “Medicine gives him a 
chance,” they admit, “to express cruelty in socially acceptable ways.” 
Any patient who has experienced the healing kindness of a truly humane 
physician will feel a gratitude that cannot be repaid by the settlement of any 
bill. But that sort of healing is available less and less often. In fact, it is 
well known that human patients are sometimes used these days as subjects of 
experimentation — any of us may be so used without our knowledge. But we 
can dismiss a doctor whom we suspect of cruelty or indifference to our 
pain. The animal in the laboratory is not so fortunate. This law, if it is passed, 
will protect the animals both against cruelty and neglect ; at the same time the 
law will protect the rest of us by making it part of a doctor’s training to learn 
the exercise of compassion. 
