EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
397 
mensurate good—has resulted from the torturing pangs to 
which animals have been subjected experimentally by 
physiologists and others. Their writhings, and the altered 
action induced by the methods adopted, are as likely to 
lead to false as correct inferences, and perhaps even more 
likely. 
Again, do they not tend to brutalize the mind, by hardening 
the feelings of the operator ? It is true the surgeon should 
be firm and unhesitating in the performance of an operation, 
blending gentleness with decision ; but this, surely, may be 
as readily acquired on a dead animal as a living one, and, 
indeed, we opine, more so, since it is his knowledge of the 
anatomy of the part that will enable him to act without 
wavering or fear ; and this can only be acquired by dissect¬ 
ing the dead animal—portions of which have, over and over 
again, to be investigated by the aid of his 'scalpel, so that he 
may become conversant with their intricate structure. It is 
thus, and thus alone, that he will become a successful 
operator. 
A writer in c The Lancet 5 has said, “We have not the 
slightest hesitation in asserting that the vivisection of 
animals is altogether unnecessary to form the surgical 
operator. A thoroughly sound and practical anatomist, 
who has practised on the dead body, and who has acted the 
part of assistant to operating surgeons for a sufficient length 
of time, is fully prepared to perform, himself, all the opera¬ 
tions of surgery without practising on live animals. Such a 
course even ice should call unjustifiable cruelty / 5 
It may, however, be advanced in extenuation,— It is not 
so much in an anatomical point of view, as a physiological 
one that vivisections are resorted to. This we have already, 
in some measure, met, by questioning the correctness of the 
inferences deduced. But, allowing the act to be a necessary 
one, and 
“ A necessary act incurs no blame,” 
can the repetition of the same cruel experiments, session 
after session, be required ? A fact remains a fact for ever. 
