An Ethical Problem | Page 3

there at that period any question in my mind.
Whatever Science desired, it seemed to me only proper that Science
should have. The fact that certain demonstrations or experiments upon
living animals had already been condemned as unjustifiable cruelty by
the leading men in the medical profession, and by some of the principal
medical journals of England, was then as utterly unknown to me as the
same facts are to-day unknown to the average graduate of every
medical school in the United States. It was not long until after this early
experience, and following acquaintance with the practice in Europe as
well as at home, that doubts arose regarding the justice of CAUSING
PAIN TO ILLUSTRATE FACTS ALREADY KNOWN. These doubts
became convictions, and were stated in my first contribution to the
literature of the subject, the paper in Scribner's. It is not the position of
what is called "antivivisection," for that implies condemnation of every
phase of animal experimentation. In the third of a century that has
elapsed since this protest was made, the practice of vivisection has
taken vast strides: it appears in new shapes and unanticipated
environment. But the old abuses have not disappeared, and some of
them, more urgently than ever before, demand the attention of thinking
men and women.
Of personal contributions to the literature of the subject, during the past
third of a century, nearly everything has been more or less polemical,
called forth by either exaggeration of utility, inaccuracy of assertion, or
misstatement of fact. Now it has been protest against the brilliant
correspondent of a New York newspaper, who telegraphed from
London an account of a visit to a well-known physiological laboratory,

where he found animals all "fat, cheerful, and jolly," yet "quite
unaffected by the removal of a spinal cord"--as sensible a statement as
if he had referred to their jolly condition "after removal of their heads."
Now it has been the manifesto of professors in a medical school
declaring that in the institution to which they belonged no painful
experiments had been performed--an assertion abundantly contradicted
by their own publications. Now it is a Surgeon-General of the Army,
defending one of the most cruel of vivisections in which he was not in
any way concerned, by an exposition of ignorance regarding the
elements of physiology; and, again, it has been a President of a medical
association, making a speech, wherein hardly a sentence was not
stamped with inaccuracy and ignorance. To some natures controversy
is exhilarating; to myself it is beyond expression distasteful. Yet, when
confronted by false affirmations, what is one's duty? To say nothing?
To permit the untruth to march triumphantly on its way? Or, in the
interest of Science herself, should not one attempt the exposure of
inaccuracy, and the demonstration of the truth?
Approaching the end of a long pilgrimage, it has seemed to me worth
while to make a final survey of the great question of our time. How was
the cruelty of vivisection once regarded by the leading members of the
medical profession? Shall we say to-day that the utility of torment, in
the vivisection of animals, constitutes perfect justification and defence?
How far did Civilization once go in the approval of torture because of
its imagined deterrent effects?
What has been accomplished by the agitation concerning vivisection
which has persisted for the last forty years? Has the battlefield been
well selected? Have demands of reformers been wisely formulated? Is
public opinion to-day inclined to be any more favourable to the legal
abolition of all scientific experimentation upon animals than it was a
third of a century ago?
What has been the result of vivisection in America, unrestricted and
unrestrained? Has it accomplished anything for the human race that
might not have been accomplished under conditions whereby cruelty
should be impossible except as a crime? Has the death-rate been

reduced by new discoveries made in American laboratories? Is it
possible that utility is persistently exaggerated by those who are not
unwilling to use exaggeration as a means of defence? And of the Future,
what are the probabilities for which we may hope? What is being done
in our century in the way of submitting animals to unlimited torture?
To throw somewhat of light on these questions is the object of this
volume. I wish it had been in my power to write a more extended and
complete exposition of the problem, but limitations of strength, due to
advancing age, have made that hope impracticable. But as one man
drops the torch, another hand will grasp it; and where now is darkness
and secrecy, there will one day be knowledge and light.
AN ETHICAL PROBLEM
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS VIVISECTION?
Upon no ethical problem of our generation is the public sentiment of
to-day more uncertain and confused