Against vivisection : a lecture / by Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Against vivisection : a lecture / by Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    down in this condition, a sudden injury may be caused by the application of a red-hot iron, to a particular part of the brain, and the dog will bark, and then the Professor will brutally say to the public : “See how we can make the dog bark by stimulating this particular portion of the brain.’^ Now if it be of the smallest value to any human being to knew that a dog barks when a particular portion of the brain is in action, surely it must have satisfied intellectual curiosity to have proved this once for all; but to do it over and over again simply to prove what everybody knows, is not only to torture the animal ; but to brutalise the consci- ences and hearts of the young men, who learn to see agony with indifference and curiosity as they watch the writhings of the tortured brute. What kind of education is that for men, who are to be doctors in families ? What sort of education too for young men, who should grow up tender-heart- ed and compassionate towards all ? Not only will they perform such experiments again and again, but in order to teach young men to see agony t without flinching, to see the flow of blood, to listen to the cries of anguish, to see the writhings of the tortured creature and still go on unmoved and untouched, they will take a highl}' organised ani- mal like a monkey, a dog or a horse, one of those
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