Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The modern rack; papers on vivisection. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
39/284 (page 29)
![P. 31.— A very clever lively young female dog, which had learnt to shake hands with both fore-paws, had the left side of the brain washed out through two holes on the 1st Dec, 1S75. This caused lameness in the right paw. On being asked for the left, the dog immediately laid it in my hand ; I now demand the right, but the creature only looks at me sorrowfully, for it cannot move it. On my continuing to press for it, the dog crosses the left paw- over, and offers it to me on the right side, as if to make amends for not being able to give the right/' On the 13th Jan. a second portion of the brain destroyed; on Feb. 15th a third; and on March 6th a fourth, this last operation causing death. [The cynical humour with which Professor Goltz tries to make the description of his experiments amusing and tasteful to the reader is truly repulsive. On pages 429 and 435 he speaks of two dogs rendered imbecile by loss of a part of the brain : The awkward movements of one gave the impression of a jack-pud- ding, and so on.] Xow, then, I ask you finally, is this sort of thing to go on, or will you try to stop it wholly in England, rendering it first infamous in public estimation, and then illegal by Act of Parliament ? Do not fancy it will ever stop of itself. On the contrary, it will extend and extend year after year, till the w-orld is full of it. There is no use hoping for any compromise. It is War to the Knife—Science (or rather that which falsely claims to be Science) against Hu- manity, and Humanity against Science. This Society in its earlier years strove to effect a compromise, desiring to leave to science all the liberty which could be accorded, and the chance of fulfilling its eternal promises, never yet performed, of making discoveries useful to mankind. But all hopes of such compromise have passed away. The Returns to Parliament, year after year, show that the existing Act, which ought to have protected the animals, is so worked as to be only a protection to the vivisector. Nothing remains but to demand that Vivisection be prohibited altogether —prohibited not only for the sake of the poor brutes, but in the higher interests of the human race, and for the sake of averting a Reign of Cruelty such as the world has never seen,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21225734_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
