Vivisection in America : I. How it is taught II. How it is practised / by Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan.

  • Frances Power Cobbe
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection in America : I. How it is taught II. How it is practised / by Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan. 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.

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    To settle some theory, he would trifle with the life of any patient in his power. By the same reasoning he will justify the vivisection of animals and patients. He will say that it is better that a few animals should suffer than that one human being should die ; and that it is far better that one patient should die, if through the sacrifice of that one, several may be saved. Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without brain. Have these scientific assassins discovered anything of value ? They may have settled some disputes as to the action of some organ, but have they added to the useful knowledge of the race ? It is not necessary for a man to be a specialist in order to have and express his opinion as to the right or wrong of vivisection. It is not necessary to be a scientist or a naturalist to detest cruelty and to love mercy. Above all the discoveries of the thinkers, above all the inventions of the ingenious, above all the victories won on fields of intellectual conflict, rise human sympathy and a sense of justice. I know that good for the human race can never be accomplished by torture. I also know that all that has been ascertained by vivisection could have been done by the dissection of the dead, or at least of animals com- pletely and perfectly under the merciful influence of ether. I know that all the torture has been useless. All the agony inflicted has simply hardened the hearts of the criminals, without enlightening their minds. It may be that the human race might be physically im- proved if all the sickly and deformed babes were killed, and if all the paupers, liars, drunkards, thieves, villains, and vivisectionists were murdered. All this might, in a few ages, result in the production of a generation of physically perfect men and women; but what would such beings be worth, — men and women healthy and heartless, muscular and cruel — that is to say, intelligent wild beasts ? Never can I be the friend of one who vivisects his fellow-creatures. I do not wish to touch his hand. When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when
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