Remarks on the use of vivisection as a means of scientific research : in a letter addressed to the Earl of Caernarvon, President of the Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals / by Richard Jameson.

Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the use of vivisection as a means of scientific research : in a letter addressed to the Earl of Caernarvon, President of the Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals / by Richard Jameson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    organic world, these wakeful members of nature’s in- visible police are everywhere ready to arrest the fu- gitive organized particles, and turn them back into the ascending stream of animal life. Having con- verted the dead and decomposing particles into their own living tissues they themselves become the food of larger Infusoria, as the Rotifera, and of numerous other small animals, as fishes; and thus a pabulum, fit for the nourishment of the highest organized beings, is brought back by a short route from the extremity of the realms of organized matter.” III. Admitting that in many instances much pain is the result. Vivisection is notwithstanding necessary as a means of acquiring and of imparting useful knowledge. One of the main objections of those who condemn Vivisection as a crime is this—that the advantages de- rived from it have been few and inconsiderable in their practical results. “ Could it indeed be proved,” says Dr. Styles, “ that any suffering of the inferior animals may be made essentially to contribute to the benefit of man, w^e should be obliged to allow its infliction.” If then I can show that such sufiering has been made to contribute largely to man’s benefit, I shall (at least in your Champion’s opinion) have gained my point. In doing this I will confine myself entirely to practical results, and will begin with two instances in which ex- periments were made by men universally acknowledged to have been most eminent in their profession—John Hunter, and Sir Astley Cooper.
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