Vivisection : is it necessary or justifiable? : being two prize essays published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  • Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection : is it necessary or justifiable? : being two prize essays published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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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    Those who advocate vivisection as required in teaching operations, quite seem to forget other things Avhich are as necessary to be known almost as the method of operating, and which must ever tell against such a practice. For instance, they seem to forget that the principal benefit to be derived from an operation is to watch its results, to note the several stages ]3assed through towards recovery, or otherwise, and to be prepared to undertake those minor operations which we all know are so often needed either to avert mischief or to repair some mishap caused during the primary operation, and which cannot be shewn on the living healthy body. Therefore does one of the most important elements in the education of the vetei’inarian suffer, and vivisection lose, in my opinion, the only excuse which might be urged m its favor. The animals die during or immediately after the operations, and the test of their having been properly performed dies with them. Another thing they seem to overlook is the fact, that among all the horses they mutilate from year to year there are very few which have those diseases they operate for; and conse- quently the torture is needless. Again, textures or organs become modified in their structure, their relations, and their general characteristics ; tendon may acquire the density of cartilage, or even bone ; cartilages, in health quite elastic, and easily cut, may take on the density of adamant, in the varied changes brought about by perverted nutrition. And these are really the changes which the veterinary surgeon is so often required to surmount, and which tax his skill and dexterity far more than operating on structures in which no alteration exists. If it be contended that vivisection is absolutely necessary to give dexterity to veterinary surgeons—which I feel perfectly convinced can never be truthfully done — then with far more reason can the .surgeon claim the necessity for his amputating limbs, tying ligatures, dividing tendons, re- moving the eyes and tongues, and other organs, from the bodies of the old and worn-out poor, who are unable longer to toil for the community, and seek for refuge in our workhouses. But no surgeon would ever for a moment dream of such a thing; and no English Veterinary Professor would hazard liis reputation, did his zeal or inhumanity so far overcome his judgment as to attempt to suggest the introduction of a practice Avhich fills British veterinarians with horror and dis- gust at its barbarity and inutility.*