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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    of this savant’s class demonstrations, when a poor dog was the subject of an experiment on the spinal nerves. In vain did the unpitying man endeavour to lay bare the roots of the vertebral nerves—scalpel, chisel, hammer, and bone forceps were plied diligently, as usual for the edification of the students. Twice the poor creature escaped from its imprisonment, and at last, when brought back and when struggles availed not to save it from the lacerating knife, it threw its paws round the cruel man’s neck and licked his face ! Which was the brute then ? In the “ Life of Astley Cooper” there is a brief anecdote of a milder nature—(of course the more outrageous stories would not be published)—which is told, as it were, pleasantly. “ During this time,” it alleges, “ Astley, who was always eager to add to our anatomical and physiological knowledge, made a variety of experiments on living animals. I recollect one day walking out with him, when a dog followed us, and accompanied us home, little forseeing the fate that awaited him. He was confined a few days till we had ascer- tained that no owner would come to claim him, and then brought up to be the subject of various operations. The first of these was the tying one of the femoral arteries. When poor Chance, for so we appropriately named him, was sufficiently recovered from this, one of the humeral arteries was .subjected to a similar process. After the lapse of a few weeks, the ill- fated animal was killed, tlie vessels injected, and preparations made from each of the limbs.”* So much for the plea that an anaesthetic is used. True it is, some vivisectors exhibit chloroform in a few experiments on the smaller animals ; but this agent cannot be always success- fully administered to the larger quadrupeds, such as the horse and cow. And after all, if we are to credit one of the first .surgeons of the day, its value must be rather limited, especially when delicate observations are required. Mr. Erichsen gives us the following testimony in regard to this point. “Chloroform, however, does not remove the physical im- pression produced on the system by a severe mutilation; hence the influence of a serious and ])rolonged operation is still manifested in the production of shock, of collapse, of slow recovery, even thougli the patient has suffered no actual pain. Certain operations appear to exercise a peculiar depressing eflfect^ on the nervous system, even though no pain be experienced.”*!* TAfc of f<ir Anflc}/ Cooper. Yol T., n. ].j2.