Address to the Department of Anatomy and Physiology of the British Association / by P.H. Pye-Smith.

  • Philip Henry Pye-Smith
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the Department of Anatomy and Physiology of the British Association / by P.H. Pye-Smith. 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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    will hasten to correct it. This Society has honourably declared that they know oil none. That physiologists have been heedless, or even callous, in their ex- periments upon animals in past times, when men were strangely insensible even tc human suffering, or in countries where a healthy result of Christian civilisation has not yet been seen in habitual gentleness to animals, I need not deny. Such cases have been eagerly sought and sometimes most unfairly judged. Onlv lately a learned body felt itself not strong enough to retain the admittedly in- valuable services of an eminent foreigner who had once admitted that when absorbed in scientific and beneficent researches he lost sight of any pain that mhriit be inflicted.* Is not this the very excuse which is held valid in the case of sport?- Doubtless we ought to be ever mindful of every branch of duty, but such occasional forgetfulness does not show hardness of heart. It is an excusable weakness for a. student of medicine to shudder or to faint at the sight of blood, but he learns that this merely physical sensibility becomes selfish and mischievous if indulged : he is taught to suppress all such exhibition of emotion, aud to let it stimulate without- interfering with his efforts to relieve. But no one surely would think the hysterical youth more truly humane than the surgeon whose compassion is shown in the veryi tirmness with which he inflicts a temporary pain for an ultimate good. I have hitherto rested the whole argument upon the lawfulness of inflicting, pain and death upon the lower animals for the sake of science and humanity, but as a matter of fact I may again assure those who, while assenting to the justice of the plea, yet shrink from what it may involve, that the great majority of experi- ments upon animals are rendered painless, and that the remainder are mostly those- experiments which are most immediately and directly subservient to medical art. and which happily are generally productive rather of discomfort than of pain.i Let me give you an example of such a vivisection, far more painful than tbt- immense majority of those of the laboratory. Suppose a country surgeon were- sent for late at night to some case of unrent peril; knowing that his ride is for life or death, and unsparing of himself or his horse, he rides him to the utmost limits of endurance, and beyond : who would not applaud the action? Those only win appear deliberately to believe that our life is worth less than that of many sparrows,- those legislators only who look forward to the time when wars will cease, not- because of human slaughter, of devastated homes, of all the horrors w'hich the world has endured for centuries, but because of the cruelties to w'hich the horses in the artillery are subjected. We, who are familiar with human suffering and sorrow, which our knowledge is all too feeble to prevent, best understand how in testing some new remedy on a less precious fellow-creature than a man, one win is truly humane may be tempted to forget the comparatively trivial suffering of rabbit or a frog. But some enthusiastic opponent will say, ‘ I cannot pretend to doubt that thest- experiments are in every sense of the word useful, but we ought not to purchase- the benefit they confer by inflicting pain upon innocent creatures. I would sign t petition to-morrow to put down all field sports by law, I would allow no opera- tion upon domestic animals, and I will abstain from all animal food until 1 am certain that I can eat creatures which have been killed without suffering pain. Bui if I were lving at the point of death, and you brought an animal to my bedside anc assured me that by putting it to pain my life could be saved, I would refuse to pur- chase it on such cruel terms.’ We may hope that the excellent person who made thi.- heroic profession would in the hour of trial be better advised, but if not we may surely reply, ‘ Right reverend sir, you are the best judge of the value of your owi life, and if you think proper to sacrifice it to the comfort of a guinea-pig we mus- subiuit to the loss with such resignation as we can muster, but when you say tha in obedience to this silly whim you will let your dearest friend suffer, allow the sacrifice of the most important life, and forbid those studies which have already * Fortunately, Dr. Klein, whose researches in microscopic anatomy and pathology are so well known and appreciated, knows that he retains the confidence and respec of his scientific brethren, and we hope that his honourable connection with the larges- school of medicine in London, will strengthen other and closer ties in binding bin. to England.