Vivisection : what good has it done? / a speech delivered by G.M. Humphry at the forty-ninth annual meeting of the British Medical Association, August, 1881.

  • Humphry, George Murray, Sir, 1820-1896.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection : what good has it done? / a speech delivered by G.M. Humphry at the forty-ninth annual meeting of the British Medical Association, August, 1881. 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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    s Hope, and to Brodie—for this, the most practical of modern surgeons, was a vivisector—every one of these men, and they are few among the many, has made his greatest discoveries through vivisection. And in our own day, the observations which have been made, and which have led to the better treatment of wounds (and conceive the importance of that), and the better methods of securing blood-vessels, have been due, as I know, in great measure to vivisection. The man who first employed the carbolic ligature would never have ventured upon it on the human body, had he not first carefully tried it upon animals. And, with regard to that remarkable and most important discovery which was detailed in the International Medical Congress, by Pasteur, and which I regard as one of the greatest discoveries in medicine, and one which perhaps heralds more good to animals, as well as to man, than any other in our time, it is due to experimentation upon animals, and could not possibly have been made without that; and the result of Pasteur's investigations, which are but of yesterday, is that thousands and tens of thousands of sheep in France are being subjected to that inoculating process which he, by experimentation upon animals, has proved to be efficacious to ward them from some of the most malignant diseases- Let the cui bono question never be put again ; and, if it be, let every medical man at once be ready with a full and complete answer. Indeed, the advantages derived from experiments on dead matter in the chemist's laboratory might as well be questioned as those derived from experiments which have, from time to time, been made upon the living animal in the laboratories of physiologists and pathologists. Another argument against vivisection is, that it hardens the heart and demoralizes the men who do it, and the students who see it. Now, is this a fact ? We are asked for facts as to the advantages of vivisection; let us ask for facts as to the disadvantages. Is this a fact ? Are the men who are compelled to or who do inflict pain upon others, men or animals, of harder hearts than the rest of mankind ? Are the surgeons who are con- tinually, and were in my early days especially, inflicting long- continued, severe, and horrible pains upon their fellow-creatures —are they and were they of harder hearts than the rest of man- kind ? And does it produce any hardening effect upon students ?