Vivisection in America : I. How it is taught II. How it is practised / by Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan.

  • Cobbe, Frances Power, 1822-1904.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection in America : I. How it is taught II. How it is practised / by Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    16/70 (page 8)
    and ear, completely dissected; and other students were laying open and cauterizing the hock of the same animal. Mr. Rogers adds to this: — The number of horses operated on is six, twice a week; sixty-four operations are performed on each horse, and four or five generally die before half the operations are completed; and, as it takes two days to go through the list, the remaining one or two poor animals are left alive, half-mangled, until the next morning, only to be subjected to additional tortures. Among the operations which I remember, were firing in every part where it could or could not be required ; operation for removing the lateral cartilages, which in- volves tearing off the quarters of the hoof with pincers; operation for stone, in which a stone is put into the bladder and afterwards removed; operation for hernia, nicking, removal of the ears, eyes, etc. The effect of all this on the minds of the students may be inferred from the sang froid of a student who was firing a horse's nose, as he said, for pastime. A little bay mare, worn out in the service of man, one of eight, on a certain operation day, having unfortunately retained life throughout the fiendish ordeal, and looking like nothing ever made by the hand of God, — with loins ripped open, skin torn and ploughed by red-hot irons, riddled by setons, tendons severed, hoofiess, sightless, and defenceless, was exultingly reared [Baron von Weber says, 'amid laughter'] on her bleeding feet just when gasping for breath and dying, to show what dexterity had done in completing its work before death took place. Is it surprising that the late Henry Bergh considered that this unfitted the physician for the intimate and tender relations of friend and adviser, and made him hence more to be dreaded than disease itself?