The introductory lecture at the opening of the London Hospital Medical College, for the winter session 1875-6, on October 1st, 1875 / by W. Bathurst Woodman.

  • Woodman, W. Bathurst (William Bathurst), 1836-1877.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The introductory lecture at the opening of the London Hospital Medical College, for the winter session 1875-6, on October 1st, 1875 / by W. Bathurst Woodman. 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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    in their enthusiasm for science, inflicted agonies which were needless on the animals with which they experimented, are all who experiment on animals to be branded with the same obloquy F I trow not! If so, Harvey, and both Hunters and the gentle Jenner, to whom beauty owes so much, and Bell, and Hope, and Marshall Hall, not to mention many illustrious foreign names, must all share the infamy. Yet, if these men were wrong, their example would not justify me. But there is scarcely a great discovery in Medicine or Surgery which does not rest upon the basis of experiment. It is tmo that patient and laborious clinical examination of the experiments which are worked out for us by accidents and diseases, will, as has been shown by some of my colleagues, often lead to results almost identical with those gained by experiments on animals. Gentlemen, no man alive abhors needless cruelties to animals more than I do, for I believe with Coleridge, that— “ He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.” and I can echo the words of Wordsworth:— “ This lesson, Shepherd, let us both divide, Taught both by what she* shews and what conceals Never to take our pleasure or our pride In sorrow of the meanest thing that feels! ” But surely if those who blindly oppose all experiments upon Animals could live hut a short while within the walls of a great hospital like the “ London,” or see what almost every medical man in active practice constantly sees, the terrible sufferings of human beings from accident and disease, (say for instance, the horrors of heart-disease, the tortures of cancer, the slow martyrdom of phthisis in some of its forms; or the agonies, ten-fold worse than those of the rack, inflicted by some injuries to the nervous system), they would alter their opinions, or at least their opposition would be less keen. We know how much of the suffering we see is due to our ignorance of its causes. For it is a remarkable fact, that when the pathology of a disease (I do not say its morbid anatomy merely) is pretty fairly understood, we are able in the vast majority of instances to relieve, if not to cure. It has been said that if the late Sir Robert Peel could have inhaled Chloroform, then but little known and little used, his life would in all human probability have been saved. But substances like chloroform must first be tested upon animals. Do we not, one and all of us, know of precious lives, dear to their relations, dear to their friends, dear perhaps to a whole nation—lives like those of the late Princess Charlotte, or young Hallam, or some less illustrious, but no less dear, for whom their friends would gladly give not one, or two, but a hecatomb of meaner lives. This is no mere sentimentality. The coldest utilitarian would probably grant us that human lives are more precious than those of the lower animals. And HE who “ spake as never man spake ” has told us “ how much better is a man than a sheep,” and that we “are of more value than many sparrows.” Vivisection, however, has been abused. I will not justify the man who will torture an animal merely to get a pretty specimen for his cabinet. There must be a higher object than this, or we shall, on the same principle, applaud the brutalizing spectacles of the Roman Colosseum, and justify the artist who murdered that he might obtain the true expression of death! There should then be regulation of vivisection, but it must come, in my opinion, from a healthy public opinion, within and without the profession, and not from legal enactments winch can only end in failure unless supported by this opinion. Were I to continue this catalogue of things which might have formed the staple of this Introductory, I should have no time for the real business of to-day. That subject is : How are you best to train yourselves for the practice of the healing art P Some of you may perhaps wonder to hear me say “ train yourselves.” “ Do we not,” you will reply, “ come here to be trained, and pay fees [even large fees, from a student’s point of view] for the very purpose of being taught our profession ? ” Yes, but we cannot train you unless you also teach and train yourselves, and thus cooperate in our en- deavours. Without this resolute effort on your part, all our teaching must be in vain. You must bring to your work not the mere material eyes, and ears, and hands, by which the outward symbols of disease aro recognised. You must bring also that inner eye of the mind of which our great Dramatist has spoken, though anticipated in this * Nature.