What has vivisection done for science? : a paper read before the Cheltenham Natural Science Society / by Francis Day.

  • Day, Francis, 1829-1889.
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What has vivisection done for science? : a paper read before the Cheltenham Natural Science Society / by Francis Day. 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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    it is better they should be made on the lower animals, in Physio- logical laboratories, than on human beings in Hospitals, or in the sick room. Still it cannot be ignored that some persons with very humane (perhaps hyper-sensitive) feelings, at least as regards brutes, de- sire that experiments of every sort on live animals should cease, provided such are done for scientific purposes ; and led away by senti- ment, but ignoring facts, they assert that nothing has been learnt from vivisections, and prophecy nothing will be. Another class have no personal experience in the matter, but consider vivisections hellish, horrid, and monstrous, going hand in hand with atheism. Lastly, I will advert to a section of the public who object to any experiments having for their object researches into what may be termed the mysteries of life; and they perhaps are not far re- moved from such as would repress intellectual progress altogether. TT- licit do we understand hy Vivisection 1 The term Vivisection to most minds is associated with wounding a living creature. I am not sure whether some persons are not in- clined to regard it as almost, if not quite, identical with dissecting animals alive; errors, as it has been asserted, purposely spread by some unscrupulous individuals. The term is now employed for all investigation upon living animals, from severe operations down to pricking the skin with a needle; or even the administration of drugs in order to investigate their properties; and experiments with poisons, or with the products of disease. Medicine cannot accept such testimony as would be conclusive in a Court of Law, w here direct or circumstantial evidence leaves no doubt on the legal mind. In a Medical question both direct and circumstantial evidence may be utterly worthless. The de- clarations of the most able and conscientious men maybe quite insufficient, for few are able to accurately distinguish between opinion and fact. One asserts he was cured of a certain disease by a peculiar drug, and believes such to be true, but this assertion in- cludes two opinions both of which may be erroneous :—First as to his having had the disease, and secondly as to the drug having cured it. We see nostrums for both curable and incurable diseases freely sold, with the dose apportioned simply to the persons age, taking no consideration as to anything else. Would not the most credulous laugh at a shoemaker selling a shoe to fit all feet? The practice of Medicine and Surgery is still in a state of pro- gress, and is not based solely upon observations niade on patients and post mortem investigations. A good practitioner must know something of Physiological research, or the results of enquiries into the laws governing the functions of life. How are these functions of life to bo investigated ? Are we to believe that all that can ever be known is known ? Are we to