Читать книгу An Ethical Problem - Albert 1845-1916 Leffingwell - Страница 10

[1] Magendie naturally had no hesitancy in telling of these experiments made upon his patients "at the clinique of my hospital." See his "Elementary Treatise on Physiology" (translated by Dr. John Revere). New York, 1844, p. 64.

Such was Franc,ois Magendie, physiologist and torturer, judged by scientific men and physiologists of a higher race, to whom compassion was not unknown. For undisguised contempt of pity, for delight in cruelty, for the infliction of refined and ingenious torment, he may have been equally by some who followed and imitated him, but certainly he was never surpassed.

Another distinguished French chiffonier in the slum-districts of scientific exploration was Dr. L. J. Brachet, a contemporary of Magendie. In his day he was a man of extended reputation as a vivisector of animals. His principal work is entitled: "Recherches Expe'rimentales de Syste`me Nerveux … par J. L. Brachet, Membre de l'Acade'mie Royale de Me'decine" and member of similar academies at Berlin, Copenhagen, and elsewhere; member of various medical societies of Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles—the title-page of his book records his fame. It will be of interest to study the character of the experimentation, recorded by himself, upon which rests his eminence as a scientific man.

His first great "discovery" unfortunately has not yet been accorded scientific acceptance. "It is little," he says, "to have proven the existence of sensibility in animals; I have proven that sensation pertains not merely to animals, but that it also is the property of vegetables—in a word, OF EVERYTHING THAT LIVES. Everywhere it acts in the same manner, through the nerves. The entire vegetable kingdom possesses the sense of feeling" (tous les vegetaux possedent la faculte de sentier).[1]

[1] "Recherches," etc., p. 13.

Had Brachet confined himself solely to experiments on the sensibility of plants, we should have little to criticize. Unfortunately, however, his scientific tastes led him in another direction. He belonged to a class of men who cannot permit the most apparent fact to be taken for granted, when, at the cost of torment, it may be demonstrated—men like Magendie, who insisted on proving to his students that an animal could really feel pain by stabbing it with his knife before commencing his experiment. Brachet's problem was a simple one. We all know, for instance, that an animal—a dog—may feel an intense dislike to some particular person. Why? Because of impressions conveyed to the brain of the animal by the senses of sight and hearing. Outside an asylum for idiots, it is probable that no one ever questioned the fact. Brachet, however, would not permit his readers to accept any statement merely upon the general experience of mankind, when it might be proven scientifically, and he has described in his book the experiments by which he claims to have demonstrated his theory.

"EXPERIMENT 162.—I inspired a dog with the strongest possible hatred for me by teasing it and inflicting upon it some pain every time I saw it. When this feeling had reached its height, so that the animal became furious whenever it saw or heard me, I put out its eyes [je lui fis crever les yeux]. I could then appear before it without its manifesting any aversion. I spoke, and immediately its barkings and furious movements permitted no doubt of the rage which animated it.

"I then destroyed the drum of the ears, and disorganized as much as I could of the inner ear. When the intense inflammation thus excited had rendered it almost deaf, I filled its ears with wax, and it could hear me no longer. Then I could stand by its side, speak to it in a loud voice, and even caress it, without awakening its anger; indeed, it appeared sensible of my caresses! There is no need to describe another experiment of the same kind, made upon another dog, since the results were the same."

By this great experiment, what valuable knowledge was conveyed? Simply that a dog, deprived of sight and hearing, will not manifest antipathy to a man it can neither see nor hear!

A true vivisector is never at a loss to invent excuse or occasion for an experiment. Dr. Brachet had made it clear that a dog will not manifest antipathy toward an enemy whose presence it cannot perceive; but suppose such a mutilated creature, in its darkness and silence, were subjected to some sharp and continuous physical pain, what then would happen? He proceeded to ascertain:

"EXPERIMENT 163.—I began the experiment on another dog by putting out its eyes [par crever les yeux], and breaking up the internal ears. Ten days later, THE SUFFERING OF THE ANIMAL HAVING APPARENTLY CEASED, after assuring myself that it could no longer see nor hear, I made a sore in the middle of its back. EVERY MOMENT I IRRITATED THIS WOULD BY PICKING IT WITH A NEEDLE [a chaque instant j'irritai sa plaie en la piquant avec un aiguillon]. At first the dog did nothing but yelp and try to escape, but the impossibility of this FORCED HIM UNCEASINGLY TO RECEIVE EXCRUCIATING PAIN; and finally the dog passed into a state of frenzy so violent, that at last it could be induced by touching any part of its body. … The dog had no reason of hatred against any individual; … both sight and hearing had been destroyed; and many persons the animal had never seen, provoked its rage by irritating the wound."

Of such an abominable experiment, however scientific it may appear, it is difficult to speak with restraint. To the average man or woman it will probably seem that nothing more fiendish or cruel can be found anywhere in the dark records of animal experimentation. Dr. Brachet was no obscure or unexperienced vivisector. At one time he was the professor of physiology in a medical school; he was a member of many learned societies at home and abroad. But think of an educated man procuring a little dog and deliberately putting out its eyes; then breaking up the internal ear, so that for many days the animal must have endured excruciating anguish from the inflammation thus induced; next, when the pain had somewhat subsided, creating a sore on the back by removal of the skin; and then, after comfortably seating himself in his physiological laboratory by the side of his victim, scientifically picking, and piercing, and pricking the wound, without respite—constantly, without ceasing—until the blinded and deafened and tortured creature is driven into frenzy by torments which it felt continually, which it could not comprehend, and from which, by no exertion, it was able to defend itself! Think of the scientist asking many other learned men to join him from time to time in the experiment, and to take part in picking at the wound, in tormenting the mutilated and blinded victim, and in driving it again and again to the madness of despair! Does anyone say that such an experiment could not be made to-day? In one of the largest laboratories of America, and within ten years, an experiment equally cruel, equally useless, has been performed. The modern defender of unrestricted vivisection distinctly insists that no legal impediment should hinder the performance of any investigation desired by any experimenter. It was the editor of the British Medical Journal who once declared that "whoever has not seen an animal under experiment CANNOT FORM AN IDEA OF THE HABITUAL PRACTICES OF THE VIVISECTORS."[1] This accords with the statement of Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, for forty years connected with Harvard Medical School, that, aside from motives, painful vivisection differed mainly from other phases of cruelty "in being practised by an educated class, who, having once become callous to its objectionable features, find the pursuit an interesting occupation, under the name of Science."

[1] British Medical Journal, September 19, 1863 (leading editorial)

And this was the case of Brachet. HE HAD BECOME CALLOUS. He found torment "an interesting occupation, under the name of Science." May there not be others in our day to whom the same criticism is only too applicable?

One of the English critics of the abuses of vivisection a century ago was Dr. John Abernethy of London, a Lecturer on Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons, the founder of the medical school attached to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the most distinguished surgeon in Great Britain during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Abernethy was by no means an antivivisectionist; he insisted upon the utility of certain demonstrations, but he was profoundly opposed to those cruelties of research which, in our day, by the modern school of physiologists, are either forgotten or condoned. curiously enough, one of his strongest utterances against such cruelty was made in one of his lectures on physiology. Therein he said:

"There is one point I feel it a duty to advert to. Mr. Hunter, whom I should not have believed to have been very scrupulous about inflicting suffering upon animals, nevertheless censures Spallanzani for the unmeaning repetition of similar experiments. Having resolved publicly to express my own opinions with regard to the subject, I choose the present opportunity, BECAUSE I BELIEVE SPALLANZANI TO HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE WHO HAVE TORTURED AND DESTROYED ANIMALS IN VAIN. I do not perceive that in the two principal subjects which he has sought to elucidate he has added any important fact to our stock of knowledge; and, besides, some of his experiments are of a nature that a good man would blush to think of, and a wise man would have been ashamed to publish."[1]

[1] "Physiological Lectures," London, 1817, p. 164.

This is a unique expression. One may be absolutely certain that no professor of physiology during the past forty years has thus openly condemned in a physiology lecture any of his contemporaries for the cruelty of their experiments.

In his Life of Abernethy, his biographer, Dr. Macilwain, refers to experiments upon living animals, "WHICH ARE SO REVOLTING FROM THEIR CRUELTY, that the mind recoils from the contemplation of them." This, too, is a noteworthy utterance, coming from one who was a distinguished London surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In a subsequent work entitled "Remarks on Vivisection," published some seventeen years before the date ascribed by Professor Bowditch as that marking the beginning of criticism, he refers again to the views of Abernethy:

"As for experiments on living animals involving suffering, Mr. Abernethy disapproved of them, and seldom alluded to them but in terms of distrust, derision, or disgust."

That the criticism of experimental cruelty did not begin in 1864, as imagined by Professor Bowditch, the quotations here given sufficiently demonstrate.

Beyond this demonstration, does the history of these savage tormentors have any lesson for us to-day? They belonged to another century. Should they not be forgiven, and their experiments condoned? Why not confine attention solely to the laboratory of to-day? Why blame Brachet and Magendie and Spallanzani, to whom anaesthesia was unknown?

There is a false suggestion in this protest, which, in one form or another, we hear often to-day. It is the gratuitous assumption put forth in defence, that if anaesthetics had only been known to physiologists before 1846, they would invariably have been used. Any such suggestion is manifestly false. If these experiments of Brachet and of others to be mentioned were to be made at all, it was necessary that the animal should be conscious of the agony it experienced. In the most complete laboratory for vivisection of the present time—in the Rockefeller Institute, for example—no scientist could drive a dog INTO A FRENZY while it lies absolutely unconscious under the influence of chloroform! We may say this of the experiments of Magendie on the nervous system, for aside from the preliminary cutting operation, such experiments demanded the consciousness of the victim. That which humanity has a right to censure in these physiologists is the spirit of absolute indifference to animal suffering, the willingness to subject a living creature to agony without adequate reason for the infliction of pain. The discovery of chloroform or ether made no change in human nature. Some of the worst of vivisections have been made, not merely since anaesthetics were discovered, but within the present century. Over twenty-five years after the properties of ether had been discovered, the most prominent vivisector in England told the Royal Commission that, except for teaching purposes, "I never use anaesthetics where it is not necessary for convenience, " and that an experimenter "HAD NO TIME, SO TO SPEAK, FOR THINKING WHAT THE ANIMAL WILL FEEL OR SUFFER."[1]

[1] Evidence before Royal Commission, 1875, Questions 3,538, 3540.

Unrestricted vivisection is the same to-day as a century ago. In many cases its operations involve little or no pain; in many cases there seems to be the same absolute indifference to the agony inflicted that was manifested by the vivisectors of a hundred years since. Where the law does not interfere, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Whether there is cruelty or consideration depends on the spirit of the vivisector. It was no ignorant layman, but the president of the American Academy of Medicine, who, in his annual address, declared that there were American vivisectors who "seem, seeking useless knowledge, to be blind to the writhing agony and deaf to the cry of pain of their victims, AND WHO HAVE BEEN GUILTY OF THE MOST DAMNABLE CRUELTIES, without the denunciation of the public and the profession that their wickedness deserves."[1] And that vivisector of to-day, who suggests that if anaesthetics had been known to Magendie or Brachet, they would invariably have been used, is either ignorant or insincere. Surely he must know that the very nature of their experiments precluded the use of ether, and that in their time, as to-day, if the experiment were to be tried at all, it was necessary that the pain be felt.

[1] Address before American Academy of Medicine at Washington, D.C., May 4, 1891, by Theophilus Parvin, M.D., LL.D., professor in Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Pa.

There are other reasons why we should not permit the past to be forgotten. We are confronted by the challenge of the laboratory. Behind the locked and barred doors of the vivisection chamber, to which no man can gain admission unless known to be friendly to its practices, the vivisector of to-day challenges society to prove the existence of cruelty or abuse. The vivisector demands absolute freedom of action, he demands the most complete privacy, he demands total independence of all legal supervision—and then challenges the production of proof that any criticism is justified! Within the sacred precincts of the laboratory a Brachet, a Magendie, a Claude Be'rnard may be experimenting to-day with a profusion of victims, protected by their seclusion from every possibility of complaint. For in what respect does the spirit that animates research to-day differ from that manifested by experimenters of the past? In all the literature of advocacy for unrestricted vivisection can one point out a word of criticism of Magendie or Brachet or Be'rnard, or anything but expressions of exculpation, of admiration, and of praise? An English writer on animal experimentation, Mr. Stephen Paget, had occasion, in a recent work, to refer to the experimentation of both Magendie and Sir Charles Bell. Does he criticize or condemn Magendie's cruelty? No. He tells us, incidentally, that Bell always had "a great dislike to the school of Magendie," adding, with indifference, "LET ALL THAT PASS." These words aptly express the sentiment and the wish. Gladly, indeed, would the physiological laboratory hide the past from the memory of mankind; I do not believe in acceding to that desire. When the leading physiologist of his day, addressing an audience of physicians, refers to an early criticism of physiological cruelty as a collection of "blood-curdling stories," there is desire not to investigate, but to ridicule and discredit historic facts. When men of science put forth what they claim to be, "a plain statement of the whole truth," without one word of reference to the abuses of the past, they practically throw dust in the air to hide the truth from the public eye. That it may have been done ignorantly and without any wish to deceive is not sufficient to earn exculpation, for in either case the evil is accomplished.

Of one English physiologist of that period, Sir Charles Bell, it is impossible to speak except in terms of admiration and esteem. Born in 1774, his long and useful life terminated in 1842, four years before the discovery of anaesthesia. No one can read his correspondence with his brother, published many years after his death, without recognizing the innate beauty and nobility of his character. When news of the Battle of Waterloo reached England, he—the leading surgeon of his day—started for the battlefield. The story of his experience is one of the most graphic pictures of the effects of war to be found in modern literature. It was Sir Charles Bell who made to physiology the greatest contribution which had come to it since the discovery by Harvey of the circulation of the blood, and yet this discovery was made by reasoning upon the facts of anatomy rather than by experimenting upon animals. An English physiologist, Sir Michael Foster, admits this:

"To Charles Bell is due the merit of having made the fundamental discovery of the distinction between motor and sensory fibres. Led to this view by reflecting on the distribution of the nerves, he experimentally verified his conclusions. … "

In his lectures on the nervous system Bell himself states that his discoveries, so far from being the result of vivisections, were, "on the contrary, deductions from anatomy; and I have had recourse to experiments, not to form my own opinions, but to impress them upon others."

That which determines the judgment of the world upon human actions is the spirit that animates them. Sir Charles Bell was not an antivivisectionist. When experiments on animals seemed to him absolutely indispensable, he had recourse to them, but always with repugnance, and with desire to avoid giving of pain. In his lectures on the nervous system he speaks thus of some of his work:

"After delaying long on account of the unpleasant nature of the operation, I opened the spinal canal. … I was deterred from repeating the experiment by the protracted cruelty of the dissection. I reflected that the experiment would be satisfactory if done on an animal recently knocked down and insensible."

And on another occasion, writing to his brother, he says:

"I should be writing a third paper on the nerves; but I cannot proceed without making some experiments, which are so unpleasant to make that I defer them. You may think me silly, but I cannot perfectly convince myself that I am authorized in Nature or Religion to do these cruelties. … And yet what are my experiments in comparison with those which are daily done, and are done daily for nothing?"

Such extreme sensibility, such sympathetic hesitancy to inflict great suffering in an attempt to discover some fact, would be ridiculed at the present day in every laboratory in Europe or America. It is typical, however, of a sentiment that once prevailed. Are we any better because it has so largely disappeared?

For great cruelty was there ever great remorse? The cases are not many; before the self-condemnation of a dying man and the final scene, friendship may feel it best to draw the veil. Yet one case of this poignant regret is worthy consideration, and shall have relation.