Читать книгу The Pros and Cons of Vivisection - Charles Richet - Страница 3

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The object of this book is to set forth, as impartially as possible, the reasons which militate for and against vivisection. It is, however, a physiologist who is speaking, therefore no one will be surprised that he should defend a practice which is at the basis of the science he teaches.

May he be permitted, at the same time, to express the high moral esteem which he feels for all those who, nobly enamoured of a very high ideal, deny to men the right of inflicting suffering, or even death, upon animals? There is not a more generous thought than this. Without doubt it is our duty to have sympathy for, and to abstain from indifference and cruelty in our dealings with all living creatures: might does not constitute right. Man is stronger than the animal; but this superiority of power, this might, does not constitute a right to act contrary to moral obligation.

Morality does not consist solely of duties towards human beings; it is more general: it extends to every being capable of suffering. The physiologist is not an ignoramus, neither is he a barbarian; and he has right well understood this duty. Physiologists have concluded that experimentation upon living animals is necessary, and it is the many reasons which have led them to this opinion which I propose to set forth. But it will, I hope, be quite understood that my defence of vivisection implies no contempt, no raillery, no unfriendly sentiment towards those who oppose it. My opponents are not always courteous or loyal in their polemics; but that is of no importance; and I shall reply only to such objections as are potent, able, and rational. In other words, I shall take from among the arguments of anti-vivisectionists those only which can be called legitimate, those which deserve to be studied methodically and profoundly by every man of good faith. I shall deliberately put on one side both abuse and nonsense.

I should here mention an anonymous leaflet which has received a considerable amount of publicity in England ("How Scientific Cruelty is defended," London, 1907, 4 pp.). In this leaflet, a reply is given to an article which I once published on Vivisection. Certainly, after a lapse of twenty-six years, I might claim the right to abjure some of the notions of my youth. Taken as a whole, however, my ideas concerning vivisection have changed but little, and I still consider it to be necessary. I of course recognise that the number of physiological laboratories, which I estimated at thirty in my article, is for present-day purposes too low. During the last twenty-six years their number has very considerably increased. But a laboratory of physiology does not necessarily mean a laboratory of vivisection. There is the whole range of physiological chemistry, the study of ferments and psychological physiology, not one of which makes any demands on vivisection. Many eminent physiologists—for example, my former master, M. Marey—have performed very little vivisection. Even in those laboratories where vivisection is performed, it is not practised every day, and especially not upon dogs! Far from it! In Paris, for example, where every dog experimented upon is a stray animal handed over by the prefecture of police, there are only about six hundred dogs per annum thus available for experimentation. Now the laboratories in Paris represent, from the point of view of activity, at least half of all the laboratories in France put together.

It is alleged that Schiff stated to Mrs. Anna Kingsford that he had experimented on more than 14,000 dogs, that is to say, an average of one dog a day for fifty years! This is obviously an exaggeration, though it is difficult to trace now who was responsible for it.

Finally, the remaining objections of the anonymous author in question amount only to this: The author believes that physiologists work for money and renown, and not at all for the sake of humanity (!!). Also, that young men are made cruel by the sight of cruel experiments. But the author simply forgets this fact, that there is not at this present moment one single honourable physiologist who would consent to perform long and distressing experiments on an animal not under anæsthetics. I hold no brief for those who do otherwise, and I disapprove energetically of the use of curare. The conclusions of my anonymous critic therefore fall to the ground.

I confess I do not understand the statement that experimentation on rabbits and other animals is of no use to humanity; and my critic unfortunately from his point of view has selected Claude Bernard's experiments as an example of uselessness. Does he not know that Claude Bernard discovered the presence of sugar in the blood, of glycogen in the liver, of diabetes produced through nervous action, of the action of oxygen and of carbonic oxide on the red blood corpuscles, the action of the pancreatic juice on fat, the part played by the pneumogastric nerve in the innervation of the heart? These discoveries not only rejuvenated physiology, but exercise a permanent influence over the whole of medicine, and over the entire realm of therapeutics! I refuse to accept the antiquated conception of an empirical medicine which does not aim at discovering the truth; which thinks solely of clumsy practical application; and which regards as useful only that which leads immediately and directly to the cure of a given illness. All truth is useful; all ignorance is baneful; and the sole limit to man's power lies in the extent of his knowledge. We must forego discussion with those who cannot understand this fundamental notion.