The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-26 00:00:00

E4e 3toarbribge ODbserber.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26. 1870.

VIVISECTION NO CRUELTY.

From time to time public attention has been
keenly directed to the question of Viviaection.
Amid the excitement consequent upon the dia.
solution and summoning of Parliaments, the rise
and fall of administrations, the transfer of
political power from one section of the people
to another, and the threatened rxistetice of
time-honoured institutions, social reformets and
philanthropists have found occasion to think
upon the tortures inflicted in the name of science
upon harmless animals, from which no voice can
be
,heard except that which at such seasons
means a cry of pain. It is possible, indeed,
that those representations might have been
somewhat exaggerated, and that the recitals of
dogs and eats, rabbits and guinea pigs being cut
up alive inch by inch under circumstances of
the most revolting barbarity, were but creatures
of the imagination, the phantoms of a disordered
brain. Made, however, with a good motive, they
undoubtedly excited a very strong expression of
popular indignation. Medical and scientific
men were denounced as being amongst the most
cruel of mankind, inset-I
-sink to the pain and
suffering which they inflicted. All this while
scientific men somewhat aggravated the pre.
judicd which hail been raised against them by
treating the whole matter with an assumption of
contempt. Some of them declared that they
cared nothing for what the public might think
or say, and that they iuten ied to do exactly as
they pleased. Fieally the controversy grew to
such an extent that the Government felt it

necessary to appoiot a Royal Commission to
inquire into the %hole subj,!ct. All wide”. t•f the
dispute were fully represented in that body.
The repertuf th:s commissioo, which has now
been before the public for some days, couched it,
very moderate and guarded terms. It begins by
pointing int that to the researches of
vivisectionists are due several most important
physiological discoveries, the effect of Which
was been vastly to increase the resources of
medical science, and perceptibly to allevi tie the
total amount of human suffering. Experiments
upon living animals have it seems hi the in in
three objects—to exanaine into and ascertain the
processes of life, to demonstrate the action of
poisons and drugs upon the living organism,
and to produce lliSoatie by artificial means in
order that its progress may be more minutcly
, watched, and the methods of alleviating, arrest-
ing, or curing it discovered. For each and all
of these purposes the Commission holds that
Vivisection, conducted b; competent hands, is
perfectly justifiable, and that the pain whitili it
inflicts upon its ()Ants is more than atoned for
by the beinfits that it either confers, or is cal-
culated to confer upon humanity. The report
.rgurs that it is impossible, even if it were
desir.ade, to puts stop to the practice of makitig
experiments on living animals. Ott the other
hind it i-i expe:!ient to allay, as fur as possible,
t. s.uvicion and di,f,tvuur with which the
',Tactic, is regarded. This, the Commissioners
..ioes.t, eau only be done by securing due
„mblicity, and by forbidding unnecessary experi-
.oents conducted out of curiosity or in mere
r. cklts,ness, by kncompetent and unqualified
persou6. With this obj ct it is advised that the