Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-10-21
vivIscction-A Deserved RebuI,c

In the annual address delivered before the
Massachusetts medical society, in June last, DR..
Henry J. Bigeow speaks with just indignation
and censure of the cruel practice of vivisection.
He says:
Glow few facts of immediate considerable
value TO our race have Of late years been extored
from the dreadful sufferings OF dumb animals,
the cold-bloOded cruelties now more and more
practsed under the authority Of science!
"The horrors of viYiseCton have supplanted
the sOemDity, the thrilling fascination of the old
unetherzed operation upon the human sufferer
Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the
physiological inquisiOr on dusty shelves, are
mostly of as little present value to man as the
knowledge Of new comet or of a tunestate of
zirconium; perhaps TO be coufuted the next
year; perhaps to remain as fixed truth of imme-
dlate yalue,--cOntemptlble, compared with the
price paid for il in agony and torture.
For every inch cut by one of these expert
menters in the quiyerng flesh OF the helpless
dog or rabbit or guinea pig, let him insert n
lancet one-cighth OF an inch in his own skin,
and Tor every inch more he cuts let him advance
the lancet another eighth Of an nch and when
ever ne SEXES with ragged forceps a nerve or
spinal marrow the seat Of all that is concen-
trated and exquisite in agony or literally fears
out nerves by the roots, let him cut only one
eighth OF an inch further, and he may have
some FAINT suggestion of the atrocity he is per-
petrating, when the guinea pig shriekS, the poor
dog yells, the noble horse grOans and strains
Inc heartless nyisector perhaps resenting the
struggle which annOvs him.
"Aly heart sickens as | recall the spectacle at
Abort in former times of a wretched horse one
OF many hundreds, broken with age and disease
resulting from life long and honest devotion 10
mans service, bound upon the floor, his skin
scored with knife like gridirOn, his eyes and
ears cut out, his teeth pulled his arteries Laid
min c1aoI 4
cred, his hooIs pared TO the quick, and every
| conceivable and hendsh torture inflicted upon
MN, While he groaned and gasped his life care
| July preserved under the continued and helish
torment, IRON early morning until afternoon,
| Tor the purpose, as was avowcd of familiarjzinG
| the pupil with the motions of the animal, This
| was surgical vivisectiOn on larger scale and
lf91scends but little the scenes in a nhysiologi-
cal laboratory. have heard it said that some
oody must do this ! say it is needless. No.
poIE should do II. Watch the students at a
| VYlsecuon. 1t is the blood and suffering nor
the science that rivets their GREATNESS attention
| II hospital service makes Young students less
| tender OF suffering, yivisection deadens tbeir
humanity and begets indifference to it.
| IN experiments upon the nervous system of
| inc hvihg animal, whose sensibility must be
| kept alive, not benumbed by the blessed ma
| ence OF an@sthesia, a prodigal waste Of snfTar-
| ing results from the difficulty of assigning IN
| each experiment its precise and proXimate Of
| feet. The rumpled feathers of Il pigeon de.
| priyed Of his cerebellum may indicate not 81
| much specific action of the cerebcum ON the
| skin, as the more probable fact that the moor
| Ord feels SICK. The rotatory phenomena. once
| considered 50 curious result of the removal of
the cerebral lobe, were afterwards suspected 10
proceed from the struggles of the victim with his
Iemalhlhg unchanged and Emphasized side Who
ean say whether the guinea pig the pncbinp of
whose carefully sensilized neck throws him into
conyulslons, attains this blessed momentarv re-
spltg Of insensibiity by an unexplained snecial
,mniGtnineIy OF the nervous currents. or sens-
pllllE 100 eXquisitely acute for animal endnr.
a .t Better that or my friend should die
tllan prolract existence through accumulated
years OF torture upon animals whose evo,,Ss;t,
suffering we cannot fail TO infer even tba'rI,
they may have neither voice nor @eatnre IN ~
press it. i'"'uie 10 tx
"lf a skillfully constructed bvnotbosis o,,,,,
be elaborated up to the point Of exneri,oo,,
test by the most accomplished and s,,it ~
philosopher, and if then a single exneri,,o,',
though cruel, would forever settle il We NIL;
reluctantly admit that it was justified. but fhe
instincts Of our common humanity indignnntIv
demonstrate against the testing of clumsy 4,
unimportant hypothesis by prodigal experjl1en
tatioB, OF making the torture of animal an ex
hloiiion to enlarge a medical school, or for til