Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-11-29
IIIISECTION.
More Testimony against the cruel
Practice.

more IcSt1mOny Against the NTuet
Practice.
There is 50 strong feeling setting
in against yiviScciion that the public
have right to know why it is opposed
with such warmth and determination
by large number of the most famous
physicians, when vivisectors claim
that from its practice the greatest dis
coveries in medicine have been made.
Nearly all those who are now its
strongest opponents were once them
selves vivisectOrs and it is on their
own experience that they base their
arguments against it. DR.. Lawson
TAFT, Fellow of the Royal College Of
Surgeons, undoubtedly at the head Of
abdominal surgery particularly ovari-
otomy), said: Nivisection has proved
useless and misleading, and in the in
terest of true science its employment
should be stopped SO that the energy
and skill of scientific investigation
may be diverted into better and safer
channels. The records OF vivisection
TEEN with instances in which not only
have animals been fruitlessly sacri-
feed, but human lives have been added
to the list OF victims by reason of its
false light. Like every men,
Der OF my profession, was brought up
in the belief that by vivisection had
been obtained almost every important
fact in physiology, and that many of
our most valuable means of saving
life and diminishing suffering mad re-
suited from experiments on the lower
animals. l now know that nothing OF
the sort is true concerning the art OF
surgery; and not only do l not believe
that vivisection has helped the surgeon
one bit, but know that it has often
led him astray."
The famous Sir Charles Bell writes
on vivisection: Experiments have
never been the means of discovery.
The opening Of living animals has done
more to perpetuate error than to en-
force the just views taken from anat-
omy and the natural sciences"
DIR. Abercrombie, equally distin-
guished, and himself vivisector, says:
Experiment has given no results
which might not have been obtained
from clinical and pathological obser-
vation."
Surgeon General Gordon, NJ. ID. c.
b., Hon. Physician to the Queen, also
says: "In the performance of vivi
sectional experiments, structural and
other organic differences between the
several orders of animals experimental
upon and the human species, are in
many respects found to be so abso.
lutte, that experimenters themselves
confess the inapplicability to the latter
of results obtained from the former.
Animals are subjected to diseases to
which man is exempt, and exempt
from others to which he is subject
The conditions OF man are farther
rendered peculiar to himself by cir
cumstances of civilization, social or
official life, heredity idiosyncracy and
temperament. In respect of all these,
no sufficient analogies exist in the an
imal kingdom from which to draw
useful conclusions" ext. from letter
to Sec. London Anti-Vivisection Soc.)
For instance, it is one of the stock
claims of vivisectors that "a knowl-
edge of intestinal surgery should be
gained on dogs SO that humans may
be given the benefit" when as mat
ter of fact, DIR. Kingsland in Nineteenth
Century says "The peritoneum, the
covering and enveloping membrane OF
all the organs in the body is in man
particularly liable to Inflammation,
even by slight puncture or abrasion
and its inflammation constitutes one
one of the most painful, dangerous
and mortal accidents known to the
profession. But in animals,
and even in q creature so highly de.
veloped as the dog, the incision and
violent rupture OF this membrane is
attended with no inflammatory dam
ger"
DR.. Abiathar Wall also says that
the animals used for these expert
ments enjoy immunity from severe
peritonitis." Dogs are not only so I'M
like human beings for the purpose OF
learning abdominal surgery, but they
are so sensitive to chloroform that
they cannot be kept alive when fully
under its influence.
DIR. Albert Letfingwell writes: Now |
[ venture to assert that during the
asst quarter of century. inhiction of
intense torture upon unknown myr-
ads of sentient living creatures has
lot resulted IN the discovery Of single
emedy Of acknowledged and accepted
'aiue in the cure Of disease"
Let no one dismiss this subject
Without thorough investigation, the