Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-02-03
dence against himself IL he is doing only
that which is lawful and good2

defce against himself IL he Is doing only
that which is lawful and good?
''In the nature of the case it is difficult. if
not impracticable, to procure evidence now
of atrocities committed by the vivisec-
tors in the District of Columbia, although
DR.. L. A Rauterberg, a well-known Wash
ington physician, testified to the Senate
committee, it states in enumerating the
reasons for its action, that he has seen
cruelties practiced in the vivisections at
the Army Medical Museum. a fact which,
with others, the health officer seems to
have overlooked in preparing his report.
Yet the vivisectors, by their bitter and I'M
scrupulous opposition to this bill, which
permits all that they admit they are doing
in the District of Columbia, raise a strong
probability that, they misrepresent their
work well as the bill.
IF their assertions that no cruelties are
perpetrated in vivisections here were true,
then, as the second Senate committee re-
port says, no possible reason other than
mental alteration could be assigned for the
strenuous and unremitting exertions that
have been made, and the time that has
been spent, by busy men to stir up every
possible influence to defeat the passage
Of this bill. They have admitted that the
cruelties against which the bill is directed
are wrong. They assert that they them
selves have nothing to conceal yet they
move heaven and earth to prevent iegisla-
ton intended merely to provide against
such cruelttes and to legalize the very in
spection which they profess to invite
Absence of Law.
But even If 1t could be conceded that
none Of the atrocities Of yivsection is now
going on in any of the secret laboratories
of Washington (and who could truthfully
certify with certainty to thatD, there is
no law whatever to prevent the very worst
of these atrocities from being perpetrated
with tmpunity tomorrow by any vivisector
in the District Of Columbia. AS the law
stands. the horrors of Mantegazza a very
distinguished European vivisector. who, the
Popular Science Monthly states, contem-
plates visit to the United States. the in
ventor of the 'tormentore' a torture ma
chine for animals. horrors which he sets
forth himself in his 'Fisiolgia del Dolore'
but which 1 would hesitate to describe,
could all be repeated by him In any WASH
ington laboratory should he come here
Like all the European vivisectors he
frankly. avows that his researches are
purely scientific, and have no relation to
the cure of disease; that is. they enable him
to make money and name among vivisec-
tors by describing the physiology of pain
Question of Benefits.
at is not necessary in this communica-
ton to enter upon the question of the ben
efits of. vivisection to the human race.
about which the best physicians and sur
geons differ. Such great men as Lawson
TAFT. F. R. C. s.; Sir Charles Bell, F. r. c.
s., F. R. S.: Forbes Winslow, D. C. L. NJ.
r. C. p: Prof. Henry j. Bigelow, MD, and
many other medical men only less eminent,
could be quoted as asserting that vivisec-
ton has yielded no benefits to the human
race: but for the purposes of this argument
all that is claimed for vivisection in this re-
spect may be conceded without impairing
the necessity for this legislation. In conclu-
sion. 1t may be said that while love of ami
mails. like love of country or hatred of
cruelty. is an emotion. part of that altru-
ism which Benjamin Kidd says is the neces-
sary principle Of social progress, it is not
incompatible with a Judgment respecting
vivisection which can be entitled the pro-
duct of thought 1t might, perhaps be
added that IL any constructive amendments
not destructive to the principle of the bill,
but which would improve its details, should
be suggested by your honorable board, they
will receive the most respectful considera-
ton by the friends Of the measure"
Debating Society Chooses Omcers.
'Ofhcers Of the debating society Of the