Arizona republican., 1919-07-06

mals may be necessary to the progress of medical science, the dog deserves exemption
 This point is not yielded by the op- position, however, as some of the best surgeons in the army assert that the dog is indispensable if experimental surgery is not to be handicapped We don't use dogs in the army" explained one authority in the surgeon generals department the other day. but 1 can tell you as an individual surgeon that the yivisection of dogs results in the saving of thousands of human lives every year"
 Whatever may be the ultimate yer dict as to the dog martyrs, both sides will be given every opportunity to present their claims For the first time, vivisection has been brought in to the open and made a national issue.
 The Meyers bill provides as a pen alty fine of from one to five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for from three months to a year, or both, for anyone convicted of vivisecting a dog. The promoters of this legislation claim that the dog deserves such protection as a result of it's splendid services in the war This is their chief argument, and one which finds ready acceptance among our returning soldiers. who are in a particularly sentimental frame of mind concerning the dog. Indeed, there has been a strong attempt to raise hundred thousand dollars for a monument in Washington to the dog, the horse and the pigeon, as d memorial of their services in the war. Those who favor dog vivisection re- gard this as robbing that friend of man of it's greatest opportunity of usefulness
 A returning colonel, who had an op- portunity to observe dogs in action during the war, is an enthusiastic supporter of both the Meyers bill and the monument project. He does not wish to be quoted as the author of such an opinion, but he holds to the belief that. as an animal, the dog compares not unfavorably with man. There were 4,000 trained dogs in the American army when he left it, he says, some of which had furnished 1 heroic inspiration to soldiers.
 The dog as a soldier in battle is 1 something new he says, but it has 1 covered it with glory. We have always 1 fostered the idea that the training of an animal is a trick, but during the war the dog was called upon to use it's l intelligence and drilled just as are l men. The dog was taught to give warning at the approach of the enemy, was taught to carry messages. on which sometimes depended the safety | of an army; and through it all endured shell shock, insomnia, palsey, gassed l lungs, blindness, deafness and other injuries as did man.
 The colonel told a story of a dog which gave it's life to save a unit of American soldiers. The incident hap pened just before the signing of the armistice. A dog was sent to find a unit of American soldiers which had been cut off from the rest of it's di- vision. With a wooden crate strapped to it's back, it climbed out of the Amer ican trenches and travelled at top 1 speed in plain view of the enemy, who immediately opened fire upon it. It never wavered in it's course however, l until it had reached its goal, wounded. It died few minutes later. but it's work had been accomplished. From the crate on it's back, the American soldiers drew forth two pigeons, tied a message to their legs and turned them loose. Tic message stated the location of the unit. and in a com paratively short time achievements arrived to rescue it.
 Another argument promulgated by
 the supporters of the Meyers bill is
 that the viyisection of dogs is entirely I unnecessary. According to Albert Pay
 son Terhune, the writer. the best
 physicians here and in Europe have
 gone on record as denying that any
 genuine good has been achieved fol
 science or for humanity by the vivi-
 section of dogs.
 The fact that a dog can survive fol a certain number of hours with it. , spinal column extracted or its medulls
 oblongata removed" says MT. Terhune has no bearing whatever on an!
 good to the human race, but is merel
 a matter of morbid interest to expert