Year: 1874

| II ne De merely helQ, as ne Will unQel


the infiction of a severe wound. We


may judge, however, with greater securi


ty, from coincident actions on the part


of the creature, as to whether suffering Q


is or is not present. If man, for exam
pie, while undergoing surgical opera


ton, should, as in case we once saw,
| coolly assist the surgeon, and compla-
Gently MUNICH an apple while the knife
was penetrating his flesh, ordinary reason
would lead US to the belief that his as
| sertion that 1T did not hurt was true,
and this even did dumbness prevent his
stating the fact. If such be true in the
| one case, and in that of the animal
| which we know to be most acutely sensi-
BILE, then it is logically true in the in
| stances of lower orders which we are
sure possess sensibility in less degree /;
| and hence if a horse, as in one of the
! cases cited by DR.. Crosby, have fore leg
| shot off in battle, and thirty-six hours
| afterward be found quietly grazing
| although the stump is horribly mutilated
| then it is reasonably certain that the
pain is not proportionate to the lesion, if
indeed present in any degree whatever.
1t is well known that animals often in
t1ict injuries which apparently must cause
suffering and yet every indication proves
the same to be absent Rabbits have





been found feeding minus two legs. Rats
when pressed by hunger, will eat their
own tails. We have seen pigs, after
their throats have been cut, cease their
cries and attempt to eat, and it is said
that the same animals when struck una
wares, often pay no apparent attention to
the wound. 1t is curious also to notice
that rabbits and rats, which can support
themselves even if their locomotive pro-
cess be injured, will bite off their feet if
caught in traps, but that a carniverous
animal like the fox will never do so, for,
once unable to run, he would starve to
death. In the first case there appears to
be no sense of pain to prevent the ac-
ton; in the second, the sense certainly
exists


Again, crabs and Holsters drop their
claws when frightened and seemed un-
hurt. There is little lizard in Sicily,
which, when suddenly alarmed by the
blow of a cane on the rock near to it,
will break off from its tail and scuttle
away running into obstacles in its path,
acting very much like ship without a
rudder. Sir Humphrey Davy came to
the conclusion that in fishes the sensa-
ton of pain was very trifing and the
view seems proved when it is considered
how infn1tesimal the number of fishes
which arrive at maturity is, compared
with the myriads of eggs deposited.


A wasp will eat after it is cut in two;
SO will dragon fly when impaled; and
that the insects should suffer in any. de-
gree seems on its face impossible, partic
ularly if the millions and millions which
the birds eat be thought upon.


There is besides very curious provis-
ion of nature which is little understood,
and which comes into play, it would ap-
pear, in all animals in the presence of
imminent destruction or in cases where
great pain presumably exists, either to be
inflicted by a natural enemy We allude
to the action of mouse when in the
power of a cat, or rabbit when seized
by weasel. In the last instance the
rabbit remains motionless, without a
sign of pain while being killed; he is
apparently, as the expression is, "paral
yzed by fear" So also mouse, and
precisely SO with man, for DR.. Living
stones description of his sensations
while being shahen by lion exactly ac
cords with such as we might imagine
would be the experience of the mouse,
when in the claws of the cat.


But while there is every evidence that
the suffering of the lower animals is GER
tainly less than that of man under SINH
lar circumstances, we cannot, however,
coincide with the idea that it is so far alb
sent, in the case of the brutes ordinarily
sacrificed by viVisection, as DR.. Crosby
seems to convey. AS he states, however,
an an@sthetic disposes of the question
at once and in general it is much more
humane (and besides is an error on the
safer side) to give the unfortunate beasts
the benefit Of ether, as well as that of
the doubt as to their sensibility.