tion whenever it is necessary to fix a dog to the experimenting-table. All physiologists, whenever it is possible, try to anæsthetize their victim with chloral, morphine, chloroform, or ether. When the anæsthetization is completed, the animal does not suffer, and all the experiments afterward made upon it are without cruelty. It is very rarely necessary to experiment upon an animal that has not been treated with an anæsthetic; and even in these cases it is possible, by various processes, to make the pain much less acute. I always endeavor to ameliorate the pains of the animals I subject to experiments. Yes, I have caused rabbits, frogs, and dogs to suffer; but I believe that never, since I reached a man's age, have I taken pleasure in inflicting suffering upon a living being. For every animal, even the lowest, I feel something analogous to pity and sympathy; and I have a right to say this, for there is no contradiction between such sympathy and physiological experiment.[1]
Instead of developing cruelty, the practice of physiology should rather tend to increase in us the feeling of humanity and pity. The physician who has closely observed human suffering, instead of being hardened to it, becomes more compassionate. So the physiologists, who are acquainted with pain, are full of pity for suffering beings, and I do not hesitate to say that not one of them would be guilty of brutality toward an animal. It is true that they immolate dogs and rabbits, but that is for a superior interest; and in their very experiments they prove their clemency by trying to save their victims from useless sufferings.
In truth, if we divest ourselves of all vain sentimentality, we shall arrive at the conclusion that innumerable and extreme sufferings are already imposed by Nature upon living beings. Over the whole surface of the earth, in Borneo as in France, in the Sahara as in Lapland, men and animals are suffering. In the depths of all the seas, in the currents of all the rivers, on all the shores of all the oceans, in all the forests, and in all the plains, suffering and pain exist. Our object is to bring in some mitigation for all these evils, and it can not be accomplished except by the aid of science, through becoming acquainted with the laws of life. What then, compared to such a grand result, are the confused groans of the unfortunate dogs we immolate from time to time? Indeed, we have a right to sacrifice these rare and innocent victims, for at as small a price as that we can become masters of living nature, and may be able to penetrate the laws of life, and to relieve the unfortunate of our kind.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.
- ↑ It is with great reluctance that we perform vivisections in public lectures for instruction. When the question is one of scientific research, the act must be performed resolutely and without regard to the pain; but, whenever the purpose is to demonstrate before any audience a known phenomenon, the greatest reserve should be exercised in the employment of means that are cruel.
