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Vivisection

Vivisection image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
May
Year
1882
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The Eoglish nugízines, for the last six months, have teemed with discussions abnut viviaection. Alteruatoly, the vivisectionist aud antivivisectiouist has borne sway, aud the argumenta for and against the praciice have been aet forth well nigb to the point of exhaustion. The truth here, as in some other controversies, geeras to lie ou the middle ground aud somewhere between the sentimentalibt and ihe man "wanting sensibilnies; ' between those who would crubh or impale only where "nian's convenieace, bealth, or safety interftre,'1 as "paramount," and those who would "needlessly eet foot upon a worm." It may, we think, well be maintained, that human life and relief of human misery are objects which justify the infliction of pain on animáis, provided always that the suffe ring be no more than is neceísary to the end in view. In the final aDalysis it would be found that the real crnelty is not in performing the experimenta of vivisection, but in ob8trucdng the needful progresa of knowledge. In one of the monthliep, the Nineteenth Cenlury, the president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, while affirming that ho would be the last to countenance anythiug like cruelty, holds that exaggerated or morbid sentiments if allowed to prevail so as to hamper or prohibit expariments on animáis by properiy qualified persons, would prove a most seriou3 iojury, not only to human welfare, but to the race of animáis tbemselvcs. Otfaer writers on the same side add weight to the argument.8 One thinks that, to experimenta on animáis, we owe not only more accurate knowledge of the human body in health and disease, of the symptoms which we meet at the bedside, and of the various remedies which have long been employed, but also the introduction of' nearly all the most valuable new remedies which have been added to the pharmacopoeia for the last eighteen years. In the Fortnightly, a writer addresscs himfelf to the various objections which have been brought against the practico of vivisection. To the statement of Lord Coleridge, that he believed it "was displeasing to I Almighty God, the wnter Bays,a3 to vivisection, aa it really is performed in ihis oountry, his conscience un heátatiDgly tells him that it woula ba?e met with the full authority and approval of our Lord. Thna do dootors dkagree, on the moral aspect of viviaection; but the friends of the practico are on the side of scien tifio progieis, and believe they are on the side of huroanity also.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat