Albert Leffingwell

“ If vivisection be indeed the true method of studying physiology, if physiology cannot be advanced except by vivisection, if chemical observation and microscopic research be useless for the purpose, and nothing but the torture of animals and the demoralization of men will suffice for its progress—then, in God's name, I say, let physiology stop at the point it has reached, even till the day of doom.—I am, Sir, with apologies for the length of this letter, yours, etc. ”

“ If it is possible that such men as Claude Bernard and Professor Flint have "jumped at" one utterly unscientific conclusion, notwithstanding the most painstaking of vivisections, what security have we that other of our theories in physiology now regarded as absolutely established may not be one day as severely ridiculed by succeeding investigators? Is it, after all, true, that the absolute certainty of our most important deductions must remain forever hidden "unless the animal can speak"? ”

“ It cannot be expected that any Medical College, of its own accord and without outside pressure, will restrict or hamper its freedom of action. As a condition of prosperity and success it cannot show less than is exhibited by other medical schools; it must keep abreast of "advanced thought," and do and demonstrate in every way what its rivals demonstrate and do. There can be no question but that there is to-day a strong public demand for continental methods of physiological instruction. Who make this demand? You, gentlemen, students of medicine, and they who follow in your pathway. ”

“ History records some frightful atrocities perpetrated in the name of Religion; but it has remained for the enlightenment and humaneness of this century to stultify themselves by tolerating the abuses of the average physiological laboratory—all conducted in the name of Science. There is only one way to progress in Therapeutics; and that is by clinical observation; the noting of the action of individual drugs under particular diseased conditions. He who has the largest practice and is the keenest observer, and the most systematic recorder of what he sees, does the most to advance Medicine. ”

“ It will take longer than a dozen years to awaken recognition of any evil which touches neither the purse nor personal comfort of an American citizen. All that can be hoped in the immediate future is education. Action will perhaps follow when its necessity is recognized generally; but not before."
For myself, I believe no permanent or effective reform of present practices is probable until the Medical Profession generally concede as dangerous and unnecessary that freedom of unlimited experimentation in pain, which is claimed and practiced to-day. ”

“ What the public has a right to ask of those who would indefinitely prolong these experiments without State supervision or control is, "What good have your painful experiments accomplished during the past thirty years—not in ascertaining facts in physiology or causes of rare or incurable complaints, but in the discovery of improved methods for ameliorating human suffering, and for the cure of disease?" If pain could be estimated in money, no corporation ever existed which would be satisfied with such waste of capital in experiments so futile ”

“ Are we justified in neglecting the evidence she offers, purchased in the past at such immeasurable agonies, and in demanding that year after year new victims shall be subjected to torture, only to demonstrate what none of us doubt? That is the chief question. For, if all compromise be persistently rejected by physiologists, there is danger that some day, impelled by the advancing growth of humane sentiment, society may confound in one common condemnation all experiments of this nature, and make the whole practice impossible, except in secret and as a crime. ”

“ Yielding to none in loyalty to the science, and enthusiasm for the Art of Healing, what standpoint may be taken by those of the Medical Profession who desire to reform evils which confessedly exist?
I. We need not seek the total abolition of all experiments upon living animals. I do not forget that just such abolition is energetically demanded by a large number of earnest men and women, who have lost all faith in the possibility of restricting an abuse, if it be favored by scientific enthusiasm. ”

“ Upon this subject of utility of painful experiments in class demonstrations or private study, I would like to appeal for judgment to the physician of the future, who then shall review the experience of the medical student of to-day. In his course of physiological training, he or she may be invited to see living animals cut and mutilated in various ways, eviscerated, poisoned, frozen, starved, and by ingenious devices of science subjected to the exhibition of pain. ”

“ I hold that the best interests of the community are the moral and immortal interests of every soul in such community, namely, the conquest of selfishness, cowardice, and cruelty, and the development of the god-like sense of justice and love—the growth of the divinest thing in human nature, the faculty of sympathizing with the joys and sorrows of all God's creatures. ”

“ You ask first, Do we "deny that vivisection is capable of yielding knowledge of service to man?" We are not so rash as to deny that any practice, even the most immoral conceivable, might possibly yield [Pg 90] knowledge of service to man; and, in particular, we do not deny that the vivisection of human beings by the surgeons of classic times, and again by the great anatomists of Italy in the 15th century, may very possibly have yielded knowledge to man, and be capable, if revived, of yielding still more. ”

“ Why, so far from having obtained the least mastery over those malignant forces which seem forever to elude and baffle our art, they are actually gaining upon us; every one of these forms of disease is more fatal to-day in England than thirty years ago; during 1879 over sixty thousand more deaths resulted from these maladies alone than would have occurred had the rate of mortality from them been simply that which prevailed during the benighted period of 1850 to 1854! ”

“ Numerous investigators have long established the fact that the great sensory nerve of the head and face is endowed with an exquisite degree of sensibility. More than half a century ago, both Magendie and Sir Charles Bell pointed out that merely exposing and touching this fifth nerve gave signs of most acute pain. "All who have divided this root in living animals must have recognized, not only that it is sensitive, but that its sensibility is far more acute than that of any other nervous trunk in the body." ”

“ In support of this bill it was claimed that physiologists, for the sake of "demonstrating to medical students certain physiological phenomena connected with the functions of life, are constantly and habitually in the practice of cutting up alive, torturing and tormenting divers of the unoffending brute creation to illustrate their theories and lectures, but without any practical or beneficial result either to themselves or to the students, which practice is demoralizing to both and engenders in the future medical practitioners a want of humanity and sympathy for physical pain and suffering." ”

“ Have we drifted backward in [Pg 70] humanity? Have American students learned to witness, without protest, tortures at the sight of which English students would rebel? We are told that there is no need of any public sensitiveness on this subject. We should trust entirely, as they do in France,—at Alfort, for example,—"to the judgment of the investigator." There must be no lifting of the veil to the outside multitude; for the priests of this unpitying science there must be as absolute immunity from criticism or inquiry as was ever demanded before the shrine of Delphi or the altars of Baal. ”

“ There can be little doubt, I think, that the sentiment of compassion and of sympathy with suffering is more generally diffused among all classes of Great Britain than elsewhere in Europe; and one cannot help wondering what our place might be, were it possible to institute any reliable comparison of national humanity. Should we be found in all respects as sensitive as the English people? ”

“ Is it true that experiments are habitually performed in some of our medical schools, often causing extreme pain, to illustrate well-known and accepted facts—experiments which English physiologists pronounce "infamous" and "atrocious," which English physicians and surgeons stigmatize as purposeless cruelty and unjustifiable—which even Huxley regards as unfitting for teaching purposes, and Darwin denounces as worthy of detestation and abhorrence? I confess I see no occasion for any over-delicate reticence in this matter. Science needs no secrecy either for her [Pg 41] methods or results ”

“ Indeed, I think it may safely be asserted that, in the city of New York, in a single medical school, more pain is inflicted upon living animals as a means of teaching well-known facts, than is permitted to be done for the same purpose in all the medical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ To object to killing animals for scientific purposes while we continue to demand their sacrifice for food, is to seek for the appetite a privilege we refuse the mind. It is equally [Pg 51] absurd to object to vivisection because it dissects, or "cuts up." If no pain be felt, why is it worse to cut up a dog, than a sheep or an ox? Such experiments as the foregoing might be permitted to any extent desired in our medical schools. ”

“ When Magendie, operating for cataract, plunged his needle to the bottom of his patient's eye, that he might note upon a human being the effect produced by mechanical irritation of the retina, he demonstrated how greatly the zeal of the enthusiast may impair the responsibility of the physician and the sympathy of man for man. ”