Chapter 7 ARE LAWS REGULATING VIVISECTION NECESSARY

We will now briefly consider an interesting and highly practical side of the question. In certain countries, as in England, there are laws regulating vivisection. In other countries, as in France, Germany, and Italy, there is nothing analogous; consequently public opinion on this point is uncertain.

In the beginning of this book, I acknowledged that, in spite of the exaggeration of their complaints, anti-vivisectionists had rendered real service to general morality by calling attention to the excesses committed by a few vivisectionists in the past. No one recognises this benefit more than I, and I willingly grant that their preaching has, on the whole, had a happy result. Is it however, expedient to go further, and to prohibit or simply to regulate vivisection?

For reasons given above, it seems to me that prohibition would be absurd and injurious, as well in the land of Harvey and Hunter as in the lands of Bernard and Pasteur, of Galvani and Spallanzani, of Johannes Müller and Helmholtz. Prohibition would mean closing the book of science, stemming all progress, condemning humanity eternally to the same miseries, to writhe, powerless, in the same old track. Fortunately, no one thinks seriously of suppressing physiological experimentation; and, therefore, we have no need to dwell on this point.

But regulation is quite a different thing from prohibition. Now, I showed that certain practices should be condemned. Should they, however, be condemned by law? Why should the law be substituted for the exigencies of science? Here is a physiologist, fully conscious of the magnitude of his task, to whom the government or a university has confided the direction of a laboratory, who finds himself face to face with a problem needing to be solved. It is impossible to limit his efforts and to lay down principles from which he could not turn aside. Just as he is referred to for the purchase of his instruments and the nomination of his staff, so must he be left full latitude in the arrangement of his experiments. Nothing is so pernicious in matters of science as official regulation; it takes away all initiative, and does not allow the genius of the inventor to have full play.

As a matter of fact, even in England, the only country where up to the present the conditions of vivisection have been regulated by law, no one has ventured to confine the initiative of the experimenter within narrow regulations. And it is fortunate that no one has ventured to define the limits of experimental investigation, for most excellent work is due to contemporary English Physiologists-Sch?fer, Horsley, Sherrington, Langley, Bayliss, Starling, Stirling, etc. They have been able to pursue their researches freely, to the very great advantage of our science.

One should not, then, think of prohibiting such or such a proceeding in vivisection. It may even be dangerous to absolutely prohibit vivisections without an?sthesia. I make no mystery of my opinion on this point, since I have distinctly declared further back that no sensitive animal should ever be operated upon. I regard as a moral error all vivisection made on an animal capable of suffering. But I would leave the physiologist to be the judge in the matter. I do not believe the law should take his place; for perhaps cases will occur where an?sthesia is impossible, and he cannot be placed under the hard alternative of not making an experiment which his conscience as a savant judges to be useful, or of disobeying the law.

Moreover, how are the many possible conditions of an experiment to be precisely laid down? Is the law to indicate the kind of an?sthetic to be used, and the degree of an?sthesia to be attained? Is it to prohibit all experiments on toxic actions? Many insoluble difficulties would be encountered, the sole result of which would be to paralyse the savant in his researches or to cause him to break the laws of his country.

And yet I recognise that regulation is indispensable, but it ought not to bear on the nature of the experiment; it should deal solely with the person experimenting.

I believe the right of practising vivisection should not be accorded to every citizen, to every medical student; it should not be permissible for any chance person to take a dog, to fasten him down on the operating table, and to experiment on the brain, the glands, the muscles of that unfortunate animal, for that chance person is, in all probability, a clumsy and ignorant man. Vivisection may not be undertaken in a light-hearted fashion. After all, science would lose nothing if such an experiment were not made, and I see no advantage in encouraging attempts of this sort which are condemned beforehand to be fruitless.

But in a laboratory of physiology, under the direction of the professor and his assistants, under their moral responsibility, vivisection should not be prohibited; the number of vivisections should not be limited, and no restrictions ought to be imposed.

As I have no intention of formulating or drawing up regulations or enacting laws, I shall not indicate the penalties to which those who violate the law should be liable. I shall content myself with enunciating this double principle: entire liberty in vivisection for professors of physiology and their assistants; prohibition of vivisection for all others.

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