The Pros and Cons of Vivisection

First of all I declare, without fear of being contradicted by any physiologist, that the past has witnessed much excess, almost guilty excess, and that at the present time excess might still be pointed out. I quite believe that, even to-day, here and there in the laboratories of physiology, young men may be found who are no doubt enamoured of science, but who have not sufficiently reflected on the nature of pain, and consequently, through lack of sympathy, are callous and indifferent about inflicting useless, or almost useless, tortures on innocent animals.

On this point I might mention numerous facts which are extremely painful to relate, but which nevertheless we must have the courage to acknowledge and denounce.

To quote only one instance, a most abominable one, I will mention the following, which is old, dating back about forty years. In the veterinary schools, surgical studies, at that time, were not made on the dead carcase, but on the living animal; so that the wretched victim, generally a horse, served as a subject, while yet alive, for all the operations which the veterinary surgeon is called upon to perform. The detestable argument given at that time to qualify this barbarism was that the veterinary surgeon should be familiar with the reactions of a living animal, and that, as a guarantee of being able to perform an operation on a diseased horse, he should have already practised the same operation several times, not on the dead body, but on a horse full of life and vigour, able to defend himself, and obliged therefore to be held down motionless by special processes. But this is scarcely a sufficient justification. But happily such things no longer exist; public opinion, stimulated no doubt by the writings of anti-vivisectionists, has altered the customs of veterinary experimentalists so well that in no veterinary school to-day are surgical exercises now performed on other than the dead body.

Thus, as far as surgery is concerned, unquestionably all vivisection should rigorously be proscribed. I will discuss later the point as to whether this interdiction should be moral-that is, recommended as a precept of humanity, or enforced by law under penalty of imprisonment or fine. For the moment it will suffice to establish the point that no living animal should serve for surgical exercises.

I will go even further, and on this point my opinion will perhaps clash with that of some of my friends and colleagues: I maintain that no experimental physiological demonstrations which involve suffering should ever be performed. Much abuse has taken place in experimentation for instruction, which is a very different thing from experimentation for investigation. Important as it may be to demonstrate physiological facts to students, I do not consider that this importance is greater than the suffering of an animal. And here again I will take an example, that of the distinction between the motor nerves and the sensory nerves.

Magendie, in 1811, following up an idea somewhat hesitatingly put forth by Charles Bell a few years previously, demonstrated that the anterior nerve roots, starting from the spinal cord, give movement to the muscles, whilst the posterior roots are exclusively devoted to sensibility; so that there are anterior motor nerves and posterior sensory nerves. In order to demonstrate this, it is evidently necessary to operate on a living and sensitive animal.

The discovery was confirmed by several physiologists between 1830 and 1850; and I do not think we have the right to repeat this cruel experiment for the sake of the instruction of students. It is not only cruel, but also useless, for it consists in laying bare the anterior and posterior nerve-fibres of the spinal cord, with the sole object of allowing students to see that the excitation of the anterior nerve-fibres provokes movement and not pain, whilst the excitation of posterior nerve-fibres provokes pain and not movement. Now, in order to make students clearly understand this distinction between the motor and sensory nerves, I require only a blackboard and a piece of chalk; and I claim that, with a piece of chalk and a blackboard, I am able to explain very clearly all the details of this phenomenon. Not only does the chalk suffice for comprehension as well as vivisection, but it is better; because the experiment is so delicate, so difficult, and, in order to be understood, it must be observed so narrowly, so closely, that out of the whole class scarcely two or three students are able to follow the experiment. The rest of the class have before them only the frightful spectacle of the reactions of a mutilated, suffering animal under excitations which are made in the very depths of a wound on organs which they do not see.

This experiment is rendered more particularly cruel by the fact that an?sthetics cannot be used, precisely because the point in question is the sensibility or non-sensibility of the animal, and consequently by its very nature the operation cannot be made on the insensible animal.[1]

And now, at once entering further into the difficulty of the problem of vivisection, we may ask ourselves if we have the right to allow demonstrations of experimental physiology on living animals that have been rendered insensible by chloroform.

Although, further on, I intend coming back to this important question of an?sthetics, I will say at once I do not understand what repugnance there can be to operating upon an an?sthetised animal. Once he is insensible he cannot suffer; why hesitate, therefore, to perform prolonged experiments upon that insensible being? It appears to me just as inhuman to boil milk as to excite the pneumogastric nerve of a dog rendered incapable of suffering. The milk does not suffer; the dog does not suffer; in both cases it is living matter, but insensible living matter. Consequently, as far as physiological demonstrations are concerned, every individual capable of reflection should recognise that there is nothing wrong in experimenting upon animals that cannot suffer.

I shall, however, make two restrictions. The first is that professors should energetically call the attention of the pupils to the fact that the animal is insensible, and that no one has the right to make the experiment upon a sensitive animal; that we, physiologists, more than all other men, are under the obligation of dealing humanely with animals. The professor of physiology should take advantage of the occasion to develop in his hearers the best and noblest sentiments, those of pity and of generosity. In a word, he should excuse himself, so to speak, for performing vivisection, and prove that such is only legitimate when it entails no suffering.

The second restriction is that the animal thus chloroformed or an?sthetised should never be permitted to awaken. If he shows the slightest sign of sensibility, he should be given chloroform until an?sthesia is complete, and, finally, he ought to be killed after the experiment, without allowing him to regain consciousness.

After all, death under these conditions is a painless end. We ourselves, who will disappear after a long, and certainly painful, agony, in those weary moments of pain which will precede our end, shall envy that absence of suffering, that rapid end of all pain, which is the death of an animal under an an?sthetic.

Let us, therefore, banish every painful experiment the object of which is purely didactic. Moreover, I fail to see what experiments in painful vivisection are necessary for the teaching of physiology. Studies on reflex movement can be made perfectly well on a decapitated animal; and in that case it is well understood that there can be no question of pain; for it would be absurd to suppose that the spinal cord possesses the power of receiving the notion of pain. Such a supposition would mean the negation of the best-established facts of physiology.

Experiments on the heart (notably of the frog and the tortoise) are performed very much better on a decapitated animal than on an animal which is intact; and experiments can even be made on the heart separated from the organism. It would be downright puerile to lack the courage to watch the beating of the living heart of a dead tortoise! As for the mammalia, all experiments on the heart and on the respiration necessary in a course of lectures on physiology are admirably carried out on an animal rendered completely insensible.[2]

We have not, however, quite finished with the difficulties of physiological instruction: there are certain poisons for which chloroform cannot be used.

As the essential property of chloroform is to deaden the nervous cells, the effects of some poisons cannot be studied in an animal profoundly chloroformed. We can watch very well indeed the effects of carbonic oxide, which poisons the blood, but many other poisons no longer produce their characteristic symptoms; nevertheless, it is of the highest importance to show medical students the effects of certain formidable toxic substances.

Permit me to quote myself. However little I may be a partisan of painful experimental demonstrations, I make one exception for an experiment which I consider it essential to present, in all its horror, before the young men who attend my lectures. I refer to absinthe. If two or three drops of essence of absinthe are injected into the veins of a dog, he is at once seized by a violent attack of epilepsy with hallucinations, convulsions, and foaming at the mouth. It is truly a terrible sight, one which fills with disgust and horror all who have witnessed this experiment. But it is precisely for the sake of arousing this disgust, this horror, that I perform the experiment. The unfortunate dog will, during ten minutes, have had an attack of intoxication and absinthian epilepsy; but at the end of an hour he will have recovered completely. At the same time, the two hundred students who have witnessed this hideous spectacle will retain, profoundly engraved on their minds, the memory of that epileptic fury, a memory which will remain with them to the end of their days. They will then be able, by their propaganda against absinthe, to exercise around them a salutary influence, to prevent perhaps ten, fifteen, one hundred human personalities from destroying themselves by the use of this abominable poison. After all, it is better to give a dog ten minutes of absinthism than to allow twenty human families to be plunged, by absinthism, into degradation and misery.

Finally, as far as surgical exercises are concerned, they should never be made on a living animal; as regards demonstrations of experimental physiology intended for instruction, they should be made only on decapitated or an?sthetised animals; and as for intoxications,[3] save on very rare and altogether exceptional occasions, they should not be made the object of experimental demonstrations.

It seems to me that these formal declarations might be accepted by every physiologist as well as by every anti-vivisectionist.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The usages in English laboratories in relation to this experiment are in accord with Professor Richet's views.-(W. D. H.)

[2] It may not be known to many readers, that it is possible to keep alive for hours and even days the heart entirely removed from the body of a dead mammal. On such a heart the action of drugs can be admirably studied and demonstrated. I once had in my own laboratory a rabbit's heart that continued to beat for nearly five days after the remainder of the rabbit had served for the dinner of my laboratory attendant.-(W. D. H.)

[3] The word intoxication here and elsewhere is used in its literal sense, viz., poisoning. It is not limited, as in popular parlance, to the poisonous effects of alcohol.-(W. D. H.)

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We have not yet touched at the root of the problem, for physiology is not mere demonstration. The real point at issue is the search for new truths. The demonstration of an acquired truth, however important this may be, must not be confused with the research for an unknown truth. Now, physiologists claim that they have not only the right-but that it is their duty-to inflict some suffering on animals, if by so doing they diminish human suffering. I am going to put this proposition to the test.

1. It is universally recognised, except perhaps by the Brahmans, that we have the right to kill dangerous or offensive animals. I do not believe there is a man foolish enough not to kill a mosquito which is stinging him. No one would hesitate to crush a viper which is on the point of biting him, or the caterpillar which is eating the leaves of his fruit trees. If an invasion of locusts threatens our harvest, we have the right to stamp out these legions of enemies. To refuse man the right to defend himself against his animal foes is such a ridiculous proposition that it is useless even to attempt to combat it.

Not only have we the right to wage war against offensive animals, such as rats, mice, caterpillars, locusts, bugs, mosquitoes, serpents, wolves, tigers, hyaenas, and all ferocious and mischievous animals, but we have also the right to kill such animals as are necessary for our nourishment. I am quite aware of the fact that certain religions proscribe the use of meat. I am also aware that an exclusively vegetable alimentation might be substituted for our customary mixed diet, which is both animal and vegetable. But, though a vegetable alimentation is possible, our western civilisation is bound up with the principle of a mixed diet in the ordinary conditions of life. If, indeed, alimentation should be exclusively vegetable, it would be useless to hunt, to fish, to rear poultry, to breed cattle for the market; and it would be necessary to confine our nutriment exclusively to wheat, corn, maize, rice, herbs, and fruits. Undoubtedly man, thus nourished, could live, and indeed live very well; but vegetarianism would be such a radical reform in our customs that in an article bearing solely upon vivisection I cannot handle such a vast problem.

I recognise that those anti-vivisectionists who are at the same time strict vegetarians are consistent; they live entirely on fruit and vegetables, make no use of animal flesh, for they contest the right of man to kill an animal for his nourishment. It is difficult to reply to such vegetarian,[4] for, after all, animal alimentation is not indispensable to human life. But we must take things as they actually exist. The bulk of my readers and the majority of anti-vivisectionists are not vegetarians; and it is only an innocent pastime to build up new civilisations in the fantastic realms of Utopia.

We are not, then, addressing ourselves to vegetarians, but to those anti-vivisectionists who feel no compunction in drinking broth or milk or eating the wing of a chicken, who do not shrink with horror from the sight of a cutlet, and who are capable of eating meat twice a day throughout the whole term of their existence. These people know full well that it was necessary to kill the animal which serves them for food: the ox was beaten to death; the sheep had its throat cut open; the pig was bled to death; the cod and the sardine were suffocated. I pass over the tortures which special preparations and elegant sports inflict on the animal for the mere savour of our meals: geese stuffed by force for months whilst nailed down to boards; pheasants, partridges, hares, slaughtered in the hunt; fish thrown into boats, gasping and finally dying after long, agonising struggles. All these and other tortures are inflicted by man on the animal in order to satisfy his pleasure and his appetite.

Perhaps these anti-vivisectionists have never visited a slaughter-house when the moment for killing the sheep has arrived. There, bound and stretched out on an immense table, are to be seen five hundred unfortunate sheep, with their throats thrust forth. The butcher passes in front and, with a stroke of his knife, slashes open the neck and throat of the poor wretches; the blood spouts out, convulsions rend the body, and only at the end of one minute or one and a half minutes does death supervene. This is death in all its savage horror inflicted by man on the animal. There are anti-vivisectionists who accept this. Therefore, they recognise implicitly man's right to kill animals, since they profit by such slaughter for their alimentation; they add, however, that though man has a right to kill, he has no right to cause suffering. Is there no suffering in the slaughter-house? Are an?sthetics ever dreamt of there?

2. Now it is impossible to point out the boundary line which separates the being that suffers from the being that does not suffer; and I defy any one to establish any line of demarcation whatsoever between a being capable of pain and a being incapable of pain.

Plants certainly do not suffer. Already, however, there are certain difficulties in the way of determining the exact boundary line between the animal and the plant. When we expose an infusion of hay to the air, for instance, various microbes develop therein. A learned and minute analysis allows us to distinguish both bacteria and infusoria among the innumerable micro-organisms which swarm in the infusion. Now we know that bacteria are plants and infusoria are animals. If, therefore, all animal life were eliminated from experimentation, we should have no right to boil an infusion of hay, because we know that it contains infusoria which are animals.

These infusoria are so closely related to bacteria that they may be confused with the latter, as indeed has been the case up to the last few years. A number of inferior beings were formerly called zoophytes, that is to say, animal plants; and it is sheer nonsense to suppose that they are conscious of pain. Sponges, corals, sea-anemones, star-fishes, sea-urchins, possess a nervous system which is so little developed, and reactions which are so indistinct, that we can scarcely suppose they possess an intelligent consciousness, and, consequently, sensibility to pain. Moreover, I do not see how their reactions would differ if they possessed the notion of pain. When we touch the tentacles of a star-fish, we notice, near the tentacles touched, a sort of agitation set up among the neighbouring tentacles, but this agitation does not extend to the tentacles of the others' arms; so that a general consciousness does not appear to exist, unless it be in a prodigiously rudimentary state, among inferior beings. In certain classes of the mollusca there is no head. Thus oysters and mussels, named on that account acephala, have in all probability no consciousness. I would have no scruple, therefore, either in eating living oysters, or in experimenting upon living oysters and mussels, since it seems to me evident that the notion of pain does not exist in them.

It is not the same thing with insects; it is here that the first signs of pain begin to appear. Nevertheless, we must be careful to avoid confusing pain with signs of pain. When we take a worm and cut it into three segments, each of these segments will struggle and writhe in a perfect frenzy. It would, therefore, be necessary to admit that pain existed in each of these three segments-in other words, that each fragment possesses a central seat of pain, which is absurd; it is much more rational to suppose that the perturbed movements of the animal are the result of a strong nervous excitation, and that the injury is accompanied by defensive reflex movements but provokes no painful perception.

Among the superior animals however, and especially among the vertebrata, pain exists. There can be no doubt about this, although it is impossible to know exactly in what consists the consciousness of pain in an animal; the most profound obscurity still reigns, and will perhaps always reign, over their consciousness and sensations. It would be ridiculous to deny that a dog suffers when his paw is crushed. Certainly, I fully believe that all pain is much less clearly perceived by the dog than by man. But, after all, it is a phenomenon of the same order and identical, save in intensity.

Now pain, taken in its profoundest sense, consists of two essential elements: a shock to the conscious self, the ego, in the first place; and, in the second place, the prolongation of the shock. If the self is not distinctly conscious, if it does not go so far as to assert itself by the separation of that self from the external world, we cannot say that pain is possible. The ego never asserts itself with so much force as under a very painful impression. So that among beings whose reactions are mechanical, automatic, governed by other forces than by the assertion of the self and a freely deliberate will, pain becomes so indistinct, so confused, that it probably does not exist in the strict psychological sense at all. The greatest philosopher of modern times, Descartes, imagined a system of machine-animals; this idea has been turned into ridicule by the ignorant, but nevertheless we are almost forced to return to it when we dive to the bottom of reflex movements. Now, if we are able to admit that there is a vague consciousness of the selfhood among superior animals, such as the mammalia and birds, this consciousness, as far as concerns the inferior vertebrata, is most certainly extremely hazy, if, indeed, it exists at all. I have difficulty in conceiving that a frog is able to ponder over its ego, assert its existence in presence of the external world, and say or think, I SUFFER. No being suffers unless he is able to think that he suffers, and meditate on his suffering. To suffer means to have consciousness; and as far as it is permissible for a man to picture to himself the sensations of a frog, I should say that the frog has no consciousness of suffering.

Even as regards the more highly developed vertebrata, such as birds, rabbits, and guinea-pigs, suffering is probably of a very obscure nature. It is not enough to say that an animal suffers because we see him animated by the contortions and reactions of defence. The new-born infant, which has neither intelligence nor memory nor consciousness, is probably incapable of real conscious suffering, nevertheless it screams and cries when it is hungry or when it is pricked. But these screams and tears do not suffice to allow us to affirm that the child is suffering real pain. It is a nervous excitation which is translated by the reactions of defence; it is not the conscious assertion of an ego which has been painfully perturbed.

Further, for pain to exist the impression must be durable and not fugitive. The assertion of the ego is not enough. It must be prolonged. A pain, however intense we may suppose it to be, which traverses the organism for a second and which leaves no painful echo behind it, is no real pain. I will allow any one to inflict the most excruciating tortures on me if he can assure me that, at the end of one second, I shall have lost all recollection of the suffering and that no trace of the torture will remain. The extraction of a tooth lasts perhaps only half a second, but you remember it all your life. In any case, for several minutes the pain continues to be atrocious. Therefore we may certainly consider that pain is a phenomenon of memory. Pain is an empty word for every being that has no memory.

From these facts we may evolve the general conclusion that, under penalty of falling into vulgar anthromorphism, we cannot apply to the pain of animals the data which have been gathered on human pain.[5] With man, the developed intelligence and vivacious memory enable pain to acquire an extreme intensity. But with animals, in proportion as the intelligence lessens and the memory becomes more rudimentary, so does pain diminish, and, without having the right to be very affirmative, as we are in profound darkness concerning the consciousness of animals, it appears to me that, as we descend the scale of the animal kingdom, pain rapidly becomes very hazy, scarcely perceived, and as indistinct as the consciousness of the ego.

We have, therefore, the right to perform vivisection on beings which, because they possess no selfhood, do not suffer. Now, this absence of memory, consciousness, and intelligence extends assuredly over the whole of the vegetable kingdom, almost certainly over all the groups of the invertebrata, and also probably over all the inferior vertebrata.

Finally, there remain only the mammalia and birds which are capable of real pain. Although this pain may be obscure and indistinct, it is certain; and we must take it into consideration or fall into barbarism; therefore we shall restrict the problem of vivisection to the vivisection of superior animals, who, alone, are capable of suffering.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The true vegetarian is an extremely rare person. The usual so-called vegetarian ought more properly to be called a non-meat eater, for he does not scruple to consume milk (intended by nature for the calf) and milk products (cream, cheese, and butter) and eggs, nor to wear garments made of wool and leather.-(W. D. H.)

[5] In the little leaflet already referred to, quotation is made of a sentence from Professor Pritchard, which says that the various animals have a skin of different thickness, but that sensibility is the same among all, including man. It seems to me that Professor Pritchard has scarcely looked into the questions of general psychology.

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A few words are first of all necessary to indicate precisely what an?sthesia is.

By definition, an an?sthetic is a substance which, without paralysing the activity of the heart and the respiration, abolishes sensibility. Indeed, whenever general sensibility is abolished, there is, at the same time, abolition of consciousness, of intelligence, and of memory. Another characteristic of an an?sthetic is that its action is of a transient nature. At the end of a certain time, it disappears; and then intelligence, consciousness, and memory return gradually with sensibility.

It is well known that the admirable discovery of general an?sthesia, allowing operations to be performed on man without the accompaniment of pain, was due to chance. It was an American dentist, Horace Wells, and his colleague, Morton (and others also perhaps), who discovered by chance that protoxide of nitrogen (commonly called laughing gas) has the power, when inhaled, of annulling all sensibility to pain for a certain length of time-sufficiently long for a surgical operation (1840). Then they discovered the effects of ether (1842). Since then, many other an?sthetics have been introduced, notably chloroform, prepared by Soubeiran in 1832, but the an?sthetic properties of which were only discovered in 1847 by Flourens and Simpson; so that physiologists and surgeons are now quite familiar with the mode of action of an?sthetics.

An?sthetics, in appropriate doses, poison the nervous cells, which are the seat of intelligence and sensibility, but leave unimpaired the functions of the cardiac nervous system and of the nervous system governing the respiration. An individual under chloroform breathes regularly; his heart beats rhythmically, but all intelligence has disappeared; he has no longer any will or memory or reflex actions, and the most painful operations can be performed on him without provoking the smallest phenomenon of sensibility.

Further, we have no hesitation in asserting that the an?sthetised animal behaves like the an?sthetised man; that is to say, chloroform given to an animal abolishes all sensibility to pain. Vivisection, therefore, on an an?sthetised animal, does not provoke any pain. Physiologists are so convinced of this that, however humane they may be, they have no scruple in performing lengthy vivisections on an animal which is thoroughly an?sthetised.

If chloroform, for some reason or other, cannot be employed, many other an?sthetics, such as chloral and morphia, may be used. Chloral, in certain doses, produces complete an?sthesia, and it is easier to administer than chloroform. Formerly, chloral was injected, by a small puncture, into the veins of rabbits and dogs. I pointed out another method which allows one to avoid even the puncture; it is sufficient to make a rectal injection of the solution of chloral. In two or three minutes, the dog, the rabbit, or the guinea-pig, is seized with a kind of inebriety; he staggers, falls to the ground, and in about ten minutes he is completely an?sthetised. Large doses of morphia can be injected into animals without causing immediate death. An animal under a moderate dose of morphia does not absolutely lose all sensibility to pain; but the slight pain which he then feels is very transient. If the animal is submitted to strong excitation, he wakens for a few seconds, but soon falls back again into profound slumber. Morphia in moderate doses is not such a perfect an?sthetic as chloral or chloroform; it is therefore usual under such circumstances to administer also volatile an?sthetics like chloroform, and quite small quantities of the latter will then produce perfect an?sthesia. If, however, morphia is given in lethal doses, as is sometimes done for comparatively short experiments, it is an absolutely complete an?sthetic in itself, just as it is when a man takes a fatal dose of morphia, or of its parent substance, opium.

Nevertheless, chloroform, chloral, and ether have a very serious disadvantage for the physiologist. They abolish sensibility, but, at the same time, they abolish the majority of the reflex actions in which voluntary muscles are concerned. Now, in many experiments, it is indispensable to be able to study such reflex movements, that is to say, the fundamental reactions of the nervous system. Thus, physiologists, more preoccupied, it must be said, with assuring the immobility than the insensibility of the animal, have had recourse to another substance, curare, the properties of which were investigated by Claude Bernard.

Curare is a poison which the natives on the banks of the Amazon prepare from a bind-weed of the strychnia family. They boil the plant with several ingredients, finally obtaining a sort of blackish resin, or gummy juice, which they place in little gourds, which can be procured also in Europe. This juice is used by South American Indians for their arrows, and physiologists use it to ensure the immobility of the animal on which they are experimenting. Curare dissolves in water, and a solution of a few centigrams injected under the skin of a dog, a cat, a rabbit, will bring about the death of the animal in a few minutes. But death is not due to the arrest of the heart's action, it is due entirely to paralysis of the respiration. Therefore the curarised animal can continue to live for several hours if artificial breathing be substituted for the natural breathing which is paralysed. For several hours the animal is completely motionless; the heart beats with force and regularity, provided that the insufflation of air into the lungs introduces into the blood the quantity of oxygen necessary for the life of the tissues. Now, under these conditions, as Claude Bernard has so well demonstrated, we have no proof that sensibility is abolished also. There is immobility; there is no true an?sthesia. Take two animals, one chloroformed, the other curarised; both are equally inert; but the chloroformed animal is insensible, whilst the curarised animal retains sensibility.

It is impossible, therefore, to say that curare replaces an?sthetics, because curare is not an an?sthetic.[6]

Now, in 1894 I was able to discover a substance which has all the an?sthetic properties of chloroform, and which nevertheless does not abolish reflex actions, so that physiologists are able to use it for experiments which, formerly, necessitated the use of curare. This substance is called chloralose; it is obtained by mixing anhydrous chloral with glucose. It is not necessary for me to describe here in detail its chemical or physiological properties; I will only say that in very small doses (about twenty-five centigrams) it is an excellent hypnotic for man, and that in larger doses, injected into the vein of a dog or a rabbit, it brings about complete an?sthesia without affecting either the breathing, the heart, or the reflex actions.

Since this discovery, many physiologists-and I regret not to be able to say so of every physiologist-have given up curare and use nothing but chloralose, which is a perfect an?sthetic, and which allows the reflex actions to be studied although an?sthesia is perfect.

It may be objected that a tiny puncture has to be made in the vein to introduce the chloralose into the circulation; but this puncture is really such a trifle that it would be sheer childishness to pay any attention to it. What doctor would hesitate to make a puncture in the skin of his patient for the injection of a solution of morphia? However, if sentimentality be pushed to such a degree as to shrink from touching the vein of a dog in order to put him to sleep, even this tiny puncture can be avoided by mixing the chloralose with the food of the animal to be experimented upon. In half an hour or three-quarters of an hour after the mixture is given he is in a state of perfect an?sthesia.

For these reasons, vivisection with an?sthesia seems to me to be quite legitimate. As soon as it is recognised that man has the right to kill the animal, he has the right to kill him as he pleases, provided he spares him all suffering.

Let us also reflect a little on this point: an animal has to die just as much as we ourselves. Now, natural death would certainly be for him a long and cruel agony, lasting several hours, several days, perhaps several weeks. Well, then, we replace hideous old age, the agony of prolonged tortures due to disease, by a dreamless sleep, which at once plunges the animal into nothingness, without his passing through the intermediary stage of necessary suffering. Is this what is called being inhuman? For my part, I shall regret on my death-bed that no physiologist will be found whose conscience will permit him, or, if so, who would have sufficient courage to help me to pass away under the influence of chloroform, ether, chloralose, morphia, or chloral, thus saving me from the throes of the final struggle, and bestowing upon me a peaceful death and an easy termination of all suffering.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] In England, the Vivisection Act expressly states that curare is not to be regarded as an an?sthetic, and this proviso has been loyally accepted by English physiologists. On those rare occasions when curare is used, and the occasions are very rare indeed, and year by year they become rarer, a volatile an?sthetic such as chloroform or A.C.E. (alcohol, chloroform, ether) mixture is administered at the same time in sufficient amount to render an?sthesia absolute. One should add that since Claude Bernard's work on curare, physiologists have seen reason for doubting whether it leaves sensibility intact, as Bernard thought. But as there is doubt on the question, and the available evidence in favour of its lulling sensations is small, it is still considered advisable to retain Bernard's views, and act as though it is not an an?sthetic at all.-(W. D. H.)

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