THE USELESSNESS OF VIVISECTION AS A METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, BY LAWSON TAIT, F.R.C.S., ETC. NEW EDITION, WITH NOTES. READ BEFORE THE BIRMINGHAM PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, Victoria Street Society FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FROM VIVISECTION, International Association FOR THE TOTAL SUPPRESSION OF VIVISECTION. THE USELESSNESS OF VIVISECTION AS A METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. I NEED not go into the general history of Vivisection, for it hardly bears upon the question to which I desire to limit myself; but I think it advisable to formulate a few preliminary conclusions before I come to my immediate subject, in order that I may clear the way for discussion, and show at once the grounds upon which I stand, for I find myself in a position adverse to the view adopted by the great majority of my professional brethren. I dismiss at once the employment of experiments on living animals for the purpose of mere instruction, as absolutely unnecessary, and to be put an end to by legislation without any kind of reserve whatever. In my own education I went through the most complete course of instruction in the University of Edinburgh without ever witnessing a single experiment on a living animal. It has been my duty as a teacher to keep myself closely conversant with the progress of physiology until within the last four years, and up to that date I remained perfectly ignorant of any necessity for vivisection as a means of instructing pupils, and I can find no reason whatever for its introduction into English schools, save a desire for imitating what has been witnessed on the Continent by some of our most recent additions to physiological teaching. In Trinity College, Dublin, the practice has been wholly prevented, and on a recent visit to that B institution I could not find, after much careful inquiry, the slightest reason to believe that any detriment was being inflicted upon the teaching or upon those taught. The position of vivisection as a method of scientific research stands alone amongst the infinite variety of roads for the discovery of Nature's secrets as being open to strong prima facie objection. No one can urge the slightest ground of objection against the astronomer, the chemist, the electrician, or the geologist in their ways of working; and the great commendation of all other workers is the comparative certainty of their results. But for the physiologist, working upon a living animal, there are the two strong objections: that he is violating a strong and widespread public sentiment, and that he tabulates results of the most uncertain and often quite contradictory kind. I do not propose to deal with the sentimental side of the question at all, though no one can doubt it is a very strong element in the case as maintained by public opinion. I shall deal simply with the inquiry: Has this method of scientific research-Vivisection-contributed so much to the relief of suffering or to the advance of human knowledge as to justify its continuance in spite of the manifest objections to it? My own answer I shall try to give in the following pages, merely premising that an answer to justify vivisection must be clear and decisive, must be free from doubt of any kind, and, above all, it must not assume the protection of a "privileged mystery." This is a question, I maintain, which can be discussed by an educated layman just as well, perhaps better, than by a physician or a surgeon or a professional physiologist. It is a question chiefly of historical criticism, and we must have a conclusive answer concerning each advance which is quoted as an instance, how much of it has been due to vivisectional experiment and how much to other sources, and this amount must be clearly and accurately ascertained. It will not do, as has been the case in many of the arguments, to draw such a picture as that of an amputation in the seventeenth century and one performed last year, and say that the change is due to vivisection. We might just as well point to the prisons of the Inquisition and then to one of our present convict establishments and claim all the credit of the change for the fact that our judges wear wigs. The real questions are: What advances in detail are due to vivisection? Could these advances have been made without vivisection? If vivisection was necessary for elementary and primitive research is it any longer necessary, seeing that we have such splendid and rapidly-developing methods in hundreds of other directions? Have we made complete and exhaustive use of all other available methods, not open to objection? And finally, are the advances based upon vivisection of animals capable of being adapted conclusively for mankind, for whose benefit they are professedly made? It must be perfectly clear that to answer all these questions specific instances must be given, and that they must be analysed historically with great care. This has already been done in many instances, and I am bound to say, in every case known to me, to the utter disestablishment of the claims of vivisection. Take the case of the alleged discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey, and it can be clearly shown that quite as much as Harvey knew was known before his time, and that it is only our insular pride which has claimed for him the merit of the discovery. That he made any solid contribution to the facts of the case by vivisection is conclusively disproved, and this was practically admitted before the Commission by such good authorities as Dr. Acland and Dr. Lauder-Brunton.* The cir * My attention has been drawn to a book which has just been published under the title of "Physiological Cruelty: or, Fact v. Fancy, by Philanthropos." This book purports to be a scientific contribution to the much-discussed question of Vivisection, but its author departs from the usual custom of writers on |