An Ethical Problem | Page 4

than in its attitude toward
vivisection. Why this uncertainty exists it is not very difficult to discern.
In the first place, no definition of the word itself has been suggested
and adopted sufficiently concise and yet so comprehensive as to
include every phase of animal experimentation. It is a secret practice.
Formerly more or less public, it is now carried on in closed laboratories,
with every possible precaution against the disclosure of anything liable
to criticism. Quite apart from any questions of usefulness, it is a pursuit
involving problems of the utmost fascination for the investigating
mind--questions pertaining to Life and Death--the deepest mysteries
which can engage the intellect of mankind. We find it made especially
attractive to young men at that period of life when their encouraged and
cultivated enthusiasm for experimentation is not liable to be adequately
controlled by any deep consideration for the "material" upon which
they work. Sometimes animal experimentation is painless, and
sometimes it involves suffering which may vary in degree from distress
which is slight to torments which a great surgeon has compared to

burning alive, "the utmost degree of prolonged and excruciating
agony." By some, its utility to humanity is constantly asserted, and by
others as earnestly and emphatically and categorically denied.
Confronted by contradictory assertions of antagonists and defenders,
how is the average man to make up his mind? Both opinions, he
reasons, cannot possibly be true, and he generally ranges himself under
the banner of the Laboratory or of its enemies, according to his degree
of confidence in their assertions, or his preference for the ideals which
they represent.
Now, the object of all controversy should be to enable us to see facts as
they are--to get at the truth. That difference of opinion will exist may
be inevitable; for opinions largely depend upon our ideals, and these of
no two individuals are precisely the same. But so far as facts are
concerned, we should be able to make some approach to agreement,
and especially as regards the ethical supremacy of certain ideals.
But first of all we need to define Vivisection. What is it?
Originally implying merely the cutting of a living animal in way of
experiment, it has come by general consent to include all scientific
investigations upon animals whatsoever, even when such researches or
demonstrations involve no cutting operation of any kind. It has been
authoritatively defined as "experiments upon animals calculated to
cause pain." But this would seem to exclude all experimentation of a
kind which is not calculated to cause pain; experiments regarding
which all the "calculation" is to avoid pain; as, for example, an
experiment made to determine the exact quantity of chloroform
necessary to produce death without return of consciousness. The British
Royal Commission of 1875 defined it as "the practice of subjecting live
animals to experiments for scientific purposes," avoiding any reference
to the infliction of pain; yet, so far as pertains to the justification of
vivisection, the whole controversy may turn on that. Any complete
definition should at least contain reference to those investigations to
which little or no objection would be raised, were they not part of the
"system." It should not omit reference, also, to those refinements of
pain-infliction for inadequate purposes--also a part of a "system," and

which, to very distinguished leaders in the medical profession, have
seemed to be inexcusable and wrong.
Suppose, then, we attempt a definition that shall be inclusive of all
phases of the practice.
"Vivisection is the exploitation of living animals for experiments
concerning the phenomena of life. Such experiments are made, FIRST,
for the demonstration, before students, of facts already known and
established; or, SECOND, as a method of investigation of some theory
or problem, which may be with or without relation to the treatment of
human ailments. Such experiments may range from procedures which
are practically painless, to those involving distress, exhaustion,
starvation, baking, burning, suffocation, poisoning, inoculation with
disease, every kind of mutilation, and long-protracted agony and
death."
A definition of this kind will cover 99 per cent. of all experiments. The
extreme pro-vivisectionist may protest that the definition brings into
prominence the more painful operations; yet for the majority of us the
only ground for challenging the practice at all is the pain, amounting to
torment in some cases, which vivisection may involve. They are rare,
some one says. But how do we know? The doors of the laboratory are
closed. Of practices secretly carried on, what can we know? That every
form of imaginable torment has at some time been practised in the
name of Science, we may learn from the reports of experimenters
themselves, and from the writings of men who have denounced them. It
was Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, of Harvard University, the most eminent
surgeon of his day,