However ungrateful the discussion of this subject may be, since, in truth and justice, it must be considered with an unbiassed and unprejudiced mind, and elicit observations which may prove offensive to many, and absurd to some, it is one of such moment on the score of humanity, that I undertake the task without hesitation or reluctance.

In support of the practice it has been urged, that mankind owes the most valuable discoveries in the science of medicine and its collateral branches to the vivisection of animals; that since the brute creation was intended for the use of our species, we could not apply them to a more important and justifiable purpose, than that of endeavouring to initiate ourselves in those wonderful functions of nature, a knowledge of which would give us a clearer insight of the mysterious machinery, and thereby the better enable us to remedy their derangement when in a morbid state. It has further been maintained, that when man to indulge his capricious appetites and his various amusements, tortures every creature that can minister to his depraved fancies or his unruly pleasures—he would be more excusable, if not fully justifiable even in the eyes of the most sentient philanthropist, in submitting these creatures to smaller or greater sufferings, if mankind could be ultimately benefited by this sacrifice of feeling. What, indeed, could be our commiseration when beholding the agonies of a mangled dog or a cat, if the throes of his sufferings, and the incalculable pangs he endured, could restore a beloved child to his disconsolate parents, or a sinking father to his helpless family. Moreover, is not man, from the very nature of his social position, created to suffer more than animals, not only from the many natural diseases to which flesh is heir, but to the torturing wounds received on the field of battle—the burning fevers of distant climes—the chances of war, pestilence, and famine—all of which are aggravated by that power of judgment, that reflection and consciousness derivating from the possession of an immortal soul, which makes the future more horrible than the present, however great its miseries may be. It has also been urged, that animals in their savage state, undomesticated by the humane interference of man, inflict upon each other injuries under which they linger and die in excruciating pain; and, therefore, when we submit them to similar agonies, we only fill up the intended measure of their destined sufferings.

It is painful to assert it, but all these allegations, I consider as not only unsupported by facts and experience, but grounded on speculative sophistry; for, in regard to the injuries which animals in their wild condition may inflict upon each other, they may be the result of the wise provisions of the CREATOR, with which man, however presumptuous he be, has nothing to do, and even were it in his power to check their furious and destructive propensities, it is more than likely, from what we daily witness, that he would turn them to a profitable or a pleasurable account, as most probably, the sight of a combat between a wild elephant and a rhinoceros (provided the spectators were perfectly secure), would attract a greater multitude, and draw more money, than a dog-fight or a bull-bait—a tiger-hunt, were it not attended with some personal danger which requires courage, would prove more delectable than the pursuit of a timid hare.

But I now come to a much more important consideration—the benefit to mankind that has occurred or that may be derived from such experiments. And here I must give as my most decided opinion, that if any such beneficial results did arise from the inquiries, they were not commensurate with the barbarity of the experiments; nay, I shall endeavour to show, that they are frequently more likely to deceive us, by propping up fallacious and tottering theories, than to shed any valuable light on the subject of investigation.

I readily admit that there does exist much analogy in the structure of man and certain animals in the higher grades of the creation; that the functions of respiration, digestion, absorption, locomotion, are to a certain extent similar, and that experiments made to ascertain the mechanism of these functions (if I may so express myself), may tend, in some measure, to teach us that which the inanimate corpse of man cannot exhibit; but, admitting to the full extent of argumentation, the analogy of these functions, I do maintain that the phenomena of life differ widely between man and animals, and the very nervous influences which we seek to discover are, in life, of a nature totally different. Were it not so, would the senses of different animals, rendered more or less acute or obtuse according to their natural pursuits and protective habits, be so materially unequal? Indeed, the laws of nature that submit every creature to the immutable will of Providence are totally unlike; and each apparatus of life in divers beings seems to be especially calculated for the identical race: what is poison to the one is an aliment to another; and the vivid light which the eyes of one creature can bear, would produce blindness in another; the same effluvia which one animal would not notice, would guide another over trackless wastes in search of friend or foe. I therefore maintain, that the mere material examination of the living organs of animals can no more tend to illustrate their vital principle, than the keenest anatomical labours can enable us to attain a knowledge of the nature of our immortal and imperishable parts.

I shall enter still more minutely into this subject. In the barbarous experiments to which I allude, animals bearing the strongest resemblance to man (at least in their conformation, for Heaven, in its mercy, did not gift them with what we call mind) are usually selected amongst such as possess a heart with four cavities, and double lungs. The dog—the natural companion of man, his most faithful friend in weal and woe, the guardian of his couch and property, the protector of his infants, the only mourner o’er the pauper’s grave!—dogs, are in general selected for the scientific shambles; and this for obvious reasons,—they are more easily procured, and at a cheaper rate; moreover, they are more manageable and unresisting under the mangling scalpel. Well, thousands of these creatures have been starved to death with butter, sugar, and oil, to prove that they must die in all the aggravated pangs of hunger,—pangs producing ulcerated eyes, blindness, staggers, parched up organs, unless their food contains azote. Will any one maintain, that a similar nourishment would produce similar effects on man? Certainly not. The one was created by nature to consume animal substances highly azotized; the other, from the transition of life to which he is born to be exposed, is essentially polyphagous.

Then, again, millions of animals have had their bones broken, scraped, bruised in every possible manner, to discover the process of the formation of bone, called Osteogeny: has a single fracture of a human limb been more rapidly consolidated by these experiments, which fill hundreds of pages in the works of Duhamel, Haller, Scarpa, and other physiologists? Animals will digest substances that would kill a human being—have the experiments in which their palpitating stomach and intestines have been torn from them, lacerated, pricked, cut, separated from their surrounding vessels and nerves, increased our means of relieving the dyspepsia of the sensualist, the surfeit of the glutton, or the nausea of the dissolute? On the other hand, the gin, the ardent spirits in which the drunkard wallows, would soon destroy what we think proper to call a brute!

In many animals, moreover, there is a tenacity of life—highly convenient to the physiologist, since it enables him to prolong his experimental cruelties—which man does not possess; and we find the electric fluid acting much longer upon their muscles even after death, than on a human body or its severed limbs.

Another point to be considered is the assertion of the advantages to be derived from contemplating the living viscera in a healthy state. Good God! a healthy state!—what a mockery, what a perversion of language! Behold the dog, stolen from his master—(for theft is encouraged to supply the man of science—and theft of the worst character, since it is of the most cruel nature;—our goods, our money, may be restored, replaced by industry, but what hand can restore the faithful companion of our solitude, whose looks seem to study our thoughts! left us perhaps by the lost one of our heart, symbol of that fidelity which death alone abridged!) the poor animal hungry, chained up for days and nights pining for his lost master, is led to the butchery. Still he looks up for compassion to man, his natural protector, licks the very hand that grasps him until his feeble limbs are lashed to the table! In vain he struggles—in vain he expresses his sufferings and his fears in piteous howls: a muzzle is buckled on to stifle his troublesome cries, and his concentrated groans heave his agonized breast in convulsive throes, until the scalpel is plunged in his helpless extended body! His blood flows in torrents, his very heart is exposed to the torturer’s searching hand, and nerves which experience anguish from a mere breath of air, are lacerated with merciless ingenuity,—and this is a healthy state! The viscera exposed to atmospheric influence are already parched, and have lost their natural colour, and not a single function is performed in normal regularity. One only effort is natural until vital power is exhausted—a vain instinctive resistance against his butchers!—The heart sickens at such scenes, when cruelty that would bid defiance to the savage’s vindictive barbarity, sacrifices thousands of harmless beings at the shrine of vanity. For let the matter not be mistaken—these experiments are mostly made to give an appearance of verisimilitude to the most absurd and visionary doctrines; and if a proof were required of this assertion, it can be easily obtained by reading the works of various physiologists at different periods, who all draw different deductions from similar facts. For when the mind labours under a certain impression, or a reputation is founded upon the support of a doctrine, these facts are distorted with Procrustean skill to suit the views of the experimentalist.

Let us, for instance, consider the subject of digestion, to ascertain the nature of which, thousands—millions of animals have been ripped up alive. This practice has been attributed to coction, to elixation, to fermentation, to putrefaction, to trituration, to maceration, to dissolution, and to many other shades and shadows of similar theories; and were additional millions of living victims sacrificed in further scientific hecatombs, posterity may deem our present vain glorious physiologists as ignorant of the matter as they might consider their numerous predecessors in the same career of groping curiosity. Has the cruel extraction of the spleen from a thousand dogs to show that they could live without that viscous, explained the nature of its functions, or enabled us more successfully to control its obstinate diseases?

We know nothing of the phenomena of life; all our functions are regulated by an allwise Power that sets at naught human presumption—and Hippocrates justly called this harmonic organization a concensus, or a circle, in which we could not discover the commencement or the end.

There does however exist one course of experiments which probably might prove beneficial to mankind. The search of antidotes to various poisons that are too frequently administered by criminal hands; but here again experiments fall short of our expectations, for these substances act differently upon different animals, and even to some the prussic acid in large doses may be given with impunity. But I affirm, and can prove it, that in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, in which such substances are given to animals, it is not with a view to discover antidotes, but to ascertain, according to the unfortunate creature’s species, size, and condition, how long he can linger under the pangs of the poison, or what is the dose sufficient to occasion death. Of what benefit can it be to humanity to know that thirty drops of hydro-cyanic acid destroys dogs and cats in the space of six, twelve, or fifteen minutes; that twenty-six drops kill a rabbit in three minutes; that one drop introduced into the bill of a sparrow deprives it of life in eleven minutes; that a duck takes fifteen drops to put an end to its convulsive struggles; and that the exposing animals to the influence of hydro-cyanic acid gas destroys them in two, four, six, eight, and ten seconds? What benefit does society reap from the knowledge that, after the most excruciating suffering, a dog died in five hours after having taken half an ounce of tobacco, and that another ill-fated canine victim in whose limbs tobacco had been introduced, died of paralysis and in horrible convulsions in about an hour? Were antidotes sought in the thousands of similar cases that I could adduce? Certainly not—the experiments merely went to ascertain the power of the drug, and the only possible good that could have resulted from the barbarous trial, was the appearance of the viscera after death; a fact that one experiment could demonstrate as well as one thousand—but which could be more effectually exhibited in human creatures who died from the effects of deleterious substances. In short, these experiments are nothing more than cold calculations on the tenacity of life in various individuals. Every one knows that arsenic and prussic acid destroy life, and surely such an assertion on the part of a lecturer to his pupils should satisfy them on this head without having recourse to illustrations of the fact. In the case of supposed poison introduced into alimentary substances, and which are given to dogs to prove the criminal act, surely chemistry is not so little advanced in its boasted progress, not to be able to afford us a test of the presence of poison, without having recourse to so savage an expedient.

Another most absurd argument has been upheld in favour of these experiments in the presence of pupils, that of hardening their feelings in the contemplation of acute sufferings. This assertion is worse than idle and absurd; many of our most able surgeons and anatomists have never practised these cruelties, and yet their nerves have not been unstrung during the most fearful operations. With hands imbrued in blood I have performed the arduous duties of my profession in fourteen battles, yet I never could witness these heartless exhibitions without disgust, and I am sorry to say contempt. I am aware that these sentiments have been called puling professions of humanity; nay, that there are men and women who would weep bitterly over the sufferings of a sick pet, while they would view accumulated human misery unmoved. These are painful anomalies arising too frequently in disappointed minds, when the cup of life has been imbittered by ingratitude, and the “milk of human kindness” curdled by deceit. These are not reasons to prevent us from censuring acts of cruelty, when they may be considered useless in a scientific point of view, and degrading to mankind in regard to private feelings. I can readily believe that the best and the most humane of men, may be induced by an ardent desire to elucidate obscure parts of physiologic inquiry, to try such experiments; but most undoubtedly—unless the object to be so attained was commensurate with the sacrifice and abnegation of humane sentiments, I should deeply lament their obduracy, and be inclined to doubt their benevolence towards their fellow-creatures.

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish’d manners, and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility), the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that hath humanity forewarned
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

In fine, whenever it is not evident that such practices can benefit mankind and increase our means of reducing the sum of human misery—it is a barbarous and criminal abuse of that power which the Creator has given us over the inferior grades of animated beings; and it is deeply to be lamented that no legislative measures can be adopted to restrain it, if it cannot be altogether prohibited. At any rate, professors alone should be allowed the “indulgence,” but in no instance should such pseudo-scientific practices become a public exhibition or a student’s pastime. Brought up in early life, amidst all the complicated horrors of a revolution, I have been sadly convinced that the contagion of CRUELTY is much more doubtless and active than that of PESTILENCE!

THE END.

WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE STRAND.

Footnotes:

[1] During these ten years the following works appeared:

Montesquieu—Esprit des Lois, 1748.
—— DÉfense de l’Esprit des Lois, 1750.
Rousseau—Discours sur l’Influence des Sciences et des Lettres, 1750.
—— Discours sur l’InÉgalitÉ des Conditions, 1754.
Voltaire—Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Esprit des nations, 1757.
Condillac—Essai sur l’Origine des Connaissances Humaines, 1746.
—— TraitÉ des Sensations, 1754.
HelvÉtius—De l’Esprit, 1758.

[2] The Homo diluvii testis, the skeleton of which was described by Scheuchzer, was considered by Cuvier to have belonged to a species of Salamander.

[3] For the further illustration of this curious subject, Dr. Eliotson’s valuable notes on Blumenbach may be consulted to advantage.

[4] The dream of Ertucules seems to have been connected with similar phantasies. “I dreamed, venerable sir,” said he to Edebales, “that the brightness of the moon did proceed from your bosom, and thence afterwards did pass into mine: when it was thither come, there sprung up a tree from my umbilic, which overshadowed at once many nations, mountains, and valleys. From the root of this tree there issued waters sufficient to irrigate vines and gardens; and then both my dream and my sleep forsook me.” Edebales after some pause thus answered: “There will be born unto you, my good friend, a son whose name shall be Osman; he shall wage many wars, and shall acquire victory and glory; and my daughter must be married to your son Osman, and she is the brightness which you saw come from my bosom into yours, and from both sprung up the tree.”—Lips. Marsil.

[5] Vide the article “Enthusiasm.”

[6] The choenix contained a pint.

[7] These lines afford a convincing proof of the minute attention the ancients paid to the phenomena of nature. Our poet had no doubt observed the frequent effect of the application of cold to the surface of the body producing a reaction in the circulation tending to overcome the noxious agent by a glow of heat, which in many instances of predisposition may assume a febrile character.

[8] A Treatise on Insanity.

[9] Pallido il Sol and Per quanto dolce amplasso of Hasse.

[10] Much curious matter will be found in Mr. Nathan’s valuable work upon music, entitled, “Musurgia vocalis.”

[11] That animals are more frequently guided by the sense of smelling than by sight, is evident in those plants that shed a cadaverous effluvia, especially the arum dracunculus and the stapelia variegata of the Cape, which attract various insects that usually deposit their eggs in a stercoraceous or corrupt nidus. Here these insects have been deceived by vision, and imagined in their illusion that they had safely lodged their progeny in carrion.

[12] According to Ælian, the presence of this fish indicated the approaching overflow of the Nile.

[13] The Irish, in their metaphorical language, give a corporeal form to foul effluvia, and one of them assured me that he had a terrier who would always cock up his tail and bark whenever he saw a stink.

[14] Diodorus, Strabo, and other ancient writers, state that the beer of the Egyptians called Zythus was scarcely inferior to wine. This beer was made with barley, to which was added the lupin, the skirret, and the root of an Assyrian plant. We find the following in Columella:

“Jam siser, Assyriaque venit quÆ semine radix
Sectaque prÆbetur madido satiata lupino,
Ut Pelusiaci proviset pocula zythi.”

The vicinity of Pelusium was famed for this beverage and its lentils.

[15] Diemerbrook states that, in the Plague of Nimeguen all those who were taken ill about new and full moon rarely escaped.

[16] Dr. Desgenettes, physician to the French army, in order to inspire confidence among the troops, inoculated himself twice without experiencing any other consequence than a slight inflammation of the inoculated parts. Sonnini mentions a Russian surgeon, who was a prisoner in Constantinople with a number of his countrymen, and who took it into his head to inoculate his comrades, with a view of protecting them from the contagion; but, unfortunately, two hundred of them died, and, fortunately perhaps for the survivors, the operator himself died of his own treatment.

[17] On this subject see what has been already said in the preceding article of Food, its use and abuse, in Dr. Beaumont’s experiments.

[18] Otway.

[19] Shaftesbury.

[20] Oil is, however, a useful application to wounds in warm climates. During the retreat of our troops after the battle of Talavera, I found the wounds of many of our men, that had not been dressed for three or four days, pullulating with maggots. This was not the case with the Spanish soldiers, who, to prevent this annoyance (which was more terrific than dangerous), had poured olive oil upon their dressings. I invariably resorted to the same practice when I subsequently had to remove the wounded in hot weather.

[21] A Hebrew proverb originating from a tradition that Abraham wore a precious stone round his neck, which preserved him from disease, and which cured sickness when looked upon. When Abraham died, God placed this stone in the sun.

[22] The ancients considered the spleen the seat of mirth, and the liver the organ of love; hence their old proverb.

[23] Cordia Sebestena; according to some, the C. Myxa L., a species of Egyptian date. It was formerly employed as a demulcent. A viscid black glue was also prepared from it, and exported in considerable quantities from Alexandria.

[24] Quod CÆretani totum orbem vano quodam ac turpi superstitionum genere ludificantes continuÒ peregrinantur, familia domi relicta.

[25] Patin called it l’impertinente nouveautÉ du siÉcle.

[26] The priesthood in thus stigmatizing the medical profession so soon as its practice ceased to be their exclusive privilege, displayed the same spirit of intolerance and thirst for omnipotent sway that characterized their anathemas on the drama when they no longer were the authors, actors, and managers of their own sacrilegious plays, which they called mysteries and moralities. Previously to the drama becoming the pursuit of laymen, the monkish exhibitions had been so holy, that one of the popes granted a pardon of one thousand days to every person who went to the plays performed in the Whitsun week, beginning with a piece called “The Creation,” and ending the season with the performance of “The General Judgment.” In these representations the performers belonged to various corporations, and acted under the direction of the clergy. “The Creation” was performed by the Drapers,—“The Deluge” by the Dyers,—“Abraham, Melchizedek, and Lot,” by our friends the Barbers,—“The Purification” by the Blacksmiths,—“The Last Supper” by the Bakers,—“The Resurrection” by the Skinners,—and “The Ascension” by the Tailors.

The following curious anecdotes are recorded in the description of a mystery performed at Veximel, near Metz, by the order of Conrad Bayer, bishop of the diocese. This play was called The Passion; and it appears that by some mismanagement a priest by the name of Jean de Nicey, curate of MÉtrange, who played Judas, was nigh meeting with an untimely end; for his neck had slipped and tightened the noose by which he was suspended to the tree, and, had he not been cut down, he would have performed the part most effectually.

A play was acted in one of the principal cities in England by these clerical performers, representing the terrestrial Paradise, when Adam and Eve made their appearance entirely naked.

[27] Mr. J. A. St. John.

[28] As this worthy never took off his cuirass, it may be shrewdly suspected that his lashes were such as our old friend Sancho PanÇa inflicted on the tree.

[29] The diseases to which the blood is subject was another ground upon which the vitality of this fluid was founded. The most remarkable kind of diseased blood is that which occurs in cholera, where it is dark, nearly black, even in the arteries. The cause of this phenomenon is by no means decided. Dr. Thomson attributes it to a diseased condition of the blood, which unfits it for being duly arterialised. Dr. O’Shaughnessy denies the assertion, and proves that choleric blood can be rendered florid by the absorption of oxygen. Dr. Stevens, in his treatise on the blood, attributes this dark appearance to the contagion of the malady, which throws the fluids into a morbid state, the effect of which is the diminution of the saline matter which the healthy blood contains. He observed that in cholera-hospitals the blood of all the persons residing in them was also dark. It is, however, more than probable that this morbid condition of the blood arises from the deranged state of the circulation, and may be attributed to a disease of the solids, which must invariably affect the fluids that they propel with more or less energy, flowing in a rapid current, or in a sluggish stream.

I have fully illustrated this want of oxygen in the blood of cholera patients in a work I published in Bordeaux, in 1831, entitled Observations sur la nature et le traitement du Cholera Morbus d’Europe et d’Asie; and, from several experiments subsequently made on cholera patients, I feel convinced that the inspiration of oxygen gas will be ultimately found the most energetic and effective practice in combating this fearful disease.

By the experiments lately made by Dr. DonnÉ of Paris, it has been found that the globules of blood, when submitted to microscopic examination, varied in magnitude according to the description of animals from which it was drawn. In certain diseases, globules of pus have also been detected in the sanguiferous stream. They were larger than those of the blood, and, instead of being defined by a marginal line, were fringed on their circumference, and their centre was striated with interwoven lines.

The same physiologist discovered animalcules in the pus of certain ulcers not dissimilar in appearance to the vibrio lineola of MÜller. Other animalcules, which he has named the tricomonas vaginalis, were also found in great number when the mucous membranes of the organ (whence the latter part of their denomination was derived) were in a state of inflammation. These animalculi could not be detected in healthy mucus. The knowledge of this influence of inflammation may lead to many important practical results.

[30] During the horrors of the French Revolution, various experiments were made by Sue and other physiologists to ascertain if the bodies of the guillotined victims possessed sensibility. No conclusion, however, could be elicited from these inquiries, which gave rise to many absurd tales, such as that the face of Charlotte Corday blushed when the executioner slapped it, as he held it out to the enraptured Parisians.

[31] Organon, xxxii.

[32] Op. cit. xxxi.

[33] Ibid. xxxiii.

[34] Op. cit. xxxviii.

[35] Organon, xl. This will be found to be the case in all diseases that are dissimilar; the stronger suspends the weaker, except in case of complication, which is a rare occurrence in acute diseases, but they never cure each other reciprocally.

[36] On Chronic Diseases. Translation of Begel, p. 107.

[37] Sir Gilbert Blane’s Medical Logic.

[38] Organon, v.

[39] Ibid. vi.

[40] Sir G. Blane.

[41] The celebrated Boyle used to apply to his wrists for the same purpose, the moss that grew from a human skull.

[42] The term that designated magnetic manipulation.

[43] Since the first edition of this work was published, animal magnetism has become the subject of much controversy and animadversion in London and various parts of the empire. The utmost virulence has as usual been resorted to, not only to impugn the doctrine, but to stigmatize its supporters; while, on the other hand, the greatest ingenuity has been displayed to convince unbelievers, and to give to the many experiments practised for this purpose the semblance of undeniable facts. Baron Dupotet’s labours and publications have been submitted to the test of a public investigation; while Dr. Elliotson and several other practitioners have aided the practice apparently with success. It would be foreign to the nature of this work to consider this matter more elaborately; it is now before the tribunal of public opinion, whose decision we must await.

[44] Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers, &c.

[45] That serious accidents might have resulted from the use of hellebore is most likely, since various plants resembling it have been mistaken for it; chiefly the adonis vernalis, trollius EuropÆus, actÆa spicata, astrantia major, veratrum album, and the aconitum neomontanum, the last of which is a most virulent poison.

[46] The advocates of fasting have calculated that in one hundred and fifty-two hermits who had lived eleven thousand five hundred and eighty-nine years, the average age was seventy three years and three months.

[47] On this very curious subject the reader may consult the various statistical works of Quetelet.

[48] It is somewhat strange, but in the mountains of the South of Spain, there does still exist a dance called los Titanos, in which the performers raise their hands in threatening attitude against the heavens!

[49] The matter of insensible perspiration is calculated at being daily equal weight to one half of the food.

[50] Madder, when given to animals tinges the surface of their bones with a red hue.

[51] The life of J. E. Jenner, M.D. &c., by John Bacon, M.D. &c.

[52] History of Egyptian Mummies, &c. &c., 1834.

[53] In a work on the “Anatomy of the Passions,” which I am about publishing, I have entered most minutely into this important sympathy.