"The society does not concern itself with the results of vivisection, whether good or bad, and thinks it is beside the mark to discuss them." (Report of the Canine Defence League, 1903.)"When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of tears is dry, the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of the desert." (Colonel Ingersoll.)"I make no pretence to criticise vivisectional experiments on the ground of their technical failure or success. I dogmatically postulate humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character." (Mr. Bernard Shaw.)"The vivisector, when he stands over his animal, whether with anæsthetics or without anæsthetics, is creating, even if the physical health of the nation is enhanced by it, a moral shroud not only for himself, but a moral shroud the edges of which are continually extending into the thought atmosphere, and so deadening the national conscience at large." (Mr. Herbert Burrows.)"The developed taste for blood and cruelty must in the end find its full satisfaction in the vivisection of human beings when they have the misfortune to come under the power of our future doctors." (Bishop Bagshawe.)
"The society does not concern itself with the results of vivisection, whether good or bad, and thinks it is beside the mark to discuss them." (Report of the Canine Defence League, 1903.)
"When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of tears is dry, the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of the desert." (Colonel Ingersoll.)
"I make no pretence to criticise vivisectional experiments on the ground of their technical failure or success. I dogmatically postulate humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character." (Mr. Bernard Shaw.)
"The vivisector, when he stands over his animal, whether with anæsthetics or without anæsthetics, is creating, even if the physical health of the nation is enhanced by it, a moral shroud not only for himself, but a moral shroud the edges of which are continually extending into the thought atmosphere, and so deadening the national conscience at large." (Mr. Herbert Burrows.)
"The developed taste for blood and cruelty must in the end find its full satisfaction in the vivisection of human beings when they have the misfortune to come under the power of our future doctors." (Bishop Bagshawe.)
Here, in these five sentences taken merely out of the heap, is the ethical argument; so facile, so pleasant to self, so confident of a good hearing. No wonder that the societies, now that the facts of science are too strong for them, are falling back on the facts of ethics. In the beginning, thirty years ago, they were created out of ethics; they were born auspiciously. What a welcome they had! Tennyson and Browning and Ruskin, Westcott and Martineau, the late Lord Shaftesbury,and her Majesty the late Queen—these all, and many more, among whom were some of the best men and women of the Victorian Age, were their friends. There never was a cause that enjoyed a better send-off. Everything was in its favour. Magendie and Schiff and Mantegazza had made people sick of experiments on animals. The advocates of the method had not very much to show on its behalf; no bacteriology, save as a far-off vision; no great discoveries lately in physiology or pathology. Thirty years ago, good and true men fought a way for the Act; and there are few now who think the worse of them for it, or grudge them that victory. But, though ethics may be the same always, yet the arguments from them are not. The ethical argument now—we try to find it, and it takes all shapes, and vanishes in a cloud of foul language. That text about the sparrows, which is never quoted in full; that fear about the vivisection of hospital patients; and all that nonsense about moral shrouds, and serpents in the desert, and developed tastes for blood; and Mr. Bernard Shaw, who on May 22nd, 1900, suggests to the National Society that "the laceration of living flesh quickens the blood of the vivisector as the blood of the hunter, the debauchee, or the beast of prey is undoubtedly quickened in such ways,"[48]and a week later, before the London Society, dogmatically postulates humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character; and the lady who says,Oh, Pharisees and hypocrites! Oh, cruel and ruthless egotists!and the Falstaff's army of the osteopath, and the fruitarian, and theantithis, that, and the other, who follow the cause;and all these discordant societies, and the begging for money—where, in all this confusion, can we find the ethical argument? Mercy is admirable, but I will wait till mercy and truth are met together. Let us leave the societies to their ethics, and see what they have to say for themselves in the lower realms of science.
First, there are the general arguments. That experiments on animals are useless, or of very little use; that they contradict each other; that you cannot argue from animals to men, or from an animal under experiment to a man not under experiment; that the discoveries made by the help of experiments on animals might have been made as well, or better, without that help; that the way to advance medicine and surgery has been, and is, and always will be, not by experiments on animals, but by clinical andpost-mortemstudies. These and the like arguments we may call general; they are the complement of the horrible stories and magic-lantern slides of the itinerant lecturer.
1. The vague statement that these experiments are of little use, may be answered in several ways. It does not come well from those who say that the question is ethical, not utilitarian; who neither know, nor care, nor are agreed, what is the real value of these experiments. "I challenge you," says one, "to show me what good they have done." Another says, "I admit that they may perhaps have done a little good; but so little; they are a bad investment; you would get a better return from other methods of work." Another says, "I don't care whether they have or havenot done good; this is a matter of conscience; we must not do evil that good may come; I grant all, or nearly all, your instances—malaria, and diphtheria, and cerebral localisation, and so forth; but the question is a moral question, and we must not inflict pain on animals, save for their own good." Probably the best answer is, that good has indeed come, and is coming, and so far as we can see will come, out of these experiments; that the instances given are indeed true; that these results were won out of many failures, and contradictions, and fallacies, and harkings-back; and that they have stood the test of time, and will underlie all better results, all surer methods, that shall take their place.
2. The statement that "you cannot argue from animals to man" is not true. Why should it be? Take tubercle, tetanus, or rabies. The tubercle-bacillus is the same thing in a man, a test-tube, or a guinea-pig; the virus of rabies is transmitted from dogs to men; oysters harbour typhoid, fleas carry the plague, diverse mosquitoes carry malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, and dengue. Take the circulation of the blood, the nature and action of the motor centres of the brain, the vaso-motor nerves, the excretory organs, the contractility of muscle, the blood-changes in respiration—where are the differences to support this statement that you cannot argue from animals to men?
3. The twin statements, that all the results got by the help of experiments might have been got some other way, and that clinical study andpost-mortemstudy are infinitely more fruitful than experimental study, may be taken together. We are told that anybody could have discovered the circulation by injecting the vessels of a dead body. Well, Malpighi tried to discover the capillaries by this method, and failed. Weare asked to admit that phrenology, long before physiology, discovered the truth about the surface of the brain;I have been told, says Mr. Coleridge at an annual meeting of his society,that the physiologists can now triumphantly map out the human brain. I think the phrenologists have always been able to do that, and whether they or the vivisectors do it best does not much matter.We are told that the use of thyroid extract could have been discovered right away by mere chemistry and thinking. We hear of a proposal for a bacteriological laboratory on anti-vivisectionist principles, where no inoculations shall be made. This argument, that the whole thing might have been done some other way, must repair its wit, and find better instances. Then comes the incessant appeal: "Stick to clinical work; study diseases at the bedside, in thepost-mortemroom, in the museum, anywhere but in the laboratory. The Hospital taught you to neglect these methods; it made experiments on its patients, it cheated the public, it sheltered malignant cruelty in its most repulsive form under illustrious patronage. Set aside pathology; just sit by your patients long enough; that is the way of discovery."
Or the appeal takes another tone: "Stick to sanitation. If only everybody were healthy, everybody would be well. Diseases are due to dirt, to vice, to overcrowding, to want of common-sense. Abolish all slums, disinfect all mankind, body and soul, make every house clean and wholesome, no bad drainage, or ventilation, or water, or food. Leave your torture-chambers, and open your eyes to the blessed truth that, if everybody were healthy, and everybody were good, everybody would be well." What is the use of talking in this way? Suppose that all the physiologists suddenly rushed into practice, and all the bacteriologists wereturned into medical officers of health. What would be gained? What difference would it make? The physiologists, of course, would merely vivisect their hospital patients; and the bacteriologists would hardly feel the change, for many of them are medical officers of health already, public servants, appointed by the State.
This argument, that practice is fruitful of discoveries, and science is barren of them, reaches its highest absurdity in the National Society's official journal; which praises extravagantly those methods of practice which were not discovered by the help of experiments on animals; praises them without experience, criticism, or understanding. It finds a statement, in theMedical Annual, that a year has passed without any great improvement in practice; and at once it lays the blame not on practice but on science. It fights hard against a fact which began in science, though it has been proved a thousand times over in practice. It accuses the bacteriologists now of caring nothing for human suffering, now of rushing after every new method of treatment and flooding the market with drugs.There is money in the business—that is the phrase of theZoophilist. But there is money, also, in the anti-vivisection business.If you can provide for the society's future in your will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now, says the London Society:this is the most alive humane organisation in the world. But the National Society says,A grave injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid secretaries.
Let us leave the general arguments and come to the special arguments. Some of them are concerned with the experiments themselves, some with the men who made them, some with the administration of the Act. These special arguments must be arranged in some sort of order; but they cross and recross, and are of diverse natures, and any attempt at strict arrangement would fail. That the arrangement may be useful for immediate reference, and may help anybody to answer statements made at debates and lectures, a separate heading has been given to each argument. Those arguments are put first which are concerned with the experiments themselves, or with the men who made them; afterward come those which are concerned with the administration of the Act.
Harvey
"It is perfectly true," says Mr. Berdoe, "that Harvey again and again, in the plainest terms, declares that his experiments on living animals aided him in his discoveries." I agree here with Mr. Berdoe. Then comes this sentence:But that is not so important as it appears to be. Why not? What is gained by this attempt to explain Harvey away? Dr. Bowie mistranslates him; Dr. Abiathar Wall half-quotes him; Mr. Adams says that Harvey did not ascribe his discoveries to experiments on animals; Mr. Berdoe says that he did; and Mr. Berdoe's society withdraws every pamphlet that involves acceptance of Dr. Bowie's mistranslation. Why should we take, on Harvey's work, any opinion but that of Harvey?
Sir Charles Bell
For the argument from Sir Charles Bell's words, and for the truth about his work, see Part I., Chap. VII.
Cerebral Localisation
Mr. Berdoe says that it is "pure nonsense" to argue from the motor areas of a monkey's brain to those of a man's brain. Why is it nonsense? What is the difference between the movement of a group of muscles in a monkey's arm and the same movement of the same group of muscles in a man's arm? With a very weak current, so weak that it is not diffused beyond the area where it is applied, the surface of a monkey's brain is stimulated at one spot; and forthwith its opposite arm is flexed, or its opposite leg is drawn up, or whatever the movement may be, according to the spot. A man has some disease, acute or chronic, of his brain; and, as the disease advances, twitchings occur in one arm or one leg, little irrational useless movements, or rigidity, or loss of power, according to the case. Is it pure nonsense to believe that the disease has reached a certain spot on the surface of his brain? There is no question here of the mental differences between men and monkeys; no question of consciousness or of will. But Dr. Holländer, who thinks very highly of Gall's system of phrenology, says,Is the laboratory-man, the experimental physiologist, to teach us the mental functions of the brain from his experiments on frogs, pigeons, rabbits, dogs, cats, and monkeys?That is the argument; that we must not compare the monkey's motor areas with the man's motor areas, for we cannot find the mind of a man in the brain of a frog.
But, putting aside phrenology, which is a broken reed for anti-vivisection to lean on, what other arguments are urged against the facts of cerebral localisation? First, that the speech-centres were discovered without the help of experiments on animals. That is true; and there, practically, the work of discovery stopped, till experiments on animals were made. Next, that the physiologists have not always been agreed as to the facts of cerebral localisation; that Charcot doubted them, that Goltz criticised Munk, and so on. What is the date of these doubts and criticisms? They are twenty years old. Next, that the surgery of the brain often fails to save life. That is true; and the anti-vivisection societies make frequent use of this fact. But they are unable to suggest any better method. Mr. Berdoe tells us that he cannot remember hearing, in his student days, anything about brain-experiments on animals:—
"Our work was to observe as closely as possible the symptoms and physical signs exhibited by patients in the hospital wards who suffered from any form of nerve or brain disease, and having carefully noted them in our case-books, to avail ourselves, when the patient died, of any opportunity that was offered us in thepost-mortemof correcting our diagnosis."
That is an exact picture of the state of things thirty years ago; the student taking notes, waiting for thepost-mortemexamination, then correcting his notes there, etc. Every case of brain-tumour in those days died, but many are saved now; and every case of brain-abscess in those days died (one or two were saved by a sort of miracle of surgical audacity); but many are saved now.
Antitoxins and Carbolic Acid
It is said by opponents of experiments on animals, that the active principle, in antitoxin, is not the antitoxin, but the carbolic acid which is added to it. They take this statement from theMedical Brief; and we have learned something of the style of that journal. Here is a sentence from the official journal of the National Society:—
"TheMedical Briefcalls antitoxin 'the fraud of the age,' and says:Would that physicians could all realise the hideous horror of using this nasty stuff as a remedial agent. It would be nothing less than ghoulishness to inject the matter from an abscess into a child's arm, yet antitoxin is not much better; it is the decomposing fluid from a diseased horse, partially neutralised by carbolic acid."
For a commentary on this sentence, take the following letter from an eminent bacteriologist:—
"As regards diphtheria antitoxin, the addition of an antiseptic is by no means necessary or universal. For fully two years I added none to the serum which I prepared, but contented myself with filtration through a Kieselguhr filter, and bottling under aseptic conditions. At one time Roux used to put a small piece of camphor in each bottle as some sort of safeguard against putrefaction. Nowadays I believe that most makers preserve their sera by adding a trace of trikresol—I am not quite sure of the amount, but it is either .04 per cent. or .004 per cent.!"
But it is probable that theZoophilistwill still accept the authority of theMedical Brief. Baccelli got good results, in tetanus, from the administration of carbolic acid; therefore, in diphtheria, the good results fromdiphtheria-antitoxin are due to the carbolic acid in it. That is the argument. But there is no carbolic acid in it? Oh, then the patient got well of himself, the treatment didn't kill him, it was not diphtheria after all, the disease has altered its type lately, he was well nursed, the back of his throat was painted with something, the doctor got half-a-crown by calling it diphtheria, the bacillus diphtheriæ may be found in healthy mouths, and all bacteriology isbase and blatant materialism.
The Argument from the Death-rate
There is another argument against diphtheria-antitoxin; we may call it, for brevity, the death-rate argument. It is this.The doctors say that the antitoxin does save lives; they give us statistics from every part of the world. But, if it saves lives, then the total mortality ought to go down. But the Registrar-General's returns do not go down; indeed, they tend to go up. Therefore diphtheria-antitoxin is useless, or worse than useless.By this kind of logic, umbrellas are useless. If they were useful, then the more umbrellas there were, the less rain there would be. But the increase in umbrellas coincides with a positive increase of rain. Therefore umbrellas are useless, or worse than useless.
Despite the absurdity of this argument, Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Somerville Wood, the National Society's lecturer, have worked hard with it; Mr. Coleridge in the press, Mr. Wood on the platform. Surely this confusion between the total mortality and the case-mortality of an epidemic disease is a very serious offence. That there may be no doubt of the confusion, let us consider a set of quotations, out of a correspondence publishedin September-October 1902, between G. P., whose initials we may take to mean general practitioner, and Mr. Somerville Wood. This correspondence is a good instance of the argument in its usual form:—
G. P.: "The antitoxin treatment of diphtheria has lessened the mortality from that disease by nearly 50 per cent. In the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board the average case-mortality for the last five years of the pre-antitoxin period,i.e.previous to 1895, was 30.6; that for 1895 and the successive four years was 18.1, the successive figures being 22.8, 21.2, 17.7, 15.4, and 13.6, the mortality steadily falling with increased familiarity with the use of the remedy. This has not been the result of a diminished virulence of the disease, as similar experience has been gained all over the world. The figures for Chicago are even more striking, as the averages are 35.0 and 6.79 for the pre-and the post-antitoxin periods respectively."Mr.Wood: "Nowadays, almost every sore throat is called diphtheritic, antitoxin is given, and wonderful statistics are formulated to bolster up the latest medical craze. The real test is whether the introduction of antitoxin has lowered the death-rate generally from diphtheria. Here are the Registrar-General's figures: In 1887, the death-rate from diphtheria per million persons in this country was 140. In 1897, after the treatment had been used several years, the death-rate from this disease increased to 246 per million."G. P.: "Mr. Wood's statistics do not vitiate my argument in the very slightest. His selected figures, using the lowest rate since 1881, merely show that diphtheria as a whole was more prevalent in 1897 than in 1887. He cannot and does not attack the statement that the case-mortality has been lessened where antitoxin has been used, and his test is no test at all."Mr.Wood: "Let me give the annual death-rate from diphtheria to a million living persons from 1881 to 1900,taken from the Registrar-General's returns." (Gives them.)G. P.: "One last word in answer to Mr. Wood. I repeat that his figures show nothing more than the accepted fact that diphtheria as a whole has been increasing for the last 30 years. This has no bearing at all on the also accepted fact that where antitoxin is used the mortality is lessened, and Mr. Wood has not, in fact, denied this. His confusion of total mortality and case-mortality only shows that he does not understand the elementary principles of statistics."
G. P.: "The antitoxin treatment of diphtheria has lessened the mortality from that disease by nearly 50 per cent. In the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board the average case-mortality for the last five years of the pre-antitoxin period,i.e.previous to 1895, was 30.6; that for 1895 and the successive four years was 18.1, the successive figures being 22.8, 21.2, 17.7, 15.4, and 13.6, the mortality steadily falling with increased familiarity with the use of the remedy. This has not been the result of a diminished virulence of the disease, as similar experience has been gained all over the world. The figures for Chicago are even more striking, as the averages are 35.0 and 6.79 for the pre-and the post-antitoxin periods respectively."
Mr.Wood: "Nowadays, almost every sore throat is called diphtheritic, antitoxin is given, and wonderful statistics are formulated to bolster up the latest medical craze. The real test is whether the introduction of antitoxin has lowered the death-rate generally from diphtheria. Here are the Registrar-General's figures: In 1887, the death-rate from diphtheria per million persons in this country was 140. In 1897, after the treatment had been used several years, the death-rate from this disease increased to 246 per million."
G. P.: "Mr. Wood's statistics do not vitiate my argument in the very slightest. His selected figures, using the lowest rate since 1881, merely show that diphtheria as a whole was more prevalent in 1897 than in 1887. He cannot and does not attack the statement that the case-mortality has been lessened where antitoxin has been used, and his test is no test at all."
Mr.Wood: "Let me give the annual death-rate from diphtheria to a million living persons from 1881 to 1900,taken from the Registrar-General's returns." (Gives them.)
G. P.: "One last word in answer to Mr. Wood. I repeat that his figures show nothing more than the accepted fact that diphtheria as a whole has been increasing for the last 30 years. This has no bearing at all on the also accepted fact that where antitoxin is used the mortality is lessened, and Mr. Wood has not, in fact, denied this. His confusion of total mortality and case-mortality only shows that he does not understand the elementary principles of statistics."
A few weeks later, at theBournbrook and Selly Oak Social Club, Mr. Wood gives his "thrilling lecture, with lantern views,"Behind the Closed Doors of the Laboratory: one of his stock lectures. In it, he says:—
"The proof of the pudding was in the eating. In 1881 the death-rate from diphtheria was 127 per million; in 1900 it was 290 per million. He had but to state that the antitoxin treatment was introduced about 1894."
Four days later, at anoverflowingly-attended Citizen Socialat Birkenhead:—
"The proof of the pudding lay in the eating. In 1881 in each million of the population 121 persons died from diphtheria, while in 1900 the mortality from the same disease was 290 persons in each million of the population, and the antitoxin treatment was introduced in 1894."
A few weeks later, at Ipswich, the same thing. This time, he is challenged by letters in theEast Anglian Daily Times, and again quotes the Registrar-General.
A few weeks later, at theHyde Labour Church: theClosed Doors of the Laboratoryagain:—
"He found from the Registrar-General's returns that the death-rate had gone up in cases in which they were told that wonderful things had been done by experimentson living animals. If a lower death-rate could be shown, then the vivisectionists might have something to go upon; but they could not show a lower death-rate."
That was in January 1903. In December 1903, Mr. Wood is still using the same argument; this time it is a lecture at Ashton onVivisection and the Hospitals:
"Again and again had they defied the so-called scientific world to put their finger on the Registrar-General's returns, and show them a single instance where the death-rate had been lowered by vivisection, and they had not been able to do it. On the contrary, he found that the death-rate had gone up in the last 20 years, despite the thousands of animals that had been experimented upon. The death-rate in diphtheria was 100 per million more than it was in 1878."
Mr. Wood in the provinces, and Mr. Coleridge in the papers, have used this argument hard. Let us look at it well. It has been refuted again and again. Take a thousand cases of diphtheria from any civilised part of the world, in the days before antitoxin; how many of them died? Take a thousand cases now, treated with antitoxin; how many of them die? Why do Mr. Wood and Mr. Coleridge run away from that easy question? There is nothing unfair in it; they have all the reports before them; they know the facts well. We do not find any evidence that they are willing to acknowledge the truth of those facts. Follow Mr. Somerville Wood, from place to place, with his magic-lantern and his stock of lectures. The lantern-pictures are many of them taken from foreign sources, and some of them are of great age; but they include a portrait of Mr. Coleridge, and some comic slides to be shown at the end of the lecture, rabbits vivisecting a professor, and so forth. Certainly, he works hard; 95 lectures in one year;we cannot better employ the funds at our disposal than in sending well-informed lecturers to every city in the kingdom to rouse the just indignation of the people. The year after that, 74 lectures;on two occasions he has spoken when unsupported to over 1000 people, and an audience of several hundreds is quite the rule. Here he is at Windsor, with Bishop Barry in the chair, and he says to them:—
"Unhappily, Pasteur left his microscope and chemicals and took up the vivisectionist's knife. In that he got utterly astray and became nothing more than a mere quack."
Here, with a different audience, at the Mechanics' Lecture Hall, Nottingham, giving his lantern-lecture onPasteurismto amost respectable audience of working men, their wives, sons, and daughters, and in many cases children.
"The thesis he set out to elaborate and maintain was that Pasteurism produces hydrophobia rather than cures it; that vivisection under any circumstances is both cruel and immoral; and that with special reference to bacterial toxicology and the treatment by inoculation, the preparation of toxins by the Pasteur methods was the most horrible form of repulsive quackery and hideous cruelty."
Here he is at Birmingham, asking for money, and hinting that, unless all experiments on animals are stopped,the poor will be the ultimate victims. Here, at Gloucester, saying thatit is silly to experiment at all, and that he is not going to take his views as to right and wrong from any man of science, however learned he may be. Here, at Edinburgh, with theClosed Doorsagain, and the picture of the rabbit "roasted alive": three grains of opium, he tells them, would be enough to kill the strongest navvy in Edinburgh, but 16 grains can be administered to a pigeon; and the death-ratehas gone up every year in spite of vivisection. Here, at a drawing-room meeting, asking for money; here, at a garden party, with aconsiderable number of persons ranging themselves on the grass, and he tells them that they have on their side all that is best in every department of public life; here, at Blackburn, with theClosed Doorsagain, calling the lawa sham and a farce; here, at Cheltenham, with Bishop Mitchinson in the chair, still quoting the Registrar-General, and saying thathe does not think the outlook was ever more promising than it is to-day. All over the kingdom, he and his magic-lantern, year after year, goes Mr. Wood. He is a fluent speaker; he has things in his pocket; they are brought out, if you contradict him; or he "challenges" you, or explains you away, or says that you "are not quite playing the game." Let him alone; to-morrow he will pack up his lantern, and be gone.
Mr. Coleridge, in his use of the death-rate argument, carries it even further than Mr. Wood; for he applies it over a wider range. "Look at myxœdema," he says; "the doctors tell us that they can cure it with thyroid extract, and that the use of thyroid extract was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. Myxœdema is due to some fault in the thyroid gland. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of that gland. See, the death-rate has gone up, steadily, during the last 20 years." Was there ever such an argument? It is only of late years that myxœdema has been generally recognised. Till it was recognised, it was not diagnosed; till it was diagnosed, it was not returned as a cause of death. Again, there are many other diseases of the thyroid gland, including various forms of malignant disease. It is cancer of thethyroid gland that decides the death-rate. The number of deaths from myxœdema, especially since the discovery of thyroid extract, must be small indeed. Moreover, apart from Mr. Coleridge's fallacy of argument, it is impossible to see how he can really doubt the efficacy of the thyroid treatment, both in myxœdema and in sporadic cretinism.
Again, "Look at the diseases of the circulation," he says. "The doctors say that digitalis and nitrite of amyl act on the heart; and that the action of these drugs was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. The heart is concerned with the circulation. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of the circulation. See how it has gone up, from 1371 per million persons in 1881 to 1709 in 1900. Therefore, either these two drugs are never used, or they are useless, or the Registrar-General's returns are false." It is impossible to understand how Mr. Coleridge could bring himself to write thus. Digitalis has a certain effect on the heart-beat; nitrite of amyl diminishes arterial tension. The Registrar-General's returns for all diseases of the circulation include every sort and kind of organic disease of the valves of the heart; include also pericarditis, aneurism, senile gangrene, embolism, phlebitis, varicose veins, and 35,499 deaths from "other and undefined diseases of heart or circulatory system."
Rabies
For rabies, Mr. Berdoe praises the "Buisson Bath Treatment for the Prevention and Cure of Hydrophobia." The virtues of this treatment are proclaimedby the Chairman of the Canine Defence League, F. E. Pirkis, Esq., R.N., of Nutfield, Surrey, and it is founded, we are told,on the simple common-sense principle that if poison is injected into a person's veins the best thing to do is to get it out as quickly as possible. This sentence, and the reference to Mr. Pirkis for further particulars, and the fact that there is, or was, a Buisson Bath at the "National Anti-vivisection Hospital," bring us to the question, What is the value of the evidence in favour of this treatment?
Mr. Berdoe, in his Catechism of Vivisection (1903), gives this evidence at considerable length.The treatment, he says,is simplicity itself. It is merely the use of the vapour bath, which causes a free action of the skin to be set up, this draws the blood to the surface of the body, and so relieves the congestion of the internal organs.Let us consider this sentence. (1.) Suppose that X—— were bitten by a mad dog, say on March 1st, and on March 8th he took a course of Buisson Baths, for safety's sake. There would be no congestion, at that period, of his internal organs; what would be the good of drawing the blood to the surface of his body? Mr. Pirkis says that there would be poison in his veins; it would be a very subtle poison. How can Mr. Pirkis tell that it is all in his veins and none of it elsewhere? Again, X—— would be feeling perfectly well. How would a vapour-bath get this poison out of his veins? It could not do it by relieving the congestion of his internal organs, for they would not be congested. How would it do it? And how would Mr. Pirkis know when it had done it? (2.) Suppose that X—— were bitten by a mad dog, and, in due time, were seized by hydrophobia. Has Mr. Pirkis ever seen a case of that disease—ever seen a case of hydrophobia? Are they going totie X—— down, or steam him under chloroform, or what? And how many baths would he want? But there are cases; there is evidence; a "mass of cures in Asia." Let us look at them; and let us divide them into cases of prevention and cases of cure. Let us take, first, the cases of cure.
There are five of these. Five, and no more. One is Dr. Buisson; cured by one bath, while he was trying to commit suicide; nothing said about the dog. One is a case at Kischineff, near Odessa, 18 years ago; no evidence is given that the dog was rabid. One is a case at Arlington, New Jersey, 18 years ago; no evidence is given that the dog was rabid. One is the case of Pauline Kiehl; no date; no reference to say where the case is published; no account of her symptoms. And one is a case at the Jaffna Hospital, Ceylon; no date; and nothing said about the dog. Of these five cases, three were a boy, a lad, and a little girl; but their ages are not given. Five cases in 20 years; they hail from all parts of the world, France, Russia, the United States, Ceylon, and France again; three of them happened 18 years ago, or more. And, we may be certain, not one of them is genuine. Spurious hydrophobia, the simulation of the disease out of sheer terror of it, as in Dr. Buisson's case, is well known.
Now we come to the cases of prevention. Over 80 of them, we are told; but seven are especially noted. Four in 1895, under the care of Dr. Ganguli of Dinajpur; two in 1896, under the care of Dr. Dass of Narainganj; and one in 1896, Mr. Kotwal of Bassein. Of this "mass of cures in Asia," we all know what would have been said if Pasteur had been in charge of them; that the dogs were not rabid, that the bites were not infected, that the wonder is that the poor deluded victims were not added to Pasteur's hecatomb.
Next, what does Mr. Berdoe say of the division of all patients at the Pasteur Institute into classes A, B, and C? Does he admit that a dog is proved to have been rabid, if a minute portion of its nervous tissue, taken from it after death, and put into a rabbit, causes the rabbit to have paralytic rabies? No; there are still two things left for him to say:—
1. He says, on the authority of theVeterinary Recordof ten years ago, thatthe death of a rabbit with cerebral symptoms is not a positive indication of death from rabies.
2. He says that Vulpian discovered that healthy human saliva was poisonous to rabbits, and that it contained a micro-organism which Pasteur had also found in the saliva of a rabid patient. What does this statement prove or disprove? It is twenty-five years old; but Mr. Somerville Wood, not long ago, used it at a debating society with great fervour.
Also Mr. Berdoe quotes the late M. Peter, Dr. Lutaud's forerunner; quotes anobiter dictumof Professor Billroth, but without any date; tells us that Pasteur himself, in a letter, referring to one particular case, declared cauterisation to be a sufficient preventive, but does not tell us the date of the letter, or the facts of the case; and quotes a death-rate, but stops at 1890. Of course, any method of treatment, if you ransack its records over a sufficient number of years, will show, now and again, failures or disasters. Take, for instance, those methods of light-treatment, which Mr. Berdoe praises so highly. They have had many failures, and one or two disasters. If they had been discovered by the help of experiments on animals, we might have had a pamphlet from the National Society,The Roentgen "Cure": its list of Victims.
Certificate A and Certificate B
Frequent use has been made of some words spoken by the Home Secretary in Parliament, on July 24th, 1899. He was asked whether he would state what rules were laid down with regard to the granting or signing of certificates dispensing with the use of anæsthetics in experiments on animals; and whether there was any limit to the number of such certificates which one person might sign, or to the number of experiments upon different animals which might be performed by the person holding one such certificate. There can be no doubt as to the meaning of these questions. Certificate A, which is granted only for inoculation experiments or similar proceedings, and never for any serious cutting operation, dispenses wholly with anæsthetics. Certificate B, which is granted for any kind of operationplusobservation of the animal after operation, dispenses partly with anæsthetics; that is to say, the operation is done under an anæsthetic, and the subsequent observation of the animal, which is counted as part of the experiment, is made without an anæsthetic. The questions come to this: When the Home Office grants Certificate A, or Certificate B, what precautions does it take against any abuse of these certificates, and what restrictions does it impose on them?
The Home Secretary answered:
"It is the practice of the Home Office, in addition to the fact that all certificates expire on December 31st of the year in which they are granted, to limit the number, and this is always done in the case of serious experiments in which the use of anæsthetics is wholly or partly dispensed with."
TheTimessays that the Home Secretary said "serious experiments." Mr. Coleridge says thatHansardsays that the Home Secretary said "serious operations." We need not doubt that Mr. Coleridge is right; but we may doubt whether Hansard underlines the wordwholly, as Mr. Coleridge does. Anyhow, it does not matter now whether the Home Secretary, seven years ago, saidexperimentsoroperations. His meaning is clear enough; that, in all serious procedures, whether they be under Certificate A or under Certificate B, a limit is put to the number of experiments. Which is the plain truth, as everybody knows who is concerned in the administration of the Act; and the limit may be very strict indeed. After this statement by the Home Secretary in 1899, we still find Dr. Abiathar Wall, the Hon. Treasurer of the London Anti-vivisection Society, saying in 1900 that avivisector has only to say that he has a theory whereby he hopes to discover a cure for, say, neuralgia of the little finger, and the Home Secretary promptly arms him with a license to torture as diabolically as he pleases and as many animals as he deems fit. And the National Society has made constant use of this phrase about "serious experiments"; declaring that the Home Secretary himself has said that animals are tortured under the Act. Here are three statements to that effect, made by the National Society's Parliamentary Secretary, by its Lecturer, and by its Hon. Secretary:—
1. (Annual Meeting, Queen's Hall, May 1900.)—"If you are still unconvinced—if any one is not thoroughly satisfied that there is ample cause for the anti-vivisectionist movement to-day—it is only necessary for me to refer you to the words of the Home Secretary, as spoken in Parliament, in the year 1898.[49]He said:'There are serious operations which are performed, during which the use of anæsthetics is wholly or partially dispensed with.' Could there be any more sweeping indictment than that? Is there any need for me to attempt to convince you that the lower animals are vivisected painfully, after the words officially spoken by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons?"2. "If you want any further proof I will quote from Hansard, July 24th, 1899, when the then Home Secretary stated in the House of Commons that serious experiments take place under the law of England, in which the use of anæsthetics is wholly or partially dispensed with. Now, I affirm that serious experiments in which anæsthetics are wholly or partially dispensed with mean torture pure and simple."3. (Annual Meeting, St. James's Hall, May 1901.)—"If this were not enough, the late Home Secretary has told us the facts. I have Hansard here. On July 24th, 1899, the late Home Secretary in his place in Parliament, and in his official capacity as Home Secretary, told us that 'serious experiments, in which the use of anæsthetics have been wholly or partially dispensed with,' do take place in English laboratories. We know, therefore, that torture does take place."
1. (Annual Meeting, Queen's Hall, May 1900.)—"If you are still unconvinced—if any one is not thoroughly satisfied that there is ample cause for the anti-vivisectionist movement to-day—it is only necessary for me to refer you to the words of the Home Secretary, as spoken in Parliament, in the year 1898.[49]He said:'There are serious operations which are performed, during which the use of anæsthetics is wholly or partially dispensed with.' Could there be any more sweeping indictment than that? Is there any need for me to attempt to convince you that the lower animals are vivisected painfully, after the words officially spoken by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons?"
2. "If you want any further proof I will quote from Hansard, July 24th, 1899, when the then Home Secretary stated in the House of Commons that serious experiments take place under the law of England, in which the use of anæsthetics is wholly or partially dispensed with. Now, I affirm that serious experiments in which anæsthetics are wholly or partially dispensed with mean torture pure and simple."
3. (Annual Meeting, St. James's Hall, May 1901.)—"If this were not enough, the late Home Secretary has told us the facts. I have Hansard here. On July 24th, 1899, the late Home Secretary in his place in Parliament, and in his official capacity as Home Secretary, told us that 'serious experiments, in which the use of anæsthetics have been wholly or partially dispensed with,' do take place in English laboratories. We know, therefore, that torture does take place."
Each of the three speakers uses this phrase as a final and irresistible argument.If you are still unconvinced. If you want any further proof. If this were not enough—they all of them play the Home Secretary, as a sure card: at Queen's Hall, at St. James's Hall, they produce him as though it were indeed unanswerable. Since they are willing to go back to July, let us take them back to May. This phrase about "serious experiments" was spoken on July 24th, 1899. On May 9th of that year, a question was put and answered in the House. It was put by the same gentleman who put the question in July; it was answered by the same Home Secretary;and it was practically the same question. The Home Secretary, in his answer to it, said:—
"The sole use of this Certificate (B) is to authorise the keeping alive of the animal, after the influence of the anæsthetic has passed off, for the purpose of observation and study. I should certainly not allow any certificate involving dissections or painful operations without the fresh use of anæsthetics."
Here, in May 1899, we have this emphatic statement, that Certificate B isnotallowed for "serious operations without anæsthetics." Why did the National Society stop at July? If it had only gone a few weeks further back, a surprise was in store for it. But at July it stuck; thus it was still able to say all sorts of things about "legalised torture." So late as May 6th, 1902, at the great annual meeting at St. James's Hall, the Rev. Reginald Talbot said:—
"Certificate B makes it necessary that the operator should produce complete anæsthesia during the initial operation, but (please mark this) after the initial operation is over, after the animal has returned to the state of semi or complete consciousness, there is then allowed by this certificate a period of observation upon a semi-sensible or completely sensible animal. The animal is opened, is disembowelled, and in that condition his vital organs can be probed and stimulated. Now that is something more than pain; it deserves something more than the name of even severe and prolonged pain. Surely this comes within the tract and region of what we may call agony."
As for Certificate A, the inoculations-certificate, which is used for inoculations only, and therefore is granted for nine experiments out of every ten, he said:—
"There is a Certificate A, which, if it were granted, and when it is granted—and pray you mark my words,for I know what I am speaking about, and I want you to know too—would allow major operations to be performed upon animals, cats, dogs, or any other animals, without the use of any anæsthetic at all. I know quite well that that certificate has not been applied for, or has not been granted this last year, or, so far as I know, in any previous year, but I say this," &c.
It is impossible to understand these words. Certificate A is never granted for major operations. It is never granted (save in conjunction with another certificate) for any sort or kind of experiment on a cat or a dog, or a horse, or an ass, or a mule. It is more in use than all the other certificates put together; it covers nine experiments out of every ten. We shall try in vain to guess how this mistake arose in the speaker's mind. But, at the great annual meeting of the chief of all the anti-vivisection societies, it is strange indeed that nobody seems to have corrected him. This description of a certificate which does not exist—I know what I am speaking about, he says,and I want you to know too—was applauded by an audience that filled the whole hall. Nobody on the platform put him right. And, in the next number of its official journal, the National Society reported every word of his speech, and said that he hadanalysed the Act and its administration in a striking and powerful manner.
Curare
"Curare," says Mr. Berdoe, "paralyses the peripheral ends of motor nerves, even when given in very minute doses." That is to say, it prevents all voluntary motion. Then comes this frank admission, "Large doses paralyse the vagus nerve and the ends of sensorynerves." That is to say, it can be pushed, under artificial respiration, till it paralyses sensation. With small doses, the ends of the motor nerves lose touch with the voluntary muscles. With large doses, under artificial respiration, the ends of the sensory nerves lose touch with the brain. Let us agree with Mr. Berdoe that curare does act in this way; that it does not heighten sensation, and has no effect, save in very large doses, on sensation, and then abolishes sensation. Only, of course, to procure this anæsthetic effect, the animal may have to be subjected to artificial respiration.
(The evidence as to the action of curare on the sensory nerves rests not on the case of accidental poisoning recorded by Mr. White, though that case does point that way, but on Schiff's experiments on the local exclusion of the poison from one leg of the frog by ligature of an artery.)
This, surely, is a true definition of curare, that it is a painless poison, which in small doses prevents the transmission of motor impulses; and, in large doses, which may necessitate the use of artificial respiration, prevents the transmission of sensory impulses. Mr. Berdoe can hardly refuse to accept this definition; indeed, it is his own. And, certainly, he would be a bold man who said that a small dose of curare has any effect on sensation; or that the exact strength of any one specimen of curare is standardised as a supply of antitoxin is standardised.
Now we have a perfect right to take a practical view of curare. At the present time, and in our own country, how is it used? The Act forbids its use as an anæsthetic. What evidence does Mr. Berdoe bring that it is so used?
1. He quotes Professor Rutherford's experiments. These were made at least 16 or 17 years ago.
2. He quotes Dr. Porter's paper, "On the Results of Ligation of the Coronary Arteries." (Journal of Physiology, vol. xv. 1894, p. 121.) Dr. Porter speaks of four experiments made under morphiapluscurare. These experiments were made at Berlin, 14 years ago, by the Professor of Physiology at Harvard, U.S.A.
3. He refers to Professor Stewart's papers, in the same volume of theJournal of Physiology. The one experiment which he quotes at some length was made at Strasburg, 14 years ago or more.
But we want to know what is done now and here under the Act, not what was done at Berlin or Strasburg 14 or more years ago. Still, the experiments by Professor Stewart have been in constant use, among the opponents of all experiments on animals. In May 1900, at the great annual meeting of the National Society, at Queen's Hall, Dr. Reinhardt said:—
"I will pass on to prove to you, by a few conclusive evidences, for which I can give you chapter and verse, that torture is inflicted on animals by British vivisectors to-day. Now, if you buy the 15th volume of theJournal of Physiology, and look at page 86, you will find there," etc.
To prove that animals are tortured in England to-day, he quotes one experiment made at Strasburg ever so long ago. And, in 1901, Mr. Coleridge wrote, in theMorning Leader, saying:It is with curare, which paralyses motion and leaves sensation intact, that all the most shocking vivisections are performed.And, the same year, Mr. Stephen Smith, a "Medical Patron" of the London Society, wrote:I state emphatically that when curare is used, proper anæsthesia is out of the question....Curare is used daily throughout England. Mention of an anæsthetic in a report is no guarantee that the animal was anæsthetised.
I cannot find, in all the anti-vivisection literature which I have read, any shadow of evidence that any experiment of any sort or kind has been made in this country, on any sort or kind of animal, under curare alone, for the last sixteen or seventeen years. I believe that I might go further back than that. But surely that is far enough.
Certainly, so long as any curare is used (not as an anæsthetic, but in conjunction with an anæsthetic) in any experiments on animals in this country, the societies will not trouble to inquire how much of it is used. I wrote, therefore, to the Professors of Physiology at Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Oxford, and asked them to tell me how much curare was used in their laboratories throughout 1903, and what anæsthetics were given with it. Some opponents of experiments on animals seem to think that curare is used very often. One of them says that it is "used daily throughout England." So I wrote to these Professors at our Universities, and they kindly sent the following answers:—