The correspondence which follows arose from the annual meeting and proceedings of the Victoria Street Society, London, and was reported in the Zoophilist at the time:—
THE LETTER TO CANON WILBERFORCE.
40 WIMPOLE STREET, W., June 23, 1892.
SIR: In the Times of to-day appears an account of the annual meeting of the Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection. It is there stated that in moving the adoption of the report, you characterized vivisectors as “inhuman devils.” If this be a correct version of the words you employed, you have placed yourself under an obligation either to substantiate or to withdraw and apologize for this expression.
By vivisectors can only be meant the class of physiological investigators engaged in experimentation upon animals. These investigators are convinced of the necessity of experimentation, not only for the advancement of medical science, but for elucidation of the phenomena of nature upon which human progress depends. In this conviction, physiologists are supported by the highest intellects of the world, including, with scarcely an exception, the great mass of scientific experts who are alone fully qualified to form a correct judgment in such a matter.
The cultivation of science, as it is pursued by the physiological investigator, demands the utmost devotion and willingness to endure self-sacrifice. The one aim must be to elicit truth for truth’s sake; such labor is very seldom in any worldly sense remunerative, and rarely gains either applause or popularity. Those who have the privilege of the friendship of practical physiologists, and are best able to estimate their individual worth, must feel deep indignation to find men among the select few in modern society that lead, in every sense of the word, noble lives, stigmatized in the terms you are stated to have employed. Those terms are uncharitable, unjust, and libelous. Their spirit is entirely opposed to the teaching of Christianity, and of that Church in which you hold so distinguished a position.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
HENRY SEWILL.
THE REPLY.
DEANERY, SOUTHAMPTON, June 27, 1892.
SIR: The quotation from the Times to which you refer, consisting of two words only, is obviously a most unfair report of an entire speech. I did not say, in that indiscriminate manner, that ALL persons who practiced vivisection were “inhuman devils.” I am aware that many apparently succeed in escaping moral contamination from the atrocious deeds they do in the name of science, and I am prepared to take your word for it that persons capable of inflicting excruciating tortures upon helpless animals live in other respects “noble lives.” I did say, and I emphatically reiterate it, that persons who were capable of doing certain deeds, which I enumerated, such, for example, as leaving a dog crucified to a torture-trough, kept alive by artificial respiration, in agony unspeakable, throughout the long hours of the night, and sometimes from a Saturday to a Monday, while they themselves retire to the rest and comfort of their own homes, hoping to find their subject alive for further experimentation upon their return to the laboratory, were acting as “inhuman devils.” I do not stand alone in the opinion. The Rev. Dr. Haughton (Question 1888, Royal Commission, 1876) said: “I would shrink with horror from accustoming large classes of young men to the sight of animals under vivisection. . . . Science would gain nothing, and the world would have let loose upon it a set of young devils.”
You say that the spirit of my statement is “entirely opposed to the teaching of Christianity,” etc. I reply that the so-called “cultivation of science,” as it is practiced by the physiological investigators, “is entirely opposed to the teaching of Christianity,” is based upon the rankest materialism, and appeals to the lowest instincts of man; and as to “the Church in which I hold a position,” etc., I thank God that some of its eminent representatives have organized within it a league for the “total abolition of the practice of vivisection.” And the Bishop of Manchester, himself no tyro in science, preaching on behalf of this league, exposes himself to your “deep indignation;” for he, too, stigmatizes vivisectors as men “who use God’s dumb creatures as the subject of tortures which could only be called diabolical, and who gain their knowledge by the degradation of their moral character,” and with these sentiments I cordially agree.
Our contention is that the public has been blinded by scientific dust thrown into its eyes, and that multitudes are wholly unaware of the unspeakable and fiendish cruelties that are perpetrated in the name of science.
The public is taught to believe that vivisections are rare, that animals subjected to them are under anæsthetics, and that the discoveries made by the process are of infinite value. The public has not realized that three thousand doctors signed a memorial declaring that an important series of experiments could not be carried through while animals are under anæsthetics, that the arch-vivisector, Schiff, has been honest enough to say, “It is nothing but hypocrisy to wish to impose on one’s self and others the belief that the curarized animal does not feel pain.” There is employed to a great extent in vivisection the drug curare, which paralyzes motion, while sensibility acutely remains. According to Claude Bernard, who was named the “Prince of Vivisectors,” the curarized animals undergo atrocious suffering without being able to cry out or move a muscle.
Let us glance at some of the so-called “experiments,” and judge whether men endowed with ordinary sensibilities and imaginations could perform them without temporarily transforming themselves into “inhuman devils.” . . . They include baking, freezing, burning, pouring boiling oil on living animals, saturating them with inflammable oil and setting them on fire, starving to death, skinning alive, cutting off the breasts while giving milk, gouging out the eyes, larding the feet with nails, forcing broken glass into ears, intestines, and muscles, making incisions in the skull and twisting about a bent needle in the brain, etc., etc. (vide The Nine Circles, Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Paternoster Square, in which chapter and verse are given for every experiment described, and a careful perusal of which will provide abundant justification for the expression of which you complain).
One of those “practical physiologists,” whom you estimate so highly, desired recently to ascertain whether it was impossible to pour molten lead into a man’s ear when drunk without causing him to shriek. For this purpose he procured several dogs, and the report says “he administered an anæsthetic composed of a solution of chloral and morphine to reduce the dog to the supposed condition of a drunken man. In spite of this precaution it appears that when the molten metal penetrated the ear of one of the animals, accompanied by a frizzling sound, the wretched beast struggled violently, and its howls were so dreadful that even the garçons du laboratoire, accustomed as they are to painful spectacles, were strongly affected.”
The second dog, though similarly anæsthetized, was so horribly tortured that it actually burst the thongs that bound it to the torture-trough.
Again, could any one but an “inhuman devil” perform the following? “At the late Medical Congress, held in Berlin, a Chicago professor performed before the assembled doctors some experiments upon a dog. A French journal in describing it says that the professor roared out, ‘Hand me over that dog.’ The unfortunate animal was brought into the room carefully muzzled, and with its legs tied down. The professor then proceeded to pump the poor beast full of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ he shouted, ‘the gas will issue from his mouth in a stream, and I will set fire to it.’ A lighted match was set to the dog’s mouth with no result; a second, a whole box full, and nothing came out of it but burning the hair on the dog’s jaws.’
“Then came the second part of the experiment. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the professor, ‘you will see the effect when the gas has been pumped into the bowels when they have been wounded.’ He then produced a loaded revolver and fired a bullet into the wretched animal’s abdomen. The dog yelled piteously, and the bleeding creature was subjected to a repetition of the gas injection. The rest of the story was too horrible to tell even in the pages of an English medical journal.”—Letter in Philadelphia Ledger, Dec. 16, 1890.
The list of Dr. Brown-Séquard’s and M. Chauveau’s experiments on the spinal marrow is too terrible to describe in extenso. The following will serve as a sample:—
“To ascertain the excitability of the spinal marrow and the convulsions and pain caused by that excitability. The studies were made chiefly on horses and asses which, he says, ‘lend themselves marvelously thereto by the large volume of spinal marrow.’ M. Chauveau accordingly ‘consecrated eighty subjects to his purpose.’ ‘The animal,’ he says, ‘is fixed on a table. An incision is made in its back, of from thirty to thirty-five centimeters; the vertebræ are opened with the help of a chisel, mallet, and pincers, and the spinal marrow is exposed.’”
Several experiments similar to the foregoing are described. In some the spinal marrow was burnt through with red-hot wire. The electrical stimulation was increased. The spinal marrow tetanized (i. e. convulsed) during three minutes. The vagus several times stimulated. The operations on the rabbit extended over eleven days. The wound in the back had suppurated, and the stimulation of the exposed nerves was added to by electrodes being fastened to each hind leg, causing tetanus (i. e. convulsions) of the back extremities.—Pflüger’s Archives, 1888, pages 303 et seq.
Again: “Fifty-one dogs had portions of the brain hemisphere washed out of the head, which had been pierced in several places. This was repeated four times, the mutilated creatures and their behavior having been studied for months. Most of the animals died at last of inflammation of the brain.”—Page 415. “Interesting experiment” on a delicately formed little bitch. Left side668 (4)of brain extracted; wire pincers on the hind feet. Doleful whining; the little animal began again to howl piteously; soon afterward foamed at the mouth (page 417). The same dog last operated upon on the 17th of October; since then blind; died on November 10. “The dissected brain resembles a lately hoed potato field (page 418). Little bitch last operated upon on the 26th of May, and made nearly blind; died on the 27th of July.”
Do you imagine that I should consider myself under an obligation to apologize for stigmatizing the dastardly perpetrator of the following abomination an “inhuman devil”?
Professor Goltz says that it was “marvelous and astonishing” to find that a dog that had served for some seven experiments, and whose hind quarters were completely paralyzed, and whose spinal marrow had been destroyed, the animal suffering besides from fatal peritonitis, was still capable of maternal feelings for its young. “She unceasingly licked the living and the dead puppy with the same tenderness as an uninjured dog might do.”—Pflüger’s Archives, Vol. IX, page 564.
I contend that the language does not exist in which it would be possible to be “uncharitable, unjust, and libelous,” in speaking of such “a labor to elicit truth for truth’s sake.”
For Paul Bert’s reports of his disgusting experiments of amputating the breasts of a goat and other animals, see Comptes de la Société de Biologie (Paris, 1883, page 193).
“I wrote,” he says, “to communicate to the society the results that I have obtained by the ablation of mammæ in animals.” Dogs and rabbits with their six or eight mammæ are unable to survive these “experiments.”
I certainly do not envy you “the privilege of the friendship of practical physiologists,” such as these.
Perhaps you will say that these experiments were performed by foreigners, and not by the “select few in modern society that lead, in every sense of the word, noble lives.” Then let me refer you to the report of the Royal Humane Society, 1865, pages 31-66, for an English experiment, which is only one out of thousands:—
“Experiment 19. A terrier was deprived of air by plunging its head into liquid plaster of Paris: respiratory efforts commenced at one minute thirty-five seconds, and ceased at four minutes, the heart beating till five minutes. On examining the lungs the white plaster was found throughout the bronchial tubes.” Seventy-six of these experiments were made.—Report of the Royal Humane Society, 1865, pages 31-66.
And the following: Dr. Angel Money reported a series of experiments in which he irritated the brains and intestines of a number of “anæsthetized, curarized animals” by electricity, sliced away their brains, and made “windows” in their bowels.—British Medical Journal, Aug. 4, 1883.
Dr. Bradford, of University College, London, has mutilated the kidneys of dogs. First, he removed a portion of one kidney, which operation must necessarily be of an exceedingly painful nature. At intervals varying from a fortnight to six weeks, the entire other kidney was also removed, thus leaving the animal with only a portion of kidney. After the second operation the animal became emaciated, and died at a period varying according to the remnant of kidney remaining. Sometimes the dogs lived a fortnight, sometimes six weeks.—Proceedings of Physiological Society, March 21, 1891.
The following quotation from Mr. R. T. Reed’s speech in the House of Commons, April 4, 1883, refers to English experiments: “I will take one instance from certain experiments performed by Professor Rutherford, and reported in the British Medical Journal. I refer to the series of experiments begun Dec. 14, 1878. These experiments were thirty-one in number; no doubt
there were hundreds of dogs sacrificed upon other series of experiments, but I now refer to one set, beginning, as I say, on the 14th of December, 1878. There were in this set thirty-one experiments, but no doubt many more than thirty-one dogs were sacrificed. All were performed on dogs, and the nature of them was this: The dogs were starved for many hours. They were then fastened down; the abdomen was cut open; the bile duct was dissected out and cut; a glass tube was tied into the bile duct and brought outside the body. The duct leading to the gall-bladder was then closed by a clamp, and various drugs were placed into the intestine at its upper part. The result of these experiments was simply nothing at all—I mean it led to no increase of knowledge whatever; and no one can be astonished at that, because these wretched beasts were placed in such circumstances—their condition was so abnormal—that the ordinary and universally recognized effect of well-known drugs was not produced. These experiments were performed without anæsthetics. The animals were experimented upon under the influence of a drug called curare.”
And now, sir, what “phenomena of nature upon which human progress depends” have been elucidated by these brutal and degrading tortures? What victory over disease can your “scientific experts,” who you say “are alone fully qualified to form a correct judgment in such a matter,” point to as the result of vivisection? Can they cure cancer, consumption, scrofula, lupus? Is it not a fact that the boasted discoveries of one year are the ludibrium of the next? In spite of the unspeakably cruel experiments of Professor Ferrier, your “scientific experts” do not even yet know the true function of the cerebellum, and the experiments of one physiologist are often pronounced by another to be utterly useless.
Harvey testified himself that the discovery of the circulation of the blood was due to anatomy, and not to vivisection. Some of the most skillful living operators have told me that their skill was attained by dissection of the cadaver, and not by vivisection. Sir Thomas Watson told me himself that it was constantly necessary to unlearn at the bedside the lessons taught in the laboratory. Majendie’s holocaust of victims resulted in disastrous failure when his conclusions were tested on the human body. What has humanity gained from the unparalleled cruelties of Koch, who is compelled to keep a special crematorium to dispose of the corpses of his victims? or from the so-called discoveries of Pasteur, who has apparently succeeded in producing a new form of disease, rabies paralysis? The report signed by Sir J. Paget, Sir J. Lister, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and others, informs us that “under the intensive method deaths have occurred under conditions which have suggested that they were due to the inoculations rather than to infection from rabid animals.” At Milan three men died of rabies after treatment at the Instituto Robico, and the dog by which they were bitten was declared by Professor Pasteur himself not to have been rabid. Professor Peter says, “M. Pasteur does not cure rabies, he gives it.” And in the Times (Nov. 16, 1888) I read that “in the case of one man sent over to Paris from this country there is reason to believe that the hydrophobia from which he died was rather the result of his inoculation than of the original bite.”
You say “the investigators are convinced of the necessity of such experimentation.” I reply that an increasing number of intelligent Englishmen, undeterred by what has been well termed (I believe by the late Lord Shaftesbury) “the insolence of physiological science,” are convinced of the iniquity, the uselessness, and the peril to the human race of such experimentation, and they are determined to do their utmost to render the practice, in this country, at least, wholly illegal.