Vivisection and Human Life.
By Editor
—“Vivisection” is the word which expresses the dissection of a living animal, now so common, not merely before medical classes, but in many of our schools, colleges, and universities. It is contended, and we believe the contention just, that it breeds cruelty and hardness of heart. But it is increasing so rapidly that the Humane Society is multiplying in various forms to oppose it. Dr. Albert Leffingwell, in the Independent of the 23d ultimo, has a trenchant article on the subject, entitled “The Value of Truth and Human Life.” To show how utterly regardless some scientists are of human life, he quotes from Professor Slosson: “The aim of science is the advancement of human knowledge at any sacrifice of new life.” “If cats and guinea-pigs can be put to any higher use than to advance science, we do not know what it is. We do not know of any higher use we can put a man to.” “A human life is nothing compared to a new fact.” And it is declared that the aim of science is not “the cure of disease or the saving of human life,” but “the advancement of human knowledge at any sacrifice of human life.” Dr. Leffingwell then tells us of a physician’s article in the leading medical periodical of the United States giving a detailed account of experiments on children in a “free dispensary.” These innocents (twenty in number), suffering from an incurable disorder, “were deliberately inoculated with the most horrible disease that afflicts the human race to-day, without the slightest thoughts of benefit to his victims, and solely as an experiment.” Dr. Leffingwell tells us that “there are no words in the English language sufficiently strong to phrase” abhorrence of such human vivisections, and that it is “self-sacrifice—not sacrifice of others—that underlies the religion of Jesus Christ.” Let parents and Christian teachers protest against the cruelty.