398 THE VIVISECTION CLAMOUR. BY THE EDITOR. HA AS the outcry ceased now that a Bill has been passed by the House of Commons? We fancy not. The Bill has not satisfied those who are opposed to vivisection, while of course it has not pleased the medical profession. But the voice of the opposition has not been as loud as in the beginning of the year. Then it was shockingly violent and unreasonable. There has been, as the old saying is, "much cry and little wool," and a number of well-intentioned and equally uninformed old women have raised a banner with "cruelty to animals" inscribed upon it. This, of course, has been followed by an ignorant and withal a very noisy crowd, who have raised a special outcry against the medical profession, of abhorrent cruelty to animals. The medical profession at first took little notice of this babbling crowd; and we fear that if it had not been for the decided movement of Mr. Ernest Hart it would have been absolutely silent on the matter, and as a consequence we should have had the Act passed in its original form, which has, now that its intentions are familiar, become so objectionable to the entire profession. Mr. Hart saw the objectionable character of the proposed law, and he called public attention to the subject through his paper, the "British Medical Journal," and by a well-organised plan he got the profession together, and brought them in a body to Mr. Cross to protest against this measure (as it was then drawn up) becoming law. The occurrences at that meeting are familiar to the public. Mr. Simon and Sir W. Jenner pointed out, in terms of the most clearly logical force, the utterly unfair nature of the Bill, and the slur which it would cast upon what is unquestionably the most charitable profession in existence. While at the same time, as Mr. Simon indicated at some length, the profession of medicine is charged with cruelty-cruelty whose committal is under chloroform-the fox hunter, the harrier keeper, the deer stalker, the pigeon slayer, the rabbit snarer, to mention but a few,* are allowed to perpetrate the utmost cruelties imaginable without aim or end other than the unquestionable torture of the animals pursued. A calm observer of the arguments on the two sides will unavoidably say, "If you desire to put down cruelty to animals, put it down first where it is both harsh and unnecessary; and then if you will, come down on vivisection,”† which is an extremely useful as well as excessively limited operation-profession, indeed, we had almost termed it. And this view of the matter brings us to the consideration of some remarks on this subject made by the "Daily News" of August 10 or 11. This paper, in a leading article on the discussion in Parliament upon the second reading of the Bill, holds the same opinion, but it singularly enough commences at the end instead of at the beginning. It says that of course Parliament cannot undertake to legislate for the whole matter at once, but that it does well to begin with the physiologists. Why? Simply that the "Daily News" has got a craze upon the subject, and takes this unreasonable view. Surely if vivisection is to be put down at all, i.e. if all modes of torturing creatures are to be put an end to an idea which is as absurd as it is impossiblethat which is most general and least useful should in the first instance be considered. But, in the opinion of the "Daily News," the reverse view is correct. That which is most beneficial and infinitesimally small in its amount must be the first that is put an end to. Apart, however, from this view of the question, there is a series of other points to be considered with which we fear the anti-vivisectionist has not at all acquainted himself. And firstly comes the fact that every animal must die at one time or another. It may be a slow death by starvation, it may be of the most intense torture-as witness a cat with a mouse or rat which she has half killed and then plays with for hours; it may be by poisonwhich is essential in many cases; or, lastly, it may be by some sudden catastrophe-as a flood, or a fire, or frost which slays by thousands. And to this the anti-vivisectionist will reply: But why not allow animals to live as long as they can? To this important question two answers are to be given. 1. A lower animal differs entirely from man, inasmuch as it never knows that it is going to die. If the condition of man's life were the same, death could have no earthly horror, i.e. death alone. If, • Not to mention the habit of puncturing animals with iron goads for the purpose of marking them with the owners' initials, the crimping of live salmon and cod, the amputation of sheep's tails, &c. &c. The word should never have been used, and yet it seems difficult to substitute a better one. But the idea that it conveys of animals being flayed alive is clearly as objectionable as it is wrong. then, we kill an animal suddenly, without allowing it to experience the sense of pain, how have we been guilty of cruelty? It has no knowledge of the intention we have had of killing it; it has the most perfect enjoyment of life to the last moment. It knows not of our having anything to do with its death. In fact, it is killed without having had an idea of mortality. Then what is the injury inflicted? 2. But there is another and vastly more important argument. This is the one which is furnished in the most convincing form in Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species." It is in four words, "The struggle for life." I suppose my anti-vivisectionist friends are unaware of the fact, but nevertheless fact it is, that if all the animals that were brought into the world during the last fifty years were allowed to live for their natural term of years or months, as the case may be, the country would be over-run, there would not be standing room in all probability for one of us. Living would be utterly out of the question, if such a condition existed, for the lower animals alone. Let us take a few well-known examples from Mr. Darwin's book in proof of this statement. In the sixth edition (the last but one), p. 50, of his "Origin of Species," the author gives the following example of the geometrical ratio of increase, which shows us clearly enough that for one animal of any kind that lives, thousands perish before reaching maturity; and that were it not so, the world would become uninhabitable: "A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. Every being which during its natural lifetime produces several eggs or seeds must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year. Otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. Although some species may be now increasing more or less rapidly in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would not hold them." ... "There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate that if not destroyed the earth would soon be covered with the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years; and at this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny. . . . The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural increase. It will be safest to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the interval, and surviving till 100 years old. If this be so, after a period of from 740 to 750 years, there would be nearly nineteen million elephants alive descended from the first pair." Now, the above remarks-and they are but a tithe of those that could be quoted, and which we trust the reader will look out for himself-clearly prove that the amount of cruel slaughter which takes place wholesale in Nature, and which is really for the benefit of us and the other few who survive in the struggle for existence, is of so vast a character that anything in the nature of vivisection sinks beside it into such utter insignificance as to be totally unworthy of observation by the philosopher. But if we leave these grand aspects of the question, and for a moment turn the argument against the anti-vivisectionists, what shall we see? Why, that they who cry out loudest are themselves guilty of the most intense cruelty. Which of them for instance, will avoid eating a chop, and yet what is that but the product of cruelty to animals. The poor little beast first has its tail cut off when it is a young animal. Then its testicles-if it is a male-are cruelly dissected out, without the influence of chloroform; and then when it has reached a fair degree of size and fatness it is killed. And if we inquire whether this act is performed under chloroform, the mere question excites a smile. Again, if it is a calf that is killed, how is the act performed? Why, most cruelly. Veal is a sort of meat which the public like to have well-bled; it is a so-called white meat. Well, the unhappy little calf is torturingly allowed to bleed to death. And how many millions of these creatures have to suffer in this manner every year! Again, will the anti-vivisectionist not destroy without hesitation all bugs, fleas, lice? Will he not, without the faintest scruple, remove and slay with a ruthless hand thousands, nay millions, of aphides; and will he not squash beneath his feet the slug and snail that inhabit his garden? Yet surely he will not tell us that creatures like Aphis, Limax and Helix are devoid of sensation-the latter, indeed, endowed with the most complete nervous system. Or will he not hunt the fox, or snare the rabbit, or eat his chicken that has been cruelly bled to death by the poultry-man, who places its body between his knees and slashes a huge knife across its neck, and waits, without the slightest scruple of conscience, till the fowl has bled to death? Or is he ignorant of those choice morsels of delicacy known as the pâté de fois gras? Does he know what torture these poor birds are put to through their whole lives in order that the taste of the bon vivant may be sufficiently pleased? Or does he eat his lobster or crab, and does he know how they are prepared? Is he ignorant of the fact that they are kept out of water for hours, which has somewhat the same effect as though he were being submerged for half-a-minute say every five minutes in the twenty-four hours. But that is not all. A cauldron of boiling, steaming water is ready, and into this the still living crab or lobster, shrimp or prawn, is at once plunged. Just conceive for a moment the agony the poor brute must suffer! Better still, let him reflect on his oyster-eating habits. A poor oyster is at least a couple of days out of his native element. Still he has sufficient liquid floating about his gillsand how beautiful these gills are the microscopist alone knows -to keep him alive till the moment that anti-vivisectionist begins his dinner or supper. Then is a knife passed through his gills and across his muscles that close the valves; next for a few seconds he is tortured by having some burning compound poured as oil upon his wounds—upon him, and, finally, in a moment, while still in a dying state, is he plunged into the mouth and stomach of the man or woman who grieves so loudly over vivisection. Is it not wonderful in this, which is especially the Age of Reason, to see so much of absolutely arrant nonsense talked by people whom we should take in other respects for sensible persons. Christ's argument is the most potent one in this case, and well may the vivisectionist say, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone." Assuredly if they are any where, the Pharisees are among our opponents. If we wanted further evidence of cruelty of the most painful kind, but which is yet absolutely unavoidable, we have only to go to any of our sea-side fishing villages. There we can see whole boat-loads of crabs slowly dying, which are torn limb from limb in the still existing condition to form bait for the fishermen. Again, look at the millions-nay, the billions-of herrings, pilchards, not to mention other salt-water fish that are caught on our own coasts year after year. Are they chloroformed or even killed at once? Assuredly not; they are allowed slowly to die of suffocation, not sudden, as in the case of a man who is drowning, but gradual suffocation, which takes some hours to complete. Then let us take fresh-water fish. Is not the salmon, if he is caught on the line, sometimes put to torture for half-an-hour or more, and is he not then most cruelly dealt with a large, bent spear, the gaff it is called, is driven through his body and thus he is brought to land? Again, the trout, or perch, or roach, &c., is he not taken with a hook which pierces his mouth, and is he not then allowed to die the death of suffoca |