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Upon no ethical problem of our generation is the public sentiment of to-day more uncertain and confused than in its attitude toward vivisection. Why this uncertainty exists it is not very difficult to discern. In the first place, no definition of the word itself has been sugge...
In the preceding pages, the attempt has been made to throw light here and there, upon a great and perplexing problem. It has been seen that concerning the past history of experi...
18. Chapter 18There is one phase of scientific research which cannot be passed in silence. It is experimentation upon human beings. That "no experiments on animals are absolutely satisfactory...
12. Chapter 12If the reform of vivisection may only be hoped for, when the secrecy concerning it shall have been dispelled, the beginning of the present century is not propitious of any chang...
8. Chapter 8The awakening of a nation to the existence of a great evil is only accomplished after years of persistent agitation. We have seen that some of the strongest denunciations of cru...
15. Chapter 15One phase of the vivisection controversy is of singular significance. It is the peculiar tendency to unfairness which the advocates of unrestricted experimentation seem to displ...
7. Chapter 7The student of history, attempting to trace the agitation for reform of vivisection, is early confronted by a curious fact. It is the ignorance which generally prevails concerni...
16. Chapter 16No phase of modern science so closely touches the welfare of humanity as the studies which concern the prevention of disease. Up to a very recent period, well within the lifetim...
10. Chapter 10In the year 1906, a Royal Commission was appointed by King Edward to investigate the practice of animal experimentation. Thirty years had passed since the appearance of the earl...
13. Chapter 13Every reflecting man must recognize that the settlement of the vivisection question is a problem that must find its solution at some period in future rather than to-day. But the...
4. Chapter 4It may be doubted whether any physiologist has ever lived whose cruelty to animals exceeded that which, for a long period, was exercised by Franc,ois Magendie. Born at Bordeaux,...
9. Chapter 9Among the critics of unlimited vivisection one American name of the present century stands pre-eminently above all others, not only for emphasis of denunciation, for vigour of c...
17. Chapter 17Attempts to forecast the future development of Humanity in any direction have always possessed for some minds a peculiar fascination. Plato and Bacon had their visions of a Stat...
14. Chapter 14It is necessary to make a distinction between societies aiming to destroy animal experimentation, root and branch, and those which hope only to prevent abuses and cruelties. Ant...
11. Chapter 11A popular delusion is often the basis of a great abuse. If at one time witches were burnt by countless thousands, it was at a period when implicit faith in the reality of diabol...
1. Chapter 1Upon no ethical problem of our generation is the public sentiment of to-day more uncertain and confused than in its attitude toward vivisection. Why this uncertainty exists it i...
2. Chapter 2Every reflecting student of history is struck by the divergence of opinions manifest among educated men in regard to the great problems of life. Why is it that so few of us are...
5. Chapter 5About the middle of the last century there died in Scotland in the prime of life a physiologist, now almost forgotten, whose fate excited at the time an unusual degree of compas...
6. Chapter 6At every point in the discussion of vivisection we are confronted by the plea of utility. If, to some extent, we may admit the reasonableness of the argument, yet such admission...
3. Chapter 3English literature during the eighteenth century presents no more distinguished name than that of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and essayist. His learning was immense; h...