The case against anti-vivisection / by Stephen Paget.

  • Paget, Stephen, 1855-1926
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The case against anti-vivisection / by Stephen Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dares that his experiments on living animals aided him in his discoveries.” We agree here with Mr. Berdoe. Then comes this sentence : But that is not so important as it appears to bi. Why not ? What is gained by this attempt to explain Harvey away ? Dr. Bowie mistranslates him; Dr. Abiathar W all 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.- Let us look at the head- ings of Harvey’s own book, Chapters II, III, IV r Ex vivorum dissectione, qualis fit cordis motus. Arteriarum motus qualis, ex vivorum dissectione,. Motus cordis et auricuLarum qualis, ex vivorum dis- sectione.” Then read the Preface, and Chapter VIII. Why should we take, on Harvey’s work, any opinion but that of Harvey ? Sir Charles Bell. “ It is disgraceful of the vivisectors,” says Mr. Berdoe, “ to traduce the memory of this great surgeon but it shows that they will stick at nothing rather than concede his axiom that ‘ experiments have never been the means of discovery.’ ” Certainly, in the natural sciences, we have a right to stick at nothing rather than concede an axiom which is more than seventy years old. But the National Society still claims this axiom as a “ medical opinion on vivisec- tion ; ” and would have men take, to-day, an estimate that was made long before anaesthetics, long before bacteriology. Anyhow, does this axiom apply to Bell’s own work ? Were experiments the means of his discovery ? Late in life, he wrote against the “ opening of living animals ; ” it is no great wonder. But what does he write, in early life, of his own ex- periments, when they were still new in his mind I Does he say that he reasoned out his discovery with-