Vivisection, scientifically and ethically considered / in prize essays by James Macaulay, Rev. Brewin Grant, and Abiathar Wall.

  • Macaulay, James, 1817-1902.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection, scientifically and ethically considered / in prize essays by James Macaulay, Rev. Brewin Grant, and Abiathar Wall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    A GREAT change of opinion appears to have taken place among the medical profession in England on the subject of Vivisection. In the Medico-Chirurgical Review for 1842, Mr. Shaw, now (1880) the veteran Consulting Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, in giving a summary of his kinsman's. Sir Charles Bell's, researches, thus expressed himself :— The profession must be well persuaded by this time what a difficult task it is to obtain any uniform results by having recourse to experiments on living animals. And it is scarcely too much to say that, if physiologists had waited patiently till cases occurred in practice, such as have actually been met with in very numerous instances, when the pathological phenomena confirmed the views deduced from anatomy, our convictions would be as strong as after all the multiplied experiments which have been performed. The words of Sir Charles Bell himself are still more emphatic:— In a foreign review of my former papers, he says, the results have been considered as in favour of experimenting on living animals. They are, on the con- trary, deductions from anatomy; and I have had recourse to experiments, not to form my opinions, but to impress them upon others. It must be my apology that my utmost powers of persuasion were lost while I urged my statements on the ground of anatomy alone. And again, Experiments have never been the means of discovery, and a survey of what has been attempted of late years will prove that the