tricted and
unrestrained? Has it accomplished anything for the human race that
might not have been accomplished under conditions whereby cruelty
should be impossible except as a crime? Has the death-rate been
reduced by new discoveries made in American laboratories? Is it
possible that utility is persistently exaggerated by those who are not
unwilling to use exaggeration as a means of defence? And of the
Future, what are the probabilities for which we may hope? What is
being done in our century in the way of submitting animals to
unlimited torture?

To throw somewhat of light on these questions is the object of this
volume. I wish it had been in my power to write a more extended and
complete exposition of the problem, but limitations of strength, due
to advancing age, have made that hope impracticable. But as one man
drops the torch, another hand will grasp it; and where now is darkness
and secrecy, there will one day be knowledge and light.

AN ETHICAL PROBLEM

CHAPTER I

WHAT IS VIVISECTION?

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 suggested and adopted sufficiently concise and yet so
comprehensive as to include every phase of animal experimentation. It
is a secret practice. Formerly more or less public, it is now carried
on in closed laboratories, with every possible precaution against the
disclosure of anything liable to criticism. Quite apart from any
questions of usefulness, it is a pursuit involving problems of the
utmost fascination for the investigating mind--questions pertaining to
Life and Death--the deepest mysteries which can engage the intellect
of mankind. We find it made especially attractive to young men at
that period of life when their encouraged and cultivated enthusiasm
for experimentation is not liable to be adequately controlled by any
deep consideration for the "material" upon which they work. Sometimes
animal experimentation is painless, and sometimes it involves
suffering which may vary in degree from distress which is slight to
torments which a great surgeon has compared to burning alive, "the
utmost degree of prolonged and excruciating agony." By some, its
utility to human