nerves, he
experimentally verified his conclusions...."

In his lectures on the nervous system Bell himself states that his
discoveries, so far from being the result of vivisections, were, "on
the contrary, deductions from anatomy; and I have had recourse to
experiments, not to form my own opinions, but to impress them upon
others."

That which determines the judgment of the world upon human actions is
the spirit that animates them. Sir Charles Bell was not an
antivivisectionist. When experiments on animals seemed to him
absolutely indispensable, he had recourse to them, but always with
repugnance, and with desire to avoid giving of pain. In his lectures
on the nervous system he speaks thus of some of his work:

"After delaying long on account of the unpleasant nature of the
operation, I opened the spinal canal.... I was deterred from repeating
the experiment by the protracted cruelty of the dissection. I
reflected that the experiment would be satisfactory if done on an
animal recently knocked down and insensible."

And on another occasion, writing to his brother, he says:

"I should be writing a third paper on the nerves; but I cannot proceed
without making some experiments, which are so unpleasant to make that
I defer them. You may think me silly, but I cannot perfectly convince
myself that I am authorized in Nature or Religion to do these
cruelties .... And yet what are my experiments in comparison with
those which are daily done, and are done daily for nothing?"

Such extreme sensibility, such sympathetic hesitancy to inflict great
suffering in an attempt to discover some fact, would be ridiculed at
the present day in every laboratory in Europe or America. It is
typical, however, of a sentiment that once prevailed. Are we any
better because it has so largely disappeared?

For great cruelty was there ever great remorse? The cases are not
many; before the self-condemnation of a dying man and the final scene,
friendship may feel it best to draw the veil. Yet one case of this
poignant regret is worthy consideration, and shall have relation.

CHAPTER V

A VIVISECTOR'S REMORSE

About 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 compassionate interest. Born in
1809, John Reid received his medical degree when but twenty-one years
of age.