VIVISECTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 15

VIVISECTION.

is IT justified? THE SCIENTIST'S CASE. INCALCULABLE SUFFERING SAVED Ts vivsection justified? It is an old problem, and one which I ordinarily arouses bitter feeling and correspondingly bitter charges, controverj sies that never roach finality. On the ! one side you have an agitation for the I suppression of vivisection on the grounds ! that it is heartless and premeditated I cruelty. On tho other, there is the I scientist who claims that the experij incuts of the past half-century have saved millions of human beings and aniUnals from suffering and death. He admits that it is a bit rough on the unimal that is under the knife, but urges that I the dominnnt consideration in this, as :in other cases, must be the promotion of I the greatest good for the greatest ! number. I That we should sympathise with those i who love and wish to protect animals is 1 only natural. But it is possible to let 1 kindness and sentiment blind one to another and vitally important side of the question—the immense benefit that millions of animals may derive from the sacrifice of a few. This is the defence jthat the vivisectionist offers against all attacks. THE VALUE OF SACRIFICE. This aspect of the problem is carefully j and logically examined by Ernest Harold . Baynes in a striking article in a recent ! number of "The World's Work." "One vivisector working in his laboraItory," Mr. Baynes says, "will prevent more suffering to animals than all the officers in all the animal rescue leagues in the United States put together." J The animal suffering from disease, he points out, is dependent upon man, and man alone, for its relief. Man, with his j superior powers and intelligence, must jbe left to decide what means shall be adopted to bring about a cure, and the animal cannot complain if man follows the principles adopted in the treatment of mankind's own diseases. The animal I upon which an experiment is practised is treated no better and no worse than j scores of men wiio have suffered and died for the same ends. A striking example of this readiness of the individual to sacrifice himself for his fellows occurred, Mr. Baynes points . out, at the close of the Spanish-American jWar in Cuba in 1898. At that time a deadly disease, yellow fever, was rife in Havana, and Surgeon-General Sternberg appointed a Commission consisting of three doctors—Reed, Carroll and Lazear i—to find out how the disease was transmitted. At that time no animal was known to be susceptible to yellow fever, and so human volunteers were called for. I A number of men, including all . the members of the Commission, responded, and allowed themselves ;to be bitten by the mosquito which was suspected of carrying the disease. Lazear and another man died, and Reed barely escaped with his life. But the secret of the transmission of the disease was solved, and the way was clear for a campaign that cleaned Havana of mosjquitoes and yellow fever. ' MILLIONS OF ANIMALS SAVED. J This is only one of a thousand cases where men and women have risked their lives in the cause of science and -liave therefore conferred a blessing on mankind. And it is the same with animals. Thanks to Pasteur'e great experiments, for instance, a vaccine was discovered which gave sheep protection against anthrax. It is estimated that the saving of animal life in France due to Pasteur's discoveries lias more than paid the Prussian war indemnity of £200,000,000. I This means that millions of animals have been saved from suffering and death. j Again, take Pasteur's experiments with chickens and swine. He discovered : the secret of the cholera which killed i millions of chickens, and by sacrificing some scores of pigs greatly reduced the ravages of the disease (erysipelas) which ,in one year (1879) killed one million I animals. THE FEW AND THE MANY. The saving of animal life by vivisection—a term which ordinarily includes all sacrifice Experiments on live animals —can scarcely be better studied than at the Bureau of Animal Industry conducted by America's Department of Agriculture. What it has done, largely as a result of vivisection, can be estimated by the headway made against one disease, hog cholera. Experiments on 17 pigs resulted in the discovery of a , serum which will protect pigs from this disease. In 1921, thanks to this Berum, i about one million pigs were saved, and ; i the farmers benefited to the extent of : about £10,000,000. "What real lover of , animals," asks Mr. Baynes very reason- [ ably, "could wish the million to suffer in ■ order that the few might be epared?" I The question seems unanswerable, ' and the conclusion that one must reach lis that, provided nil experiments are ! carried out as humanely as possible, ! vivisection is a necessary evil which has i; yielded the most beneficial results, and ; whicli could be suppressed only at the risk of very terrible consequences to the , animals that man feels it his duty to protect.