An ethical problem; or, Sidelights upon scientific experimentation on man and animalsLeffingwell, Albert
Philosophy
An ethical problem; or, Sidelights upon scientific experimentation on man and animals
Leffingwell, Albert
Medicine, Experimental; Vivisection
Among American physicians, probably the most distinguished medical
writer of to-day is Dr. George M. Gould, author of several medical
works, and formerly editor of various medical journals. His
opposition to antivivisection ideals has always been pronounced; but
it has not prevented recognition of the abuses of the unlimited
practice of animal experimentation. Some extracts from an address
delivered by Dr. Gould before the American Academy of Medicine are
here presented. The reader should understand that they are extracts
only, and that they represent but one aspect of the speaker's views.
Perhaps they are the more valuable in that they are the utterances of
the most pronounced American critic of antivivisection of the present
time.
THE LIMITATIONS AND ERRORS OF THE VIVISECTIONISTS
The first that strikes one is an exaggeration of the importance and
extent of the vivisection method. As valuable an aid as it is, it is
not the only, and perhaps it is not the chief, method of ascertaining
medical truth. It has without doubt often been used when other
methods would have been productive of more certain results. This has
arisen from what a large and broad culture of the human mind perceives
to flow from a recent and rather silly hypertrophy of the scientific
method, and a limitation of that method to altogether too material or
physical aspects of the problem....
Almost every point over which the controversy has raged most fiercely
has been in relation to one or all of the three or four questions:
1. What is a vivisection experiment?
2. By whom should it be performed?
3. For what purpose should it be performed?
4. By what methods should it be carried out?
In reference to all of these questions, scientific men should unite
and establish a common set of principles or answers. In my judgment
their failure to do so at all, and besides this, their frequent
exaggeration of logical limits and just calims, has been one of the
unfortunate causes of useless and wasteful wrangling.....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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