The Vivisectors' Directory: Being a list of the licensed vivisectors in the United Kingdom, together with the leading physiologists in foreign laboratories
Science
The Vivisectors' Directory: Being a list of the licensed vivisectors in the United Kingdom, together with the leading physiologists in foreign laboratories
Vivisection
“In the dogs the electricity employed was not sufficiently powerful to
arrest respiration, and death was due to the elevation of temperature.
The ascent of the thermometer was extremely rapid, so that after the
tetanus had lasted for half-an-hour, the lethal temperature of 111 or 112
F. was reached.… The proof that the increased body heat was the cause
of death was furnished by the fact that if the animal is kept cool by
artificial means it may bear for more than two hours extremely strong
currents, which cause severe tetanus without dying for some days. The
capacity for generating this great temperature under electrisation does
not disappear even after prolonged application, and it is not influenced
by previous fasting for two or three days.… Usually death occurs when
a temperature of 112° is attained, but in some cases it reached 112·5
and even 113·3. If the temperature did not rise above 110° death did
not ensue on the same or the following day; after this point however,
although death may not be immediate, it occurs within 24 hours.… At 111°
the breathing is so frequent that it is hardly possible to count it and
so feeble that scarcely any air enters the thorax.”--_Lancet_, September
17th, 1881, p. 515.
=Richet, Charles=, Rue Bonaparte, 5, Paris. B. at Paris 1850. M.D.,
Paris, 1877.
Author of “Recherches expérimentelles et cliniques sur la sensibilité,”
Paris, 1877.
Made experiments on fishes reported to the Acad. de Sciences, Oct. 24,
1881.
“Pain is a purely central phenomenon. It is a sensation that may exist,
even to intensity, without manifesting its presence by any external sign,
and consequently it is impossible to gauge it. All physiologists know
that during vivisection there is an entire dissimilarity in the manner
in which animals seem to suffer. Some remain motionless, the eyes fixed,
neither struggling nor moaning; they appear as if struck by stupor.
Others on the contrary groan and howl, never remaining a moment without
struggling or endeavouring to escape. Every incision that is made, every
laceration, every pull is instantly followed by a shock which interferes
with the result of the experiment.… I will point out, moreover, the fact
observed by the physiologists at Alport. The blood of the animals used
for operations is almost devoid of fibrine, like the blood of animals
that have been overworked. As regards dyspepsia and disorders of the
digestive functions which prolonged pain brings on, the phenomenon is
rather psychical than physiological, and pain acts similarly to grief
and privation.”--“_Recherches expérimentelles et cliniques sur la
sensibilité_,” _Collection de Thèses École de Médicine_, Paris, 1877, p.
255.
“When it is a question of scientific research one must act resolutely,
without considering the pain.”--Revue des deux Mondes, Feb. 15, 1883.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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