{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65970/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65970","id":"gutenberg_65970","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65970","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science - Biology","Vivisection"],"text":"[Illustration: Saved by Antitoxin]\n\n                        _Which Shall Live\u2015\u2015Men\n                             or Animals?_\n\n\n\n\n                _Reprinted from Hygeia, October, 1923_\n\n\n                           _Copyright, 1923\n                     American Medical Association,\n                     535 N. Dearborn St., Chicago_\n\n\n\n\n                   WHICH SHALL LIVE\u2015\u2015MEN OR ANIMALS?\n\n                         ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES\n\n\nIf the United States were threatened with invasion by a foreign power,\neven if we knew that the invasion would be only temporary and that\nonly a few thousand of our citizens would be killed, the whole country\nwould be aroused in an effort to prevent that invasion. If necessary,\nmillions of men would be drafted and trained to meet the invaders and\nbillions of dollars would be expended to protect those few thousand\npeople from the death that must otherwise overtake them. In such a\ncase, every real man and every real woman in the country would be doing\nsomething to insure the defeat of that invading army. Yet such an army\nis like a box of tin soldiers compared with armies that threaten us all\nthe time, but which cause scarcely an extra beat of the nation\u2019s pulse.\nI refer to the armies of disease. The army of bubonic plague alone, if\npermitted to effect a foothold on our shores, might at any time ravage\nour cities as it once ravaged the cities of Europe and Asia, leaving\nscarcely enough living to bury the dead. We read in DeFoe\u2019s \u201cHistory of\nthe Plague\u201d in London in 1665 of \u201cpeople in the rage of their distemper\nor in the torment of their swellings, which were indeed intolerable,\nrunning out of their own government, raving and distracted, and often\ntimes laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing themselves out of\nwindows, shooting themselves, mothers murdering their own children in\ntheir lunacy.\u201d Indeed, we do not have to go back so far to realize what\nthe plague can do. In 1905 in India alone there were 1,040,429 deaths\nfrom this one disease.\n\n\n                    THE CONQUEST OF BUBONIC PLAGUE\n\nIn this country no layman loses any sleep on account of bubonic\nplague. Is that because it does not exist? Not at all. It comes to\nour waters, even effects a landing sometimes. But we have a small\ngarrison of vigilant medical men on our coasts watching day and night\nfor that enemy, ready to give him instant combat if he comes. We sleep\nin peace because we trust that garrison. Thirty years ago we did not\nknow what caused this terrible plague, but in 1894 the germ (_Bacillus\npestis bubonicae_) was discovered. Even then it was not known how the\ndisease was carried or what caused it to spread so rapidly\u2015\u2015and before\nit could be combated successfully, that must be known. A series of\nexperiments on living animals, chiefly rats, guinea-pigs and monkeys,\nyielded the desired information and through these experiments we have\nbeen delivered from this terrible scourge. It was known that rats were\nsubject to plague; consequently attempts were made to find out how\nit was transmitted from one rat to another. The idea that it might be\ncarried by parasites occurred to several investigators. Accordingly,\nhealthy rats were placed in cages close to diseased rats; they remained\nperfectly well until a few fleas were introduced. Then, almost\nimmediately, the hitherto healthy rats were stricken with plague.\nCages containing healthy monkeys were suspended over cages occupied\nby diseased and flea-infested rats. At regular intervals the monkeys\nwere lowered nearer to the stricken rodents. The monkeys were all right\nuntil they were brought within jumping distance of a flea, when they at\nonce contracted the plague. These and other experiments left no doubt\nthat rat fleas were the carriers among animals, and since rat fleas\nalso feed on man when their natural prey is not available, it was an\neasy matter to show that the plague is spread by means of rat fleas.\nThis led to a definite program for checking the spread of the disease,\nby relentless warfare on fleas and the rats that carried them. The rats\nwere trapped, their breeding places destroyed, and diseased rats from\ninfested ports were prevented from entering the country. For example,\nwhen it was found that rats frequently come ashore along the cables\nstretched between the ships and the wharves, metal cones similar to\nthose used to prevent rodents from climbing into corn cribs were placed\non the cables. The fact that I wish to emphasize is that it is due\nto experiments on living mammals that this black death is no longer a\nterror to us.\n\n\n               EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF HEALTH AND DISEASE\n\nUntil the middle of the last century very little had been done in the\nway of experimental study of physiology and pathology. Physicians\ndepended almost entirely on bedside observations. Some of these\nphysicians were wonderful men, and often their observations were\nremarkably shrewd. But the human body is a complex machine, the\norgans are so interdependent, that in the presence of any given set\nof symptoms and signs of disease, it was almost impossible to be sure\njust what caused them, and, consequently, what was best to do for\nthe patient. When the experimental method was adopted disease could\nbe observed systematically, conditions could be controlled, and the\nphenomena that resulted could be studied intelligently because the\nexperimenter knew exactly what had produced them. In such experiments\nmammals are the animals chiefly used, because in most respects they\nmost nearly resemble man, himself a mammal. Practically all the\ndomestic mammals have been used, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, swine,\ndogs, cats, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and rats and mice; monkeys are also\nused. And all have made wonderful contributions to medicine or surgery\nor both.\n\n\n                    TYPES OF EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS\n\n                                   I\n\nThere are several classes of experiments. Some are in the field of\npure research, not having for their object any immediate benefit to\nman or animals. Experiments of this nature were carried on some years\nago in work on bubonic plague among rodents in California. It was\ndiscovered that ground squirrels have a disease similar to plague and\nyet distinctly different. By a long series of experiments it was found\nthat monkeys are susceptible to this disease, and it was predicted\nthat eventually cases would be found in man. As a result of this\nwork a bacteriologist in Cincinnati was able to identify the disease\nin persons in his own vicinity. Another investigator found it among\npersons in Utah, and showed that it is carried from infected rabbits\nand ground squirrels by biting insects. It also was shown that the\ndisease is widespread over the United States. With this knowledge of\nthe means of transmission of the disease it is comparatively easy to\nprevent the infection of man.\n\n                                  II\n\nAnother class of experiments is carried on by surgeons to develop\ndexterity before they attempt operations on man. Such experiments are\nusually carried out on dogs. The animals are invariably under complete\nanesthesia and usually they are killed by added ether at the end of the\nexperiment.\n\n[Illustration: _Does this dog look unhappy? Ten years ago Buster had an\noperation performed on the stomach; the results have been of aid in the\nstudy of digestion. Buster has not suffered thereby, and she has saved\nmuch suffering to others. She is receiving a visit from the author._]\n\nRecently I attended the clinic of a throat specialist in the east.\nI saw child after child wheeled into the amphitheatre and relieved,\nusually in a few moments, of foreign bodies that they had sucked into\nthe windpipe and that a few years ago would in many cases have caused\ndeath, either directly or as the result of a dangerous operation.\nSo dextrous is this man that his little patients do not need any\nanesthetic. After his work was done I had a talk with him, and he told\nme that the technic of these operations had been worked out with great\ncare on dogs that were always under an anesthetic. He also told me that\nby the use of two dogs he had trained fifty other men to do similar\nwork.\n\n[Illustration: _This is Whitey, about eight months after the complete\nremoval of the parathyroid glands. These glands are quite often partly\nand accidentally removed during operations on the thyroid gland in\nman, with alarming and sometimes fatal results. Following complete\nremoval of the parathyroid glands, carnivorous animals, including man,\ndie within from four to six days. As a result of experimental work on\nthis dog and other animals, three effective curative measures have\nbeen developed, which indefinitely preserve the life of such animals\nin normal health. Two persons are known to have been saved and several\nothers have been rendered free from symptoms as a result of this\nstudy._]\n\n                                  III\n\nIn the Civil War if a man was shot through the bowels, he was doomed\nto death; the surgeons hardly dared to open the abdomen and if they\ndid they didn\u2019t know how to join the ends of the bowel so that it would\nnot leak. Of course the slightest leak meant infection and death. Then\ncame along an experimenter who etherized about thirty dogs, shot them\nthrough the bowels, and practiced joining bowel ends until he could\nmake a perfect joint. It is safe to say that in the World War the\nlives of thousands of men were saved as a result of that series of\nexperiments.\n\n[Illustration: _These children at the Anna Durand Hospital, Chicago,\nhave been saved from death from diphtheria by the use of antitoxin. The\nboy in the center has a squint as the result of his sickness._]\n\nLockjaw, tetanus, chiefly a disease of war, that threatened to\ntake frightful toll of soldiers wounded on the tetanus-infected\nbattlefields of Europe, did little damage during the late war because\nof antitetanus serum made from the blood of immunized horses. Every\nwounded man received an injection of this serum at the earliest\npossible moment, and usually the length of time that had intervened\ndetermined whether the man would live or whether he would die a most\ndistressing and horrible death.\n\n[Illustration: _The homes of this boy and girl have to thank research\nworkers and animals for the lives saved by antitoxin for diphtheria.\nWithout antitoxin, developed by experimental work on animals, such\nchildren would have had slim chances of recovery._]\n\nThe antityphoid vaccine, also worked out on mammals and tested on\nmammals, has practically abolished typhoid fever in soldiers\u2019 camps. It\nis estimated by the Surgeon General\u2019s office that during the World War\nit saved the lives of 60,000 men in the American army alone.\n\n[Illustration: _On the roof garden of the Home for Destitute Crippled\nChildren, Chicago. Suppose one of these victims of infantile paralysis\nwere your child? Would you hesitate to sacrifice under ether one or\nmore animals if through the knowledge gained the disease could have\nbeen prevented, or your child could have recovered without being\ncrippled?_]\n\n\n                  BENEFITS OF EXPERIMENTATION TO MAN\n\nThese are only a very few examples from the long list of benefits\nthat have accrued to humanity through the use of living mammals for\nexperimental purposes. I must mention only one more\u2015\u2015the recent\ndiscovery of a specific treatment for diabetes. Less than two years ago\nI invited a little girl to go for a bird walk with me that I might\ngive her the pleasure of stroking and feeding a wild bird in its nest.\nI was particularly eager that she should enjoy that day, because both\nshe and I knew that she had not many days to live. She was doomed to\ndie of diabetes within six months; as a matter of fact she died in less\nthan three months from the date of our walk. I remember thinking that\nI would give anything I possessed if I could by some miracle restore\nthat child to health. Today, less than two years later, that miracle\ncould be performed, because Dr. F. G. Banting of the University of\nToronto, by a brilliant series of experiments on dogs, has completed\ninvestigations begun on rabbits by Claude Bernard seventy-five years\nago. The story of this wonderful discovery is long, but here are the\noutstanding facts. It was found that when the pancreas of a dog is\nremoved, the animal at once develops acute diabetes and usually dies\nof that disease within three or four weeks. Under the microscope the\npancreas is seen to be studded with countless little bodies, known as\nthe islands of Langerhans, after the German scientist who discovered\nthem. It was found that these islands secrete a substance quite\ndifferent from that secreted by the rest of the pancreas, and that\nit is the absence of this substance, not the absence of the pancreas\nitself, that causes diabetes. A method was devised for obtaining an\nextract from these islands of Langerhans, and it was found that when\nthis extract was injected into a dog whose pancreas has been removed\nit did not die, but got well and continued to be well as long as it\nwas given injections of this extract. After these injections had been\nproved to be safe by repeated experiments on dogs, they were tried\non human patients with startlingly beneficial results. Even when the\ndisease is of long standing, when the patient has reached the very last\nstage and is in the coma that immediately precedes death, injections of\nthis extract, now known to the world as insulin, will bring him out of\nthe coma, snatch him from the very jaws of death, and restore him to\nhealth.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n    _Pacific and Atlantic_\n\n_Not man alone, but animals also have benefited by experimental work.\nThe best example of this is the conquest of hydrophobia._]\n\n\n              THE FALSE STAND OF THE ANTIVIVISECTIONISTS\n\nWe have seen that all these great advances in medicine and surgery have\nbeen made as the result of experiments on living mammals, and you will\nagree, I believe, that in all probability further advances in these\nfields must be brought about by the same means. This is the opinion of\npractically all eminent physicians and surgeons and veterinarians, and\nof all the great scientists and educators in other fields\u2015\u2015in short,\nit is the opinion of all persons who have vast responsibilities for\nthe health of men and of animals. The only persons who are opposed to\nthese reasonable experiments are the antivivisectionists, who have no\nsuch responsibilities. Would any sane person think of going to the\nantivivisectionists for help if there were an epidemic of smallpox or\ndiphtheria, or if there were an outbreak of hog cholera or of blackleg\nin cattle? We don\u2019t go to them because they know nothing about such\nmatters. Yet they boldly contradict all competent authorities and\ntell us that experiments on animals are useless, that they have never\naccomplished anything. The antivivisection societies are composed\nlargely of well disposed but woefully misinformed persons. And those\nwho are responsible for the misinformation are the leaders of the\nantivivisectionists. I have been studying these leaders for some years,\nand I may say, without any danger of my statements being disproved,\nthat among them may be found many of the most dangerous of the\ncriminal insane to be found in this country today\u2015\u2015and I have recently\nvisited some of our largest penitentiaries and asylums. I have found\nsome of these leaders of the antivivisection movement to be guilty of\nfalsehood, slander, libel, perjury, forgery, and attempted bribery.\nUnder false pretenses they obtain money from weakminded and unthinking\npeople and, with this money, they wilfully and perennially attempt\nnot only to prevent the advance of medicine and surgery, but also to\nbreak down the bulwarks of preventive medicine by teaching contempt of\nvaccination and of the use of antitoxins.\n\nFew of the criminals in our jails are responsible for the deaths\nof more than a small number of persons; few of them have attempted\nwidespread destruction of life. But it is the opinion of eminent\nphysicians that through the pernicious teachings of the antivivisection\nleaders we shall in a few years have epidemics that will destroy the\nlives of many thousands of children. Unless we wish for a return of\nthe plagues and pestilences that once devastated wide areas on this\nworld before the introduction of modern methods, we should use every\nmeans in our power to discourage these dangerous fanatics. I believe\nthat it is the duty of all good citizens who belong to antivivisection\nsocieties to send in their resignations at once, and to stand with\nour government, our great physicians, surgeons, veterinarians,\nagriculturalists, educators, and divines in approving and supporting\nproperly conducted animal experimentation and sane humane education\ngenerally.\n\n    After the presentation of this paper by Mr. Baynes before the\n    American Society of Mammalogists, at its fifth annual meeting,\n    May 15 to 17, 1923, in the Academy of Natural Sciences,\n    Philadelphia, the Society unanimously passed these resolutions:\n\n    WHEREAS, It is a fact known to all thinking people that most of\n    the great advances in medicine and surgery have been made as a\n    result of experiments on living animals, especially mammals, and\n\n    WHEREAS, It is the belief of our eminent physicians, surgeons,\n    and veterinarians, and all others having great responsibility\n    for the health of human beings and of animals, that future\n    advances in these fields will be made chiefly as the result of\n    similar experiments, and\n\n    WHEREAS, It is known that these experiments almost invariably\n    are conducted humanely and with a minimum of discomfort to the\n    animals used, and\n\n    WHEREAS, There is an organized movement being carried on by\n    certain misinformed and misguided individuals who seek to\n    prevent or seriously interfere with such experiments, be it\n\n    _Resolved_, that we, members of the American Society of\n    Mammalogists, in annual convention assembled in the city\n    of Philadelphia, on the sixteenth day of May, 1923, are of\n    opinion that, in the best interests of real humanity, animal\n    experimentation, including vivisection, as practiced in our\n    laboratories today, should continue unhampered.\n\n\n\n\n                                HYGEIA\n\n            _A Journal of Individual and Community Health_\n\n              The publication through which the medical\n              profession of the United States presents\n              to the public interesting, instructive and\n              authoritative articles about health\n\n                          _Published Monthly_\n                  _$3.00 the year\u2015\u201525 cents the copy_\n\n\n                     AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION\n                  535 North Dearborn Street - CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\n Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\n \u2015\u2015Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n\n \u2015\u2015Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.","title":"Which Shall Live\u2014Men or Animals?","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":3043}