PAINFUL EXPERIMENTS ON MAN.
IN writing on the restriction of Vivisection, we repeatedly urged the great danger threatened to the spirit of the medical profession,—the profession of healing,—even in relation to human beings, from the deliberate infliction of animal suffering as if it were a matter wholly subordinate to the attainment of know- ledge ; and we illustrated our anxiety on one occasion by the painful and wanton experiments made (doubtless with her own consent, but a consent no doubt given in complete ignorance of the pain involved in what was proposed) on an unfortunate Irish- woman in the United States, whom an American practitioner persuaded to allow an electrode to be introduced into the exposed part of her brain. The medical profession in this country,—of whom, no doubt, the great majority are as humane and tender- hearted as any human beings can be—were extremely indignant with us for those remarks. And at that time, we had to bear as well as we could the odium which attaches to those who venture to warn a great profession that it needs to be carefully protected against dangerous tendencies inherent in the aims of the boldest and most enterprising of its own members. We were told repeatedly by both lay and medical writers that to limit the resources for the in- vestigations of disease, however much of deliberate infliction of suffering these might involve, could result in nothing but fettering with cruel chains the essential beneficence of science, and retard- ing fatally the day when pain, disease, and pestilence might vanish, or dwindle to a minimum, before the potent resources of true knowledge. We, on the other hand, ventured to think that to keep intact that true spirit of healing which cannot endure to inflict severe suffering at all, except for remedial purposes, is at least as important as any conceiv- able additions to the resources of investigation, and a great deal more important than any such additions gained at the cost of the higher sympathies by a mere triumph of scientific curiosity over pity. But hardly any professional man would admit this danger, so long as the sufferings of the lower animals alone were at stake. We hope they may now see it, when they learn how easily indifference to the sufferings even of human beings may gain on minds given up to the (too often) ruthless cravings of scientific curiosity. The sort of case to which we are about to refer is, as a matter of course, very rarely accessible to any but profes- sional men, but we think we may fairly assume that for every case of this kind which is frankly and candidly chronicled in the public journals, not a few others must occur of which the evi- dence is hushed up as fast as possible, by the prudence of those who know too well how the publication of such facts will affect the public. We met with the following illustrations of the scientific spirit, not in any sensational journal given up to the propagation of humanitarian principles,but in the pages of the Lancet itself, where they have not unnaturally called forth earnest protests from members of the medical profession, who were both surprised and shocked to learn how fruitlessly and unscrupulously scientific curiosity—if scientific it could properly be called—trifled with the nervous agonies of a patient in the last stages of a most terrible and dreaded disease.
The cases we are referring to are those of two patients who died from hydrophobia in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and which are recorded in the Lancet of the 20th and 27th January. The first case was that of a man bitten by a dog on the 22nd July, in whom hydrophobic symptoms did not occur till the 22nd September, and who was admitted to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary on the 27th, with all the well-known symptoms of hydrophobia,—horror of water, &c. On the 28th September the patient seemed slightly to rally, and "when seen at mid-day,"—we quote from the official report in the Lancet,—" the hope was expressed that the symptoms, whatever was their origin, were passing off, and that the patient was in a fair way towards recovery. At 3.30 p.m., an event occurred which completely and suddenly altered the aspect of the case. While the patient was lying to all appearance calmly in bed, a dog passed through the ward, and was seen by him. Immediately thereafter he started up in bed, with his arms extended and his
eyes staring, his whole countenance indicating intense horror." He jumped out of bed, "and on attempting to climb over the screen, fell upon the floor," and from that time he steadily grew
worse, and died on the 2nd October. Now, we are very far from saying that the dog was introduced on purpose to try the effect on the nerves of the patient,—unusual as the appearance of a dog in the wards of a hospital usually is, and remarkable as it is that the incident is not expressly spoken of as an unfor- tunate accident due to the carelessness of attendants. We sincerely hope that the event was a pure accident, though an accident which ought not to have been possible. But the only thing which could give colour to the suspicion that the accident was a cruel experiment on the nerves of a man stricken with probably mortal disease, is that un- questionably very cruel experiments of a slighter kind were made deliberately on him afterwards. The patient's horror of fluid, and especially water, was well marked. He had earnestly begged to have the noise of running water in an adjoining room stopped. Yet in the night after the convulsions caused by the appearance of the dog, we are told expressly that "pouring water from one vessel to another in his hearing did not produce any effect ; upon a few drops being sprinkled upon his face, the same sobbings " [as resulted when he tried to drink] "were per- formed, and he complained of such a low trick being done upon him.' " Again, about five o'clock in the morning of the 29th September, "there seemed to be a lucid interval, in which, in pitiful tones of voice, he asked those around - him to take him up into a quiet room, and have an end made of him. This period of repose did not last long, for in a few minutes after, being breathed upon and fanned with a towel" [operations which always seemed to excite the hydrophobic patients], "he became again quite incoherent and maniacal." (The italics are ours). Yet in spite of this, the assistant who records this part of the ease tells us that between 5.30 and 8 on the same morning, "While standing behind him and out of his sight, I blew my breath once or twice upon the head and face, when at once the muscles of the neck and of the upper and lower extremi- ties became rigid, and the diaphragm acted spasmodically. The spasm was not followed by a second, without he was again provoked." So that of course he was again "provoked," and not on that day only. On the 1st of October, the day before his death, we have it recorded "When gently fanned, the same effect is produced as before,—namely, the brows are knitted and the breathing is held until the fanning ceases, when a number of sobbing inspirations immediately take place, and when these cease the features resume their natural appearance." And again, on the day of his death, "Ice put on the head brings on slight spasms ; blowing on the head or fanning has the same effect At 11 a.m. a bag of ice was applied and retained on the head for a few minutes. The effect it had was to make him shiver from head to foot. it was removed, but reapplied by-and-by for a longer time, with the effect of making hint outrageously wild, tossing about in bed, and talking incoherently." Now, even if the dog were not intentionally introduced,—a cruel experiment on the patient's nerves, of which it would be monstrous to harbour the least suspicion, if it were not so clear that there was no scruple at all about irritating the patient's nerves in less serious ways,—nothing can be clearer than that, time after time, processes which had violently irritated the patient, and the bad effect of which had been repeatedly proved, were coolly repeated, from no motive that we can even conjecture, except that sort of pure scientific curiosity, which prompts, for instance, the frequent repetition of a curious electrical experiment, or an experiment on the effect of sound-vibrations on gaseous flames.
To a less extent, apparently, the same sort of painful experi- ments were made on the second hydrophobic patient admitted to the same infirmary on October 16. "On his being put to bed," we are told, that one of the physicians,—with, of course, the recent experience of the sufferings of the previous patient fresh in his recollection—" took a basin containing water behind the door, and lifting up some in a ladle, he allowed it to fall with a splash. The man was lying comparatively quiet, but on hearing this, he started up and cried, 'Oh God, that water ! that water ! Save me! save me !"rhis was followed by a long, deep sobbing inspiration." After a most violent effort to swallow; followed by convulsive spasms, milk was again offered him, when he said, with too much justice,—" Don't annoy me, don't annoy me ! You are criticising me, to increase your knowledge, not for my good."
Now, what are the censures passed by professional men themselves on such treatment ? One gentleman, Mr. Arthur Richardson, writing from Ruaholme, Manchester, to the Lancet, with respect to the conduet of the first case, says he has
read "with astonishment" the account of the case given in the Lancet of the 20th January. "How came a dog," he asks, "to be allowed to pass into the chamber of a man in the state there described? Was it for experiment, or was it accidental? If for experiment, God grant the Vivisection Act may proteet our species. If accidental, it is to be blamed in no measured terms. Who owned the dog? And are dogs frequent privileged visitors among the cases most undeniably serious, and where their presence may lead to serious results from fright ?" And referring to the remark that "the spasm was not followed by a second, without he was again provoked," the writer asks most pertinently, "How often was he provoked? If tetanus is pro- duced in two frogs by strychnine, the doses being equal, and it is wished to destroy one sooner than the other, let it be tormented by tapping or tickling, and the repeated nerve-spasms will soon do this ; while the other, which has been left unmolested, will often recover." Another professional man, a veterinary surgeon of high repute, attached to the Royal Engineers, Mr. Fleming, writing from Chatham to the Lancet of February 3, says, "When I read the case in the Lancet (January 20), I could scarcely believe it possible such torture .could be inflicted, and without the slightest object to be gained, unless it were the satisfying of a most ab- normal curiosity. The admission of a dog to the ward of a patient labouring under this most dreadful of all diseases, sprinkling water upon his face, breathing upon him and fanning him with a towel, blowing upon his neck and face, must surely be designated as nothing less than extreme cruelty, and certain to destroy the only chance of recovery the poor man may have had." And the Lancet has nothing to say in extenuation, except that some of the experiments may have been necessary in the way of diagnosis (which is obviously an error), and that the hospital authorities showed great courage as well as devotion in their attention to both cases. No doubt they did. No one ever doubted the pluck or the laborious professional earnestness of our medical men in their work. But what they did show was a great deal too much earnestness of professional curiosity, a great deal too much earnest- ness as experimenters dealing with phenomena they were anxious to see and test, and a great deal too little of that pure solici- tude for the patient's relief and recovery, which is what we demand first of all, and most justly, from our medical men. We maintain that such a deficiency is to be expected as the natural fruit of that spirit of unrestrained scientific experi- mentation on sensitive creatures on behalf of which we heard such violent outcries from the most eminent members of the profes- sion, when they mobbed Mr. Cross at the Home Office barely seven months ago. Can we gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Teach the profession that a dog's agonies matter nothing when weighed in the scale against the cravings of scientific curiosity, and before long you will find a man's sufferings estimated at very much the same trifling importance. Pain is pain, and pity is pity, whether the victim be a dog or a man. Teach the physiologist to suppress his pity in the interests of science when the victim is a dog, and he will soon learn to suppress it when the victim is a man. Assuredly you may say of vivisection, "By its fruits ye shall know it." And we profoundly believe that unless most carefully watched and held in control, the practice of vivisection will effect a great deal more in the way of blunting natural com- passion, than it will ever effect in the way of adding trophies to the treasures of those humane conquerors who assuage the agonies of tortured nerves, and restore health to frames wasted by disease.
V' Since this paper was put into type, we have learned with sin- cere pleasure, from a letter in the Lancet of yesterday, that the dog's entrance was a pure accident, and due to the visit of a charitable lady, whose dog, through some carelessness of the attendants, followed her into the ward. So far, good. The other experi- ments on the unhappy sufferers remain unexplained, and are utterly indefensible, though they are extenuated,—obviously because there is no true defence,—as useful for the purposes of diagnosis. There was never apparently any serious doubt as to the nature of the disease in either case, both the patients having spoken from the first of the bites they had received, and showing the usual agonising dread of the consequences.
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