VIVISECTION: THE "BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL" AND THE "SPECTATOR."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR;—As you have not deemed it necessary to notice an article in the British Medical Journal of the 8th inst., taking you to task for some previous remarks in condemnation of Dr. Rutherford's vivisectional experiments, perhaps you will allow me to state shortly what I, as a member of the profession, think of the -dispute between you. Your readers will remember that Dr. Rutherford had indignantly declared that not one of those who unite in condemning such experiments as his but "will be very ready and eager to profit by the results of our labour," and that you met this argwmentum ad haminem by the rejoinder, that to disregard the good results that might be got from such experiments would be as unwise as for the statesman to ignore the lessons taught by the horrors of the Inquisition, or for the policeman to disregard the instruction obtainable from study- ing the clever act of the burglar. To me, and (I presume) to most of your readers, your reply was conclusive, but the British Medical Journal failed to see its cogency, and put it down as a pure fallacy, known by the writer using it to be so. The Journal believes the true conclusion from your illustrations to be, that for those who condemn vivisection to profit by such experiments as are indicated, is RS heinous as it would be for the statesman to "take from the hand of the criminal the treasure that the torturer wrung from him," or for the policeman, knowing the burglariousness of the act, to share in the spoil." But your critic here commits the very like fallacy which he declares you to be guilty of, forgetting that nothing is more apt to entrap a disputant to his own undoing than the unwary use of a comparison, especially so when he brings into the argument certain elements not recognised by his opponent's statement. The statesman and the policeman in your illustration use the results indicated in all justice and con- sistency, because they neither willingly nor connivingly aided in the original act of production. These results were certainly, not wrought for, by either Inquisitor or burglar ; they were the unanticipated consequences of what was in either case a heinous action, but no more to be ignored by others than the many good re- sults we see ensue from every-day wickedness. By parity of your critic's reasoning, the contemners of slavery ought not to have worn the products of slave-grown cotton ! The lessons taught by the torture and the burglary on the side of human freedom and public safety were the common property of those outside the Inquisition and the burglar's action, and therefore beyond the restrictive claim of the one or the other. And notwith- standing Professor Pfohn's small dramatic illustration to the contrary, the truth is, that Hunter had no claim, in the act of his experiment, to what was at the time an undesigned inference as to the distal ligature being a remedy for popliteal aneurism. His true merit arose from his being, by his genius, able after- wards to see that other and higher conclusion. To ignore the good results which flow from even the worst acts—made so by their motives, circumstances, and conditions—would simply be to disregard that one great lesson from human experience,—to value the good from all action, and allow the bad to pass away.
The conclusion, then, is,—while one may unhesitatingly con- demn much of that vivisectional experimentation practised at home and abroad (and with great pleasure, I give the latter its bad pre-eminence),—he is quite entitled to use every good result that may directly or indirectly come from it.—I am, Sir, &c., J. F.
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