An Ethical Problem Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals

Excerpt

The position taken by the writer of this volume should be clearly
understood.  It is not the view known as antivivisection, so far as
this means the condemnation without exception of all phases of
biological investigation.  There are methods of research which involve
no animal suffering, and which are of scientific utility.  Within
certain careful limitations, these would seem justifiable.  For nearly
forty years, the writer has occupied the position which half a century
ago was generally held by a majority of the medical profession in
England, and possibly in America, a position maintained in recent
years by such men as Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson of England, by
Professor William James and Dr. Henry J. Bigelow of Harvard
University.  With the present ideals of the modern physiological
laboratory, so far as they favour the practice of vivisection in
secrecy and without legal regulation, the writer has no sympathy
whatsoever.