TORTURE has always been a weapon of the zealot. If you go back through the history of religion, which is very similar to the history of other reforms, you will notice that in order to save mens souls the zealots of that day had completely convinced, not only themselves, but the public, that it was necessary, in the interests of the whole, that torture should be employed. Lecky records, in a striking passage, that:.
“What strikes us most in considering the mediaeval tortures is not so much their diabolical barbarity, which it is indeed impossible to exaggerate, as the extraordinary variety, and what may be termed the artistic skill they displayed. They represent a condition of thought in which men had pondered long and carefully on all the forms of suffering, had compared and combined the different kinds of torture, till they had become the most consummate masters of their art, had expended on the subject all the resources of the utmost ingenuity, and had pursued it with the ardour of a passion”.
What I want to emphasize is that, even though these things horrify us in moments of emotion, we must realize that the mediaeval tortures to which the historian refers were tortures carried out and believed to be necessary, not by the unintelligent and uneducated mob, but by the finest and most cultured brains which the age had produced.
The other point that I would press upon you is that in the mediaeval days of torture the ordinary common man or woman of the street, the public of that day, was in sympathy with that point of view and, though they might regard it as extremely horrible and extremely terrifying, they nevertheless supported it by a moral public opinion, and deemed it necessary, in order to save their souls.
To-days, I am sorry to say, the world is not greatly changed, and if the public can be persuaded by the cultured brains of medical science that these particular activities are necessary in order that disease may be eradicated, then, alas, public opinion will not advance very far even in this year of grace, 1934. But the anti-vivisectionist believes that if the public could understand what this system involves, what are the details of the activities carried out under the guise of medical science in the laboratory, they would – that, I think, is the difference in the age – definitely, and by a moral public opinion, sweep these things away from ever.
Now, curious to say, Lecky, in dealing with this particular subject, concludes this passage in this way. He says: “Perhaps the fullest [that is, the fullest description of torture] is Marsilius. Marsilius boasted that he was the inventor of the torture that consisted of depriving the prisoner of all sleep-a torture which was especially used in the States of the Church.” Now, I pick up a report in the Salford City Reporter of September 11th, 1931, and I read:.
“Pieron showed that if dogs are kept awake for long periods (30 to 300 hours) they show signs of intoxication and if the blood of such dogs be injected into other dogs such dogs show signs of somnolence, and thus proving that in the blood of the dog deprived of sleep is present a substance or toxin which can produce sleep”.
Here is the very thing, the torture of depriving an animal of sleep to prove – what? Surely it did not need so horrible an experiment to prove that sleeplessness produces a certain effect. Why, then, can such an experiment be carried out, and the public not raise a voice against it? It is, ladies and gentlemen, because we are living very much as we lived in mediaeval times, and we imagine that when these things are the outcome of the laboratory they are necessary. There is a further passage from that lecture which I will read:.
“If two animals practically identical are taken, and one is starved and the other deprived of sleep, the starved animal survives the longest – showing that sleep is even more important than food. Young puppies three or four months old, when deprived of sleep for four or five days, die at the end of that time, or if they are allowed to sleep near about the end of that time they die after a few days. Kleitmans description of the behaviour of puppies during a long period of forced insomnia is of considerable interest.
At first, by allowing the experimental animal to play with a mate, it is possible to banish sleep completely, but after three or four days of continued wakefulness the puppy loses all its interest in its surroundings, and from being friendly becomes vicious and unmanageable, biting the mate that tries to play with it. Some of these animals cannot stand light, and make for dark corners. Ultimately they become too weak to walk and finally die.
I take this example as following upon the passage from Lecky which I quoted. Here is this age there is the same ingenuity of torture to prove what? – to do what?.
It is not necessary to believe that the experimenter who carries out these experiments is himself evil. I think all the evidence goes to show that it is the system which has produced this.
I will pass now to a different form of torture, that is the question of drug testing. I want to point out to you that many of these experiments in drug testing are common, everyday routine experiments in English laboratories. We have been told over and over again that no cruelty exists. The Medical Research Council itself says in its Memorandum upon the Dogs Protection Bill:.
“We have a duty to say that in this country at any rate, no cruelty is practised in animal experiments”.
That is a direct misstatement, and I have challenged the Medical Research Council itself over and over again, both in articles and in public speeches, to justify such a misleading statement to the public. It is not true that in this country no suffering or cruelty is involved in animal experiments, and particularly in drug testing. To show you how misleading it is for a public body to use such a phrase in such an important matter, I will read you this. Dr. McDonagh, testing insulin on a rabbit, says in his book dealing with shock:.
“When insulin causes convulsions the sequence of events is usually as follows: About two hours after the injection, the animal throws itself out of its cage, and has convulsions lasting for about a minute or two. Then the animal either lies unconscious on its side or recovers, to begin another series of convulsions. The fits, with their intermissions, continue for an hour, and while they are in being the animal is in an extreme state of ophisthotonos [that is, an arching of the back], the head being retracted and the hind limbs extended.
While the animal is unconscious the breathing becomes rapid and shallow, the jerky movements of the extremities can be observed. Should the convulsions end fatally, the animal dies of respiratory failure. In some fatal cases the fits are continuous”.
There is an instance of testing one drug by the extremist barbarity which you can inflict upon a creature. That is one of the most simple experiments which are carried out in English laboratories daily. Therefore, when the Medical Research Council tells the public that no cruelty is practised in English laboratories I again say that the Medical Research Council is deliberately misleading the public.
Most especially it appears to me that whoever treats of the art of healing should discuss things which are familiar to the common people. Investigation and consideration should concern the diseases under which the people in general have laboured, and an account should be given of the causes of their origin and of their cure, of their increase and of their decline; for illiterate people and inexperienced ones cannot easily find out for themselves, but they can understand these matter if they are explained to them in pain and simple language.
Whoever treats the art of healing without the capacity of making matters clear to the unlearned average reader, and fails to interest him in the subject, has missed his mark – HIPPOCRATES.
Animals living in the wild state rarely or never develop goitre. Some years ago I examined macroscopically and microscopically the thyroid glands of many hundreds of wild rats from various parts of India. I found them to vary in histological structure with altitude and distance from the sea coast, but these variations were within normal limits, and with one exception – a small colloid enlargement – no case of goitre occurred among them. Under natural conditions of life the thyroid gland is almost invariably capable of meeting all demands that may be made upon it without increasing its secretory surface or undergoing hypertrophy.
But when animals come under the influence of man, and especially when their freedom of movement, and their free choice of food and abode are restricted, they are as prone to develop goitre as is man; pigeons, fowls, dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, and other domesticated animals may suffer from goitre. Even fish, when artificially reared in tanks, are prone to develop it, although in their natural environment they are very resistant. – COLONEL ROBERT McCARRISON, Lecture “On Goitre”.
