What is "vivisector"

Usage examples of "vivisector".

Are we simply to fold our hands and trust that the humaner instincts of the present-day vivisector, working in the seclusion of his private laboratory, will keep him free from all that we regret in the vivisection of the past?

It may, indeed, be questioned whether in the literature of controversy on the subject there has been a single defender of unrestricted freedom in vivisection, who has intelligently referred to the horrible experiments of past vivisectors except either to sneer or to condone.

Behind the locked and barred doors of the vivisection chamber, to which no man can gain admission unless known to be friendly to its practices, the vivisector of to-day challenges society to prove the existence of cruelty or abuse.

Until then it is dreadful to think how many poor animals will be subjected to excruciating agony as one medical college after another becomes penetrated with the idea that vivisection is a part of modern teaching, and that, to hold way with other institutions, they, too, must have their vivisector, their mutilated dogs, their guineapigs, their rabbits, their chamber of torture and of horrors, to advertise as a laboratory.

A distinguished philosopher and vivisector of three hundred years ago, Rene Descartes, put forth the theory that animals, being without souls, cannot suffer pain, and that their cries under vivisection were simply as the whirring of wheels in an intricate piece of machinery.

It may be doubted whether any reliabce whatever can be placed upon the assertions or protesting denials of any profession vivisector now drawing a large income from the vivisection of animals, whose interests would possibly be affeted by failure to produce startling results, or by removal of the secrecy that now enshrouds the laboratory.

The time is probably coming when those who have most persistently opposed all appeals for more light concerning vivisection will announce willingness to accede to the public demnad, provided the vivisector may himself appoint the investigators, and define the limitations of the inquiry.

It has led to innumerable men and women of education and refinement to remit all questions of animal experimentation to the vivisector and his friends, precisely as they would have done had they lived three centuries ago, and had it been theirs to decide on the morality of burning a witch.

In his day he was a man of extended reputation as a vivisector of animals.

A true vivisector is never at a loss to invent excuse or occasion for an experiment.

And that vivisector of to-day, who suggests that if anaesthetics had been known to Magendie or Brachet, they would invariably have been used, is either ignorant or insincere.

The vivisector demands absolute freedom of action, he demands the most complete privacy, he demands total independence of all legal supervision--and then challenges the production of proof that any criticism is justified!

Finally, the vivisector recognized that it was not merely death which confronted him, but death by the most mysterious and agonizing of human ailments.

It was a curious coincidence certainly, that in his last days the vivisector was affected by a disease of the spinal cord, which at one time compelled him to go on all-fours like a beast.

Lastly, every licensed vivisector should be obliged to send in an annual return, showing the number of vivisections performed, and the scientific results attained, which would prevent repeated operations with the same object.