Life — September 10, 1896 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Sleuth: THOUGHT YOU'D ESCAPE Nor. ON A RISING MARKET. AN wants but little here below— pl So runs the old-time song; But when it’s stock, and going up, He wants that little—long. HE following letter is published in answer to various statements made in these columns: THE ANTI VIVISECTIONISTS. Lire frequently gives over its pages to tne caustic pencil of the caricaturist and para- grapher in the interests of the anti-vivisec- tionist. It has paid money, considerable sums no doubt for artistic talent to illustrate the horrible ferocity of the vivisectionist and the fiendish delight with which his disciples view his cruel work. In doing this Lire is guilty of libeling the most humane of all professions and creating a popular prejudice against a method of investigation without which all progress in scientific medicine must cease. It is not possible within the space allowed me to do anything more than briefly point out a few of the most conspicuous of the facts relating to vivisection. A scientific di cussion of its history, methods, purposes and what it has accomplisned would fill a large volume. In the first place those who cry out the loudest against vivisection, know the least about it, They are almost exclusively certain hysterical busybodies, by heredity and train- ing incapable of understanding the solution of a scientific problem ; but, nevertheless, considering themselves as having some sort of inspired right to reform all things, They are the women who carry flowers and gush to the imprisoned brutal wife or child mur- DID YOU? WELL, 1 GUESS YOU'LL GET TWO MORE YEARS FOR THIS, Whiskers: derer and wear upon their bonnets the wings of the egret, the life of which was wantonly sacrificed, and its young, perhaps, left to perish, to furnish a trifling ornament, If the objector be a man, he is almost sure to be some illogical Ingersoll whose emotional nature makes sound reasoning impossible, or one whose education has not furnished him with the facts, or a disposition to seek for them before reaching a conclusion. ‘There may be isolated cases of cruelty to the lower animals in the biologist’s labora- tory, but those instances are never wanton in their character and must be very rare. In five years spent in the laboratories of physiologists and biologists, both in America and Europe, the writer never saw a single act of cruelty, a single instance in which pain equal to a tenth part of that due to the natural function of maternity, was suffered by any animal; and a part of that time he spent with Dr. Henry Sewell, then a professor in the Uni- versity of Michigan, and regarded by the anti- vivisectionist fraternity as one of the fiends incarnate of cruel acts to the lower animals. Whenever it was necessary to illustrate some physiological truth, which can be done only by vivisection, the animal was always narco- tized sufficiently to completely abolish sen- sation. Results of investigations iato the cause and cure of disease, which could not be carried out without vivisection, have, in the past twenty years, perceptibly increased the aver- age length of human life. It is unnecessary because it is well-known already, to refer to the immunized serum treatment of diphtheria, being the result of investigations made pos- sible by vivisection. At arecent meeting of the American Pediatric Society, more than six hundred physicians, with only a half score of dissenting voices, reported the saving of tens of thousands of valuable lives by this 1 AINt GAME, AND THAT -EAR ON ONLY ONE THING IN THIS $ THAT WISKERS COMES OUT AHEAD. remedy. Shall a sentimentality borne of emo- tional ignorance prevent the painless sacrifice of a few worthless animals that thousands of human beings may live ? Jno. Mappex, M. D., 42. and 43 Sentinel Bldg., Milwaukee, Wis. While wishing to treat our correspon- dent with every courtesy, we neverthe- less feel it our duty as ** hysterical bus: bodies” to remark, that every statement in the above letter given as a fact, is, in the opinions of anti-vivisectionists, very far from truth. T is in order for some one to rise up and suggest that Uncle Sam shall provide the President with a steam yacht, a train of cars and a house in New York. Lire is some- what too democratic to advocate such accessions to the executive apparatus, but it would seem to be easily within the scope of the commission of the Evening Post. Mr. Cleveland has rich friends, and when our country needs a New York house he can bor- row Mr. Whitney’s, and when it needs a yacht, Mr. Benedict's; but when Mr. Bryan and the plain people come in Uncle Sam will have to get along with what he has himself. It was the Viceroy Li's good luck and not any merit of our institutions that he was not received by President Willy Bryan at the Astor House or in the Madison Square Garden. comicbooks.com