From 1ffb9c864b1ca064038ac73e40e831cf4f0a4387 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2020 01:00:00 -0400 Subject: read The Island of Dr Moreau, a Vivisection article, and took a quiz --- markley/10_vivisection | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 57 insertions(+) create mode 100644 markley/10_vivisection (limited to 'markley/10_vivisection') diff --git a/markley/10_vivisection b/markley/10_vivisection new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8130fc --- /dev/null +++ b/markley/10_vivisection @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +"Vivisection, Virtue, and the Law in the Nineteenth Century" by Bates + +Vivisection is a practice of experimentalist doctors, but clinicians +wanted to distance themselves from it because inflicting pain is at odds +with caring for patients. +Anti-vivisectors viewed by some as regressive luddites. + Always a minority in support of vivisection +Desire to protect anmials was "a form of social self-defense." + Middle class activists? + Cock-fights and bull-baitings alarmed the urban bourgeoisie + Casual cruelty => Violence + Radicals who wanted to empower disenfranchised humans +Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle Act + Required offender to act 'wantonly and cruelly' + Moved focus from moral to legal concerns +Originally a French ("Continental") Procedure + Magendie is a famous Parisian vivisector +Utilitarian arguments, "betterment of mankind," used by vivisectors +Voluntary doctors' boards and organizations founded. +Fear of vivisectors' character, human vivisections of charity patients +Ethics wasn't an established practice in the nineteenth century + Not even legislation until Medical Act of 1858 + Virtue ethics: doctors expected to act gentlemanly + Doctors can't enjoy vivisection; motives > actions + Ideal motive is actually a balance: scientific inquiry tempered + with a degree of care for the animal (but not too much, that's + effeminate) +Empathy seen to be lacking by vivisectors +- Cadaver dissection had interchangeable arguments + "Cold-heartedness and self-indulgence" +1876 Cruelty to Animals Act requires licensing (passed due to a shocking +experiment conducted by a Frenchman) +Dubious value on several bases: while quantitative value was obtained, + objectors worried it had little scientific relevance to human. +Countered with specific examples of benefits from vivisection like John +Hunter's work with aneurysms. +Nationalist criticism (Brits -> French, in particular) +Objective criteria: "the information sought must not be obtainable by +observation alone, the experiment must have a distinct and definite +object, it must not be a repeat, it must cause the least possible +suffering to the least sentient animal, and must be properly witnessed +and recorded." (influence in Antivivisection Act) + +Wantonly: without rational regard +Cruelty (Sir John Day): "Something which cannot be justified." +There were no successful prosecutions of vivisectionists in Britain. +676 people licensed, many not required to use anaesthesia. + Encouraged nepotism by requiring signatures of other physicians +National Anti-Vivisection Society founded to end animal experiments. + Also known as Victoria Street Society + Claimed that Act made vivisection rates worse +Teaching colleges avoided vivisections because teachers believed that +"anyone who would look calmly on a vivisection would not make a good +physician." Rare in the field too + +Support of laboratory medicine correlates strongly with feelings about +vivisection. -- cgit