Vivisection, a term employed to designate operations or painful experiments performed on living animals, with the view of increasing our physiological knowledge. The term, properly limited to cutting operations, is now regularly applied to any physiological experimenting on animals, as by ligature, exhibition of poisons, inoculation with disease, subjection to special conditions of atmospheric pressure, temperature, food, &c. Experiments on living animals were made by Galen and the Alexandrian school, and were long unhesitatingly regarded as a valuable source of physiological and pathological knowledge, and as an important means of advancement for the surgical art. But since attention was called in the 19th century to the needlessly cruel and frequent experiments of Magendie and other continental physiologists a controversy has arisen, the outcome of which is a wide-spread belief, especially amongst the non-medical and non-scientific public, that vivisection is in every shape and form odious and cruel, and that in no case should it be practised or sanctioned. It is contended even that vivisection has not been so advantageous to science as is commonly represented; some affirm that it has served no good purpose that could not be arrived at without it; many hold that, even were it proved of unquestionable benefit, it is illegitimate and wrong to subject the lower animals to pain for our purposes; furthermore, it is taught, vivisection carried on for whatever purpose, and under whatever conditions, can only serve to brutalise the performer and all spectators of such cruelty.
The replies are not less numerous and zealous than the impeachments. It is admitted that painful vivisection should not be performed in order to illustrate facts already known, or to give surgical dexterity. Most physiologists are agreed that it is desirable to practise vivisection only when knowledge may be thus obtained that is otherwise unattainable; that great care should be taken not to injure sensitive nerves; that the operation should, whenever possible, be given under anaesthetics; and that after vivisection the animal, if seriously injured, should be quickly put to death. It is pointed out that the bulk of anti-vivisectionists are quite content that animals should be killed for food, or as vermin; many have no scruples about shooting game or fishing, though much pain is thus inflicted.
Amongst valuable results obtained from vivisection it is usual to mention our knowledge of the circulation of the blood, the functions of the nervous system, of the lacteals, of the liver, the processes of digestion, the meaning of the heart-sounds in heart diseases, the practicability of the transfusion of blood, the pathology of tapeworm and trichina spiralis, and the knowledge which enables surgical and medical skill to deal with those suffering from diabetes and some forms of epilepsy, to use electro-therapeutics, and to relieve suffering of many different kinds. At the Royal Commission of 1876 on this subject, out of forty-seven skilled witnesses only two were of opinion that experiments are not necessary for original research. But to relieve wide-spread anxiety parliament in 1876 gave its assent to a bill to amend the law relating to cruelty to animals, the purpose of which was the restriction, or better regulation, of vivisection. The act requires that every one performing a painful experiment upon a living animal (which must be with a view of advancing physiological knowledge, or knowledge which will be useful for saving or prolonging life, or alleviating suffering) must hold a license from the Home Secretary, and be under the supervision of inspectors appointed to see that the provisions of the act are carried out. Persons holding a conditional license are allowed to perform such experiments only in a registered place, while the same rule applies to experiments performed for the sake of instruction (which, however, are permitted only under certain stringent limitations). Special protection is afforded to horses, asses, mules, dogs, and cats. The act does not apply to invertebrate animals. In 1891 the number of licensed places was 59, of licenses 153, and of experiments 2361 (1406 being inoculations or hypodermic injections).
Agitation for the total prohibition of vivisection has nevertheless been maintained in Great Britain by not a few zealous persons, and several active societies for the purpose, with numerous branches, conduct a vigorous propaganda. The Vivisection Act is strongly objected to on the ground that it legalises cruelty under specific conditions, and that the inspection under its provisions is inevitably unsatisfactory, the inspectors being, as a rule, in sympathy with the experimenters. It is impossible fully to state the case for and against vivisection here; reference must be made to the copious literature of the subject. Both the British Medical Congress and the International Medical Congress pronounced unanimously in favour of vivisection, properly regulated, and insisted on its value both to physiological science and to medical and surgical practice.
See the arguments for and against Pasteur's method of inoculation in the article HYDROPHOBIA; numerous articles in the Nineteenth Century, Contemporary Review, Fortnightly Review, Nature, and the Spectator; against vivisection, the publications of the Victoria Street Society (including a paper by Lord Coleridge), Miss F. P. Cobbe's Modern Rack (1889) and other works on the subject, Nicholson's Rights of an Animal (1879), and Lawson Tait's Uselessness of Vivisection (1883); in favour of properly regulated vivisection, most handbooks of physiology, Hermann's Vivisection Popularly Discussed (trans. 1877), Gore's Morality of Vivisection (1884), and Physiological Cruelty, by Philanthropist (1883).