Vivisection

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Vivisection is the practice of dissecting an organism while alive, for the purpose of physiological investigation. Many people are morally opposed to the use of animal vivisections when applied to human medicine on the basis that an animal's body is an inaccurate model for the human and may therefore lead to incorrect anticipations of the effect drugs and surgical procedures may have when applied to a human patient. In addition animal rights and animal welfare campaigners have ethical objections concerning the harm done to the animal.

There are varying opinions concerning the scientific validity (or lack thereof) of vivisection and whether medical benefits can result from such practices.

The history of vivisection began when Europe was, almost exclusively, under the domination of the Roman Catholic Church. Papal decree had forbidden autopsy on the human body. In the Second Century AD, Galen, a Roman physician performed experiments on animals to draw conclusions, not about the animals but about human physiology. Many of his conclusions were, naturally, faulty. Over the hundreds of years since then false conclusions have mostly been corrected by gradual trial and error when applying those false conclusions to living human patients.

Often medical discoveries have been made without animal experimentation and then the tests on animals have followed afterward. In these cases, such as vaccination and anaesthetics, the belated animal experiments cannot legitimately be credited has having played a valid role. But do such experiments ever help lead to a medical advance? A significant number of people believe so, though balanced by a similarly large number of the opposite opinion.

Some practioners claim that operating on a live animal produces more useful information than if the test subject were euthanized first. Directly observing how organs and other bodily systems respond to experiments is not possible during necropsies but the advantages of such direct observation is questioned by some. Tissue cultures, organ cultures and computer simulations are taking the place of the older, controversial methods. In America, Johns Hopkins University is leading the way in the development of these new methods and in Britain the charity group F.O.R.C.E. (based at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital) and The Doctor Hadwen Trust (based in London, England).

Some scientists have attempted to drive a wedge between research and ethics, claiming that science shouldn't be concerned with unscientific matters like moral right or wrong. Nazi doctor Josef Mengele and the Japanese Unit 731 both ordered human vivisections on concentration camp prisoners.

Intellectuals have written many books tackling the rights and wrongs of experimentation on animals. Anti-vivisectionist Christian author C.S. Lewis strongly expressed his views in his book, The Problem of Pain. He wrote on moral and theological grounds.

British physiologist Marshall Hall(1790-1857) was an animal experimenter who, in 1831, proposed five principles to govern animal experimentation:

1) an experiment should never be performed if the necessary information could be obtained by observations; 2) no experiment should be performed without a clearly defined and obtainable, objective; 3) scientists should be well-informed about the work of their predecessors and peers in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of an experiment; 4) justifiable experiments should be carried out with the least possible infliction of suffering (often through the use of lower, less sentient animals); 5) every experiment should be performed under circumstances that would provide the clearest possible results, thereby diminishing the need for repetition of experiments.

The first law regulating animal experimentation was the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act in Great Britain.

See also: Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

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