White Dandy: A Horse's Story

<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</SPAN></h2> <p>There was a very learned (?) young man&mdash;a lately fledged M. D.&mdash;who, while spending a few weeks in the town, often sought my master's company. Among other things he, the young man, talked pompously and heartlessly of his love for using the knife.</p> <p>"I just delight in surgery," he affirmed. "When I first went to college the sight of blood unmanned me, and I was weak enough to shrink from cutting up even a cat; but I soon cut my eye teeth, and now I don't mind anything; would like no better practice than to dissect a live human being."</p> <p>As Master made no reply and the blood-thirsty young M. D. did not understand, as I do, a certain ominous silence on the former's part, he went airily on:</p> <p>"I intend to make a specialty of scientific research as soon as I've earned money enough to make it possible. There is very much to be discovered yet, I am convinced. By the way, I suppose you read all the reports of our own and German vivisectionists?"</p> <p>"I confess to skipping some."</p> <p>Strange the young fool blundered right on into the trap, but then he had the "big head"&mdash;whatever that is; Master says all young doctors have a spell of it, and that some never fully recover&mdash;and thought Master's silence was induced by a feeling of ignorance and inferiority.</p> <p>"Well," said he, "you know, of course, that chloroform is not used as much as formerly in the practice; our modern scientists are using curare, a drug, you understand, that paralyzes motion while sensibility is unimpaired. It is a great thing. The creature endures the greatest amount of suffering possible under the circumstances, and makes a fine study. I have a few notes here taken from recent reports. I assure you they are worthy of attention. Vivisection is going to prove a boon to suffering humanity."</p> <p>I knew by the tremor along the reins that Master would be unable to control himself much longer. And then the young man read an extract taken from a book he called "A<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</SPAN></span> Microscopical Study of Changes," that told of the torture of a number of kittens. Some were starved eleven hours and from that on up to seventeen. They were then made mute and motionless by means of this drug, curare, but were acutely conscious. After this stimulation was continued for five hours. In another case the sciatic nerve in various creatures was stimulated with electricity from one-half to seven hours. There was a good deal more telling of the work along this line in various noted universities and medical schools. Speaking of instances where the sciatic nerves of cats are divided and the spinal cord experimented upon in rabbits, it told of their wild shrieks of agony. In dogs the thyroid glands were removed and their consequent sufferings described. A noted Eastern scientist excites inflammation in the eyes of small animals by passing a thread through the corner and applying croton oil, hot irons and the like. Another professor "hobbled" over 140 dogs, and then dashed them from a height of twenty-four feet upon bars and ridges of iron. And so he went on telling of cutting up live animals, even of a horse that was vivisected. At last he was describing, with evident relish, the sufferings of a dog that some New York professor had twisted all out of shape and fastened in a plaster of Paris cast for several weeks, the creature's sufferings being so great that it scarcely took any food at all, when Master burst forth.</p> <p>Well, I can never begin to tell what he said; his words were like thunderbolts, and the very atmosphere was blue with the lightnings of his righteous wrath. Out of it all I learned that he considered vivisection (cutting up live animals) not only unnecessary to the interests of humanity and science, but a most criminal proceeding. He denounced the vivisection professors as bloodthirsty scoundrels, who, under the pretense of making scientific research, are merely satisfying a bloodthirsty curiosity of their own. He said such men are never public benefactors, that, in truth, they care nothing about alleviating human ills or prolonging life. It is a mania with them to cut, cut, cut, torture, torture, torture. He further said that something must be done to stop vivisection in our common schools and colleges; that ordinary pupils have no need for even lessons in dissecting<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</SPAN></span> dead bodies.<SPAN name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</SPAN> Physiology, he said, can be taught all that is needful without recourse to hardening, brutalizing experiments. For his part, when his hour of suffering comes, he said he wanted a physician with a heart as well as head, and he would sooner that a boy or girl, dear to him, would grow up unable to read or write than to be a scholar without feeling and humanity. His conclusion was something like this: "And now, my young friend, pardon me if I have spoken hotly, but I feel deeply on these matters. You, with thousands of other youths, are more sinned against than sinning. You admit that you were tender-hearted when you went away from home influences, and seem ashamed of it. Crush that feeling, my boy; the manly man is always tender-hearted; in other words, God-like. Pity and tenderness are God's own attributes. Further, you will never be a truly successful physician unless your touch is tender as well as firm, unless your heart is as full of sympathy as your head of wisdom. I do not say that there may not be some experiment necessary in medical schools, but none where entire insensibility is not induced. I know what I am talking about, and thousands of our older and better physicians at home and abroad bear me out in this statement."</p> <p>I guess the young M. D. was glad that Master reined up, at this juncture, before a pretty white cottage; anyway, I noticed that he neither resumed the conversation nor attempted to patronize Master during the remainder of the drive.</p> <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></SPAN> It is exceedingly to be regretted that vivisection is creeping into our common schools and lower institutions of learning. Nothing can be more useless and harmful, and it behooves patrons and school officers to be on the alert. We have enough of bloodshed and anarchy menacing our commonwealth without training our youth to disregard the rights of the helpless and inure them to the shedding of innocent blood.</p> </div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />