Does science need secrecy? : A reply to Prof. Porter and others of Harvard medical school / By Albert Leffingwell... With statement concerning vivisection by Prof. W.T. Porter, reprinted from the "Boston transcript."

Leffingwell, Albert, 1845-1916.

Date:: 1896

Credit: Does science need secrecy? : A reply to Prof. Porter and others of Harvard medical school / By Albert Leffingwell... With statement concerning vivisection by Prof. W.T. Porter, reprinted from the "Boston transcript.". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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$of Prof. ITfiiiy P. Bowditch of Ilnrvard .Modioal School, who, it seems, has contrived a new de\'iee for holding ininiov- alily the head of an animal to be vivisected. It consists of a fork-shai)ed iron instrument, the points of the fork united by an iron bar , . . which is passed behind the canines (teeth) and bound fast by a strong cord which is fastened over the jaws. When the iron rod is fastened to the prongs, the handle is inserted into the screw-sliding points of the upright rod of a Bernard holder, in which device certain straps prevent the dog from retracting his nose. But how can a dog retract his nose if insensil)le? Wh}' should he wish to retract his nose if he is suffering nothing? I sometimes fear, said Dr. Thcophilus Parvin in his address before the A«nerican Academy of Medicine, that this anaesthesia is frequently nominal rather than real; else why so many ingenious contrivances for confining the animal during operations, contrivances that are not made use of in surgical operations upon human beings ? These were Boston vivisections. They were not done thousands of miles away in some distant European laboratory, but here at home. Should they have been left in the quiet secrecy of phj'siological literature? Then assuredly their existence ought not to have been explicitly denied. What judgment are we entitled to pass upon this mani- festo? Was it, indeed, what it claimed to be—a plain statement of the whole truth ? No. A statement of the whole truth would not have carefully mentioned a scratch of the tail of an etherized mouse, and made no reference to other investigations of infinitely greater import carried on in their own laboratory. A statement of the whole truth would not have spoken of long-drawn lists of atrocities that never existed—deny- ing in one sweeping sentence some facts as certain as any in history. A statement of the whole truth would not have referred to '' narcotics as though they were identical with '' anaesthetics; it would not have left hidden the use and purpose of curare; it would not have referred to open doors, when there are no open doors; it would not hav^$