Vivisection
 

During my medical education, I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary." — Carl Jung, MD

"I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil." — Charles W. Mayo, MD (1961), son of the co-founder of the Mayo Clinic

"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research." — George Bernard Shaw

"We cannot solve the problems we have created with the same thinking that created them." — Albert Einstein

"The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse... We have cured mice of cancer for decades -- and it simply didn't work in humans." — Dr. Richard Klausner, Director of the National Cancer Institute

"We cannot solve the problems we have created with the same thinking that created them." —Albert Einstein, PhD (1879 — 1955)
Einstein received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922. His General Theory of Relativity laid the foundation for cosmology and our understanding of physical reality.

"We sacrificed daily from one to three dogs, besides rabbits and other animals, and after four years experience, I am of the opinion that not one of these experiments on animals was justified or necessary."

— Dr. George Hoggan (1875), student of Claude Bernard, MD, a leading and ardent vivisectionist
Bernard (1813 — 1878) was France’s most famous physiologist. In his 1865 book, "Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine," Bernard argues that progress in medicine is not possible without animal-based physiological research. He taught that the researcher must not be hampered by the blood and cries of his animal subjects.

"During my medical education … I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary." — Carl Jung, MD (1875-1961)
Jung is the founder of analytical psychology. His break with Freud is an important event in the history of psychoanalytic thought. Jung stressed the human psyche’s quest for spiritual and archetypal meaning vs. Freud’s emphasis on sex and aggression.

"The inhumanity of science concerns me, as when I was tempted to kill a rare snake that I may ascertain its species. I feel that this is not the means of acquiring true knowledge." — Henry David Thoreau, Journal (1854)Thoreau (1817 — 1862) described himself as "a transcendentalist and natural philosopher." His essay, "Civil Disobedience," influenced both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

"Vivisection has done little for the art of the doctor at the bedside, but it has done immeasurable harm to the character and mind of the rising generation of doctors." — Dr. Rudolph Hammer, LLD (1909)

"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research." — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Shaw was the 1925 Nobel Laureate for Literature. Best known for his plays and essays, he was a theatre critic, political activist, socialist, and an opponent of war.

"Whenever people say, ‘We mustn’t be sentimental,’ you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, ‘We must be realistic,’ they mean they are going to make money out of it." — Brigid Brophy (1929- )
Brigid Brophy is an English-Irish novelist and playwright.

"We are drowning and suffocating unanesthetized animals in the name of science…. We are producing frustration ulcers in experimental animals under shocking conditions in the name of science…. We are observing animals for weeks, months, even years, under infamous conditions in the name of science…." — Robert Gesell, MD, Professor of Physiology, University of Michigan, speaking to his colleagues in the American Physiological Society (1952)

"I abhor vivisection…. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty." — Charles W. Mayo, MD (1961), son of the co-founder of the Mayo Clinic
Dr. Charles W. Mayo (1898 — 1968) was a skilled surgeon and a member of the Mayo Clinic’s Board of Governors. The Mayo Clinic is consistently ranked among the top three U.S. hospitals.

"Kindness to animals must be taught to our students early in life." — John Ames, MD, (1969)

"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is ‘Because the animals are like us.’ Ask the experimenters why it is morally O.K. to experiment on animals, and the answer is: ‘Because the animals are not like us.’ Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction." — Professor Charles R. Magel (1980)

"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it." — Albert Sabin, MD (1986), developer of the live-virus polio vaccine
Sabin (1906 — 1993) was a physician and microbiologist who developed a live-virus polio vaccine that helped curb the spread of the then deadly disease.

"It is totally unconscionable to subject defenseless animals to mutilation and death, just so a company can be the first to market a new shade of nail polish, or a new improved laundry detergent." — Abigail "Dear Abby" Van Buren, testifying before Congress, (1988)
Abigail Van Buren is a well-known syndicated advice columnist and author.

"At present it is a rare person that emerges from medical training with his or her humanity intact." — Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 261, p. 2011, (1989)

"We suffer from different diseases and we respond in different ways to drugs. Using animals to ‘try out’ products intended for humans is at best useless and at worst … dangerously misleading." — Vernon Coleman, MD, to the International Scientific Conference, Paris, (1989)

"It [referring to dog labs] did more to damage my identity as a physician than anything else. I learned nothing physiological. I learned that life is cheap, and that misery can be ignored." — Murry Cohen, MD, (1990s)

Cohen is founding co-chair of the Medical Research Modernization Committee. He has authored numerous books, articles, chapters and letters on animal experimentation, including "Of Pigs, Primates, and Plagues," a scientific critique of xenotransplantation.

"By and large students are taught that it is ethically acceptable to perpetrate, in the name of science, what from the point of view of the animals would certainly qualify as torture. By the time [the students] arrive in the labs they have been programmed to accept the suffering around them." — Jane Goodall, PhD, Through a Window — My 30 Years With the Chimpanzees in Gombe (1990)

Dr. Jane Goodall is a world-famous primatologist whose decades of field research in Africa have contributed significantly to our understanding of chimpanzees and humans. She is author of several books and an internationally recognized lecturer.

“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't….The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”— Mark Twain

“Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.”— George Bernard Shaw
 

© Child of Nature, 2006