Teacher Vivisects Live Cat Before Pupils

Des Moines, Iowa, 1909--

VIVISECTED A LIVE "TABBY" BEFORE PUPILS

Frantic Meouws Resounded Through School Building, Accuser of Teacher Charges.

UP TO HUMANE SOCIETY

Cutting a cat alive as its death shrieks resounded throughout the building, for the edification of her pupils, was the charge made against Miss Moon, teacher of the Fifth and Sixth grades of the Pleasantville school, at the office of the humane society today.

The informant says that Miss Moon is so proud of the accomplishment that next time she proposes to dissect a dog to demonstrate the functions of the digestive organs. The cat, it is said, was butchered to illustrate the uses of the heart and the circulation.

Mrs. Elizabeth Baird wrote her a scathing letter yesterday afternoon. She explained that the charge comes under the criminal statutes, punishable by fine of $100 or 30 days in the county jail. She said that she will arrest Miss Moon for cruelty.

The letter of her informant, says that Miss Moon asked Dr. Bare to help her, and that he replied that he wasn't in that kind of business. Following the rebuff it appears that she went to Dr. Bell, who told her that it would be almost impossible to chloroform a cat, and the writer says she doesn't know whether the drug was administered or not, but that the cat could he heard howling during the operation.

--The Des Moines News, Des Moines, Iowa, February 21, 1909, page 7.