Legislation Needed for Human Vivisection

1902

No sooner had Dr. Russell, the Brooklyn physician who wishes to be vivisected, announced his wishes to the press and medical fraternity than it struck the army of the unemployed that here was the solution of the problem of existence. The very next day in New York City numerous volunteers applied for engagements on the operating table, provided they could make living — or as the case might be — dying wages at it. They admitted they were not scientists; but they were willing to advance the cause of science for a suitable consideration. No reasonable offer refused. If there was anything in it for them, they were ready to be vivisected, gentlemen, or perish in the attempt.

Unfortunately for the new vocation which seemed to be opening up to persons out of other employment, the New York authorities declare that the startling proposition of human vivisection comes under the laws regulating murder, manslaughter and homicide, and cannot, therefore, be put into effect without encountering legal opposition of a zealous and determined character. The repeal of the obnoxious laws seems absolutely necessary before human vivisection can be practiced freely and enthusiastically on the part of either vivisectionists or vivisected.

The lawyers are agreed about that, but the doctors, as usual, are not agreed about anything in particular. Some say that human vivisection is eminently desirable, while others say that they cannot see why they should pay high prices to human subjects when guinea pigs and rabbits are so cheap. As to Dr. Russell himself, however, most physicians and surgeons are agreed that there is one part of him the opening of which would greatly interest them, and that is his brain.