Vivisection - An Ancient History, Battle Lines Are Drawn, The Debate Today
animals function live purpose
Vivisection originally meant the dissection of a live animal, usually for the purpose of teaching or research. Historically, the word came also to mean the use of a live animal in any experiment. Vivisection, especially in its broader meaning, is a time-tested tool that has helped humans understand how the bodies of animals function, how disease alters that function, and how such diseases can be treated. However, changing attitudes toward animals and a more cynical outlook toward the biomedical enterprise have caused some people to question the continued usefulness and morality of using animals for this purpose.
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Real progress in medical knowledge began again with the experiments of the Italian physicians Andreas Vesalius and his student, Realdo Colombo, in the sixteenth century. They pioneered the use of vivisection to correct and expand, rather than merely to confirm, Galen's science. In the early seventeenth century, English physician William Harvey used vivisection to discover the circulation of…
Around the turn of the eighteenth century, both vivisectionists and their critics gained momentum. English physicist Robert Boyle's experiments with animals in a vacuum chamber were hailed at the time for their contribution to the understanding of breathing and the function of the lungs. But also in England, the literary figures Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson all condemn…
Today the biomedical establishment and antivivisectionists are again locked in a struggle over the appropriateness of animal experimentation. The biomedical research enterprise has become a huge endeavor in the last century; in addition, the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and cosmetics industries use many animals each year to test new products and procedures. A new wrinkle in the debate is scientis…
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