President Bergh on Vivisection (1880)

AUTHOR: Bergh, Henry

KEYWORDS: animals, animal welfare, anti-vivisection

Bergh, Henry. “Vivisection”

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

Reacting to an article published in (and an invitation to respond extended by) the Christian Advocate on vivisection and Bergh's campaigning on behalf of respective anti-vivisection legislation, Bergh offers his ideas and convictions on the topic. He characterizes vivisection as immoral and anti-Christian, calling it “a perverted science” and a crime “against nature and against nature's God.” He is convinced that “physiological experiments upon the lower animals are neither sanctioned by divine authority nor productive of adequate scientific results to mankind.” He then proceeds to enumerate “the terrible facts” concerning the issue to raise the readers' awareness in the matter:

That animals inflict violence on one another does not license the medical profession to do the same.
Vivisection is scientifically unnecessary (Bergh cites a number of medical advancements that did not rely on vivisection).
If anti-vivisection advocacy is based on “mere 'sentimentalism',” then that is a feature, not a problem.
Whatever one thinks of the charge of sentimentalism, “suffering” in all cases “is real, and well-defined.”
Eminent physiologists are anti-vivisectionists themselves.
Even if knowledge were to be derived from the practice, it is not “worth having at such a purchase, or that it was ordained that we should obtain knowledge by cruelty” (Bergh quotes an eminent physiologist here).
The practice “hardens the heart,” making one insensitive, unempathetic, and ultimately immoral.
Hence the “wickedness and worthlessness of dissecting living animals” (482).

Accordingly, “these delusive and God-offending cruelties” have to be abolished and “a law totally prohibiting the further torture of dumb unoffending animals” needs to be passed. Along the way, Bergh offers several descriptions of such torture and cruelty. He ends the letter by asking his readers to imagine what an animal about to be dissected might say to its tormentor. Admitting its inferiority to humans, granting that there may well be situations in which it is appropriate for humans to take its life, and allowing for the dissection of dead animals, Bergh has it exclaim: “But spare me the excruciating tortures of laying open those parts of my frame which nature never designed to be exposed to man's inspection while they are yet palpitating with life. Transgress not the legitimate bounds of inquiry, nor hope to add to your honor and reputation, or to extend the sphere of science, by means which nature abhors” (482).

Last updated on July 19th, 2024

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