Editing Vivisection (section)

===== François Magendie (1783–1855) =====
[[File:"Away with that life-net!" - Kep. LCCN2011648878 (cropped).jpg|thumb|420x420px|Pro-vivisection cartoon in 1911]]
One polarizing figure in the anti-vivisection movement was [[François Magendie]]. Magendie was a physiologist at the Académie Royale de Médecine in France, established in the first half of the 19th century.<ref name=":0" /> Magendie made several groundbreaking medical discoveries, but was far more aggressive than some of his contemporaries in the use of animal experimentation. For example, the discovery of the different functionalities of dorsal and ventral spinal nerve roots was achieved by both Magendie, as well as a Scottish anatomist named [[Charles Bell]]. Bell used an unconscious rabbit because of "the protracted cruelty of the dissection", which caused him to miss that the dorsal roots were also responsible for sensory information. Magendie, on the other hand, used conscious, six-week-old puppies for his own experiments.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://brebisnoire.wordpress.com/a-history-of-antivivisection-from-the-1800s-to-the-present-part-i-mid-1800s-to-1914/|title=A History of Antivivisection from the 1800s to the Present: Part I (mid-1800s to 1914)|date=2009-06-10|work=the black ewe|access-date=2017-04-20|language=en-US|archive-date=2017-08-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170802100448/https://brebisnoire.wordpress.com/a-history-of-antivivisection-from-the-1800s-to-the-present-part-i-mid-1800s-to-1914/|url-status=live}}</ref>  While Magendie's approach would today be considered an abuse of animal rights, both Bell and Magendie used the same rationalization for vivisection: the cost of animal experimentation being worth it for the benefit of humanity.<ref name=":1" />

Many{{who|date=June 2024}} viewed Magendie's work as cruel and unnecessarily torturous. One note is that Magendie carried out many of his experiments before the advent of anesthesia, but even after ether was discovered it was not used in any of his experiments or classes.<ref name=":0" /> Even during the period before anesthesia, other physiologists{{who|date=June 2024}} expressed their disgust with how he conducted his work. One such visiting American physiologist describes the animals as "victims" and the apparent sadism that Magendie displayed when teaching his classes.{{verify quote|date=June 2024}} Magendie's experiments were cited in the drafting of the British Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 and [[Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822]], otherwise known as Martin's Act.<ref name=":0" /> The latter bill's namesake, Irish [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] and well known anti-cruelty campaigner [[Richard Martin (Irish politician)|Richard Martin]], called Magendie a "disgrace to Society" and his public vivisections "anatomical theatres" following a prolonged dissection of a greyhound which attracted wide public comment.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leffingwell |first=Albert |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3145143 |title=An ethical problem: or, Sidelights upon scientific experimentation on man and animals |publisher=G. Bell and Sons; C. P. Farrell |year=1916 |edition=2nd, revised |location=London; New York |language=English |oclc=3145143 |quote=practices, equally cruel, with which he thought the legislature ought to interfere. There was a Frenchman by the name of Magendie, whom he considered a disgrace to Society. In the course of the last year this man, at one of his anatomical theatres, exhibited a series of experiments so atrocious as almost to shock belief. This M. Magendie got a lady's greyhound. First of all he nailed its front, and then its hind, paws with the bluntest spikes that he could find, giving as reason that the poor beast, in its agony, might tear away from the spikes if they were at all sharp or cutting. He then doubled up its long ears, and nailed them down with similar spikes. (Cries of `Shame!') He then made a gash down the middle of the face, and proceeded to dissect all the nerves on one side of it.... After he had finished these operations, this surgical butcher then turned to the spectators, and said: `I have now finished my operations on one side of this dog's head, and I shall reserve the other side till to-morrow. If the servant takes care of him for the night, I am of the opinion that I shall be able to continue my operations upon him to-morrow with as much satisfaction to us all as I have done to-day; but if not, ALTHOUGH HE MAY HAVE LOST THE VIVACITY HE HAS SHOWN TO-DAY, I shall have the opportunity of cutting him up alive, and showing you the motion of the heart.' Mr. Martin added that he held in his hands the written declarations of Mr. Abernethy, of Sir Everard Home (and of other distinguished medical men), all uniting in condemnation of such excessive and protracted cruelty as had been practised by this Frenchman." {1} Hansard's Parliamentary Reports, February 24, 1825. |access-date=August 13, 2022 |archive-date=August 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813182833/https://www.worldcat.org/title/ethical-problem-or-sidelights-upon-scientific-experimentation-on-man-and-animals/oclc/3145143 |url-status=live }}</ref> Magendie faced widespread opposition in British society, among the general public but also his contemporaries, including [[William Sharpey]] who described his experiments aside from cruel as "purposeless" and "without sufficient object", a feeling he claimed was shared among other physiologists.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leffingwell |first=Albert |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3145143 |title=An ethical problem: or, Sidelights upon scientific experimentation on man and animals |date=1916 |publisher=G. Bell and Sons; C.P. Farrell |location=London; New York |language=English |oclc=3145143 |quote=Another witness of Magendie's cruelty was Dr. William Sharpey, LL.D., Fellow of the Royal Society, and for more than thirty years the professor of physiology in University College, London. ... Before the Royal Commission on Vivisection, in 1876, he gave the following account of his personal experience: "When I was a very young man, studying in Paris, I went to the first of a series of lectures which Magendie gave upon experimental physiology; and I was so utterly repelled by what I witnessed that I never went again. In the first place, they were painful (in those days there were no anaesthetics), and sometimes they were severe; and then THEY WERE WITHOUT SUFFICIENT OBJECT. For example, Magendie made incisions into the skin of rabbits and other creatures TO SHOW THAT THE SKIN IS SENSITIVE! Surely all the world knows the skin is sensitive; no experiment is wanted to prove that. Several experiments he made were of a similar character, AND HE PUT THE ANIMALS TO DEATH, FINALLY, IN A VERY PAINFUL WAY.... Some of his experiments excited a strong feeling of abhorrence, not in the public merely, but among physiologists. There was his--I was going to say `famous' experiment; it might rather have been called `INFAMOUS' experiment upon vomiting .... Besides its atrocity, it was really purposeless." [2] Evidence before Royal Commission, 1875, Questions 444, 474. |access-date=2022-08-13 |archive-date=2022-08-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813182833/https://www.worldcat.org/title/ethical-problem-or-sidelights-upon-scientific-experimentation-on-man-and-animals/oclc/3145143 |url-status=live }}</ref>