Vivisection: Science’s Cruel Experimentation

8 Pages 2106 Words

Vivisection: Science’s Cruel Experimentation

Since the development of knives, scientists have used cruel methods in the name of science. Billions of animals have been sliced, burned, crushed, electrocuted, tortured with drugs, poisoned with toxic chemicals, tormented in psychological testing, and subjected to various other atrocities that “scientists” have developed. This process is known as animal research, renamed from its initial and primitive title of vivisection (Vyvyan 33). This barbaric practice has been renamed to hide the truth: vivisection has been inherently cruel, wasteful, and perpetually invalid as a reliable source.
Although vivisection has been in existence since the beginning of time, awareness of this injustice to animals didn’t come about until the nineteenth century. During this time period, the French were notorious for their practices of vivisection. Stories of the experiments spread in French hospitals, and these stories caused a few scientists to rush to the vomitorium. Many vivisectors of that time period allowed medical students as well as “people of fashion” into their laboratories to view the “outre” entertainment (Vyvyan 3). People were horrified and disgusted in the Victorian Age when they learned of the studies being done in private laboratories. They organized protests; soon, the labs were boarded up and moved, and the people were once again happy because they weren’t exposed to what was really happening (32). Over the following years, vivisection became the main source of animal research.
Scientists have used the methods of vivisection to cure human ills. They claim that without using these methods, the public would be plagued with disease and death, and that medical science's greatest advances couldn’t have been discovered. This is not so. Vivisectors try to win the public’s praise by giving press releases to newspapers. They tell of their “wonderful discove...