It is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of the tender
mind with images like these. If such cruelties were not practised, it
were to be desired that they should not be conceived; but, since they
are published every day with ostentation, let me be allowed once to
mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence.
Mead has invidiously remarked of Woodward, that he gathered shells and
stones, and would pass for a philosopher. With pretensions much less
reasonable, the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an
animal, and styles himself physician, prepares himself by familiar
cruelty for that profession which he is to exercise upon the tender and
the helpless, upon feeble bodies and broken minds, and by which he has
opportunities to extend his arts of torture, and continue those
experiments upon infancy and age, which he has hitherto tried upon cats
and dogs.
What is alleged in defence of these hateful practices, every one knows;
but the truth is, that by knives, fire, and poison, knowledge is not
always sought, and is very seldom attained. The experiments that have
been tried, are tried again; he that burned an animal with irons
yesterday, will be willing to amuse himself with burning another
to-morrow.
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