DOCTORS’ FIRST OPERATIONS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2095, 3 June 1907, Page 1

DOCTORS’ FIRST OPERATIONS

Tho Royal Commission on Vivisection has issued an interim report containing the results of the examination of seven witnesses, The evidence of Mr. E. H. Starling, Professor of Physiology at University College, is of a' striking character. Pointing out that under the present law experiments on animals were never performed by students for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, and that even surgeons were forbidden to perform operations on animals with the object of attaining skill,.lie says: “The student’s first administration of an anaesthetic or his first tracheotomy is, therefore, performed on the human patient.” It- would almost seem that the framers of the present law had thought less of human life than'of that of the lower animals. In Professor Starling’s opinion, “a new operation, -or one which is new to a surgeon, should most certainly be tried by him —under anaesthetics and with the same aseptic precautions as would be used on man- —on tlie lower animals.” Ho goes on to say: “I think the present regulation of the law which expressly forbids surgeons to acquire skill by experiment in operating on animals is most immoral. A man must acquire skill somehow, and it means his acquiring skill by experimenting on his human pationts. The offeot of that will be evident if you took half-a-dozen surgoons and compared the death-rate of their intestinal resections in the first ten cases and in tlieir second ten cases. You would see what that means in human life.”