THE MYTHS OF VIVISECTION
Bernhard Rambeck, MDMyth 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / Intro / Next Page
First myth: "Medical knowledge is based on animal experiments."
It is often claimed that true medical science had its beginnings with the introduction of chemotherapy about a hundred years ago. But this is false. There have at all times been excellent doctors who really could heal, and there have been throughout history famous medical schools where the art of healing really was taught. The pillars of classical medical knowledge were not animal experiments, although these were practised to some extent even a thousand years ago; but the foundation of such knowledge was the observations of healthy and sick men and animals. Other pillars of classical medicine were a knowledge of anatomy and extensive experience of pain-relieving drugs, anaesthetics and remedies produced predominantly on a herbal basis.
Even our recent medical knowledge is based to a considerable extent on clinical experience and not on animal experimentation, or at least animal testing is only used subsequently to support confirmation of results. Not only have many successful therapeutic substances based on herbs been found without animal research, but so also have drugs such as acetyl salicilic acid (known as aspirin, a fever-relieving drug) and phenobarbital (known as Luminal, an anti-epileptic drug).
May I remind you that the first modern anaesthetics, such as nitrous oxide (or laughing gas), opium, ether and chloroform, were found at the beginning of the nineteenth century without any kind of animal research. Together with the recognised need for aseptic conditions, these led to enormous progress in surgery in the second half of the century, all without animal research. Most of the present operative techniques were not developed from animal experimentation but were based on clinical experience.
Myth 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / Intro