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 [Reprinted from the Boston Medical ami Surgical Joukxal, 
 Vol. clxxxiv, No. 18, pp. 474, 47.3, May 5, 1921.] 
 
 HUMAN VIVISECTION. 
 1729 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., ' 
 April 5, 1921. 
 Mr. Editor:— 
 
 In Tft-e Starry Cross (the Philadelphia Antivivisec- 
 tion journal of which Mr. R. E. Logan is the 
 editor), for March, 1921, is an article of about 2500 
 words by the associate editor, Mrs. M. F. Lovell, en- 
 titled "An Answer to Dr. Keen." 
 
 This answer is to my article on "Vivisection" in 
 The Country Gentleman for February 12, 1921. In 
 this article, I quoted Mrs. White's much earlier pro- 
 posal for "Experimenting on human beings." Mrs. 
 Lovel begins by saying: "On,e of the most common of 
 these [gleams of virtue] is a reluctance to criti- 
 cize the dead, and seldom , indeed, except by 
 the most unscrupulous, is a direct accusation brought 
 against one who. being no longer in this life, is un- 
 able to refute it." As to this general assertion, I need 
 only remark that Pasteur, Lister, Claude Bernard. 
 Bruntou, Behring, and scores of other research work- 
 ers, are constantly "accused" by antivivisectionists. 
 without number, of cruelties and other faults. It is 
 the current coin of their literature. Yet all of these 
 men are "no longer in this life and [are] unable to 
 "refute" such accusations. It seems, then, that it is 
 a crime to criticize a dead antivivisectionist, but a 
 virtue to lash and misrepresent a dead experimenter. 
 Does not the old adage say, "What is sauce for the 
 goose is sauce for the gander"? 
 
 As to the positive inference that I had refrained 
 from accusing Mrs. White of advocating human vivi- 
 section while she was living, and only did so, when. 
 being dead, she could not reply, it is absolutely incor- 
 rect. I accused her over four years before her death 
 and she, herself, quickly published two replies to my 
 charge, one in the Boston Medical and Surgical 
 Journal, and the other in the Journal of Zoophily. 
 
i / 
 
 Recently, I passed my eighty-fourth birthday. 
 Though Mrs. Lovell does not mention this, she un- 
 doubtedly had in mind my impending (and, I may 
 add, sotto voce,' my undoubtedly welcome) demise. 
 In view of the uncertainty of my life (sic), she thinks, 
 before death stills my pen and voice, I ought to re- 
 tract the statement that Mrs. White advocated human 
 vivisection. On the contrary, I reaffirm it and call 
 the then living Mrs. White as my witness. 
 
 Let us see just what Mrs. White did say in 1SS6, 
 in her "Reply" to my address, "Our Recent Debts to 
 Vivisection." Referring to the 20,000 annual deaths 
 from snake bite in India, she proposed that the "ex- 
 perimenters go to India, where they could find as 
 large a field for investigation as they require in the 
 poor victims themselves. Here is an opportunity such 
 as is not often afforded of EXPERIMENTING UPON 
 HUMAN BEINGjS, since, as they would infallibly die 
 from the snake bites, there can be no objection to 
 trying upon them every variety of antidote that can 
 bei discovered." (I use italics and capitals not to 
 change the sense, but solely for emphasis.) If I 
 understand the English language, advocating "ex- 
 perimenting on human beings" is flat-footed advocacy 
 of "Human Vivisection." It can mean nothing else. 
 
 In the Boston Medical and" Surgical Journal, 
 May 2 and 9, 1912, is printed a later address of my 
 own, entitled "The Influence of Antivivisection on 
 Character." In this address, I quoted Mrs. White's 
 suggestion of 188f> of "experimenting on human be- 
 ings" bitten by snakes. To this address, Mrs. White 
 herself replied in a 3500 word letter (Boston Medical 
 and Surgical Journal, July 25, 1912). Let us see 
 what was her own reaction more than four years 
 before tier death (September 7, 1916) to my quoting 
 her proposal. Did she declare that I was "unscrupu- 
 lous" and deem it an "aspersion" on her character? 
 Not a hit of it! She not only did not resent my 
 quoting and interpreting her own words, but, after 
 having had twenty-six years to reflect upon her pro- 
 posal to "experiment upon human beings," she gal- 
 lantly stood by her guns and defended it ! Her own 
 words are (Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 
 July 25, 1912) : "It does not seem to me that this is 
 a cruel suggestion, as my only ob.lect in it was to 
 benefit the poor natives who die by the thousands 
 every year!" 
 
 If Mrs. White, while living, did not resent my quot- 
 
iug her own words, as "aspersing" her character, 
 why should Mrs. Lovell and Mr. Logan now so vio- 
 lently resent it? 
 
 But let us search a little further and consult the 
 Journal of Zodphily (the former name of what is now 
 The Starry Cross), itself the organ of .the antivivi- 
 sectionists themselves. In 1912, Mrs. White was the 
 editor and Mrs. Lovell, as now, "associate editor" of 
 that journal ! 
 
 In the issue for September, 1912, page 3S0, I find 
 that Mrs. White's letter, first published in the Boston 
 Medical and Surgical Journal, of July 25, 1912, is 
 reprinted in full, under the title "The Self-defense of 
 an Antivivisectionist." So here, in Mrs. White's and 
 Mrs. Lovell's own Journal, Mr^. White failed to resent 
 my suggestion that she favored "experimenting on 
 human beings," but, actually, after years of reflec- 
 tion, defended it. 
 
 By entirely omitting any mention of the facts that 
 the address in which I had quoted her was published 
 four years and four months before Mrs. White's 
 death, and that she, herself, replied to it in print, 
 not only in the Boston Medical and Surgical Jour- 
 nal, but in the very journal of which Mrs. Lovell 
 was, and still is, the associate editor, — by ignoring 
 these facts Mrs. Lovell and Mr. Logan give the wholly 
 false impression that my charge that she had made a 
 flat-footed proposal to "experiment on human beings" 
 was not made until after her death when she could not 
 reply. If Mrs. Lovell and Mr. Logan knew of her 
 two replies, they concealed the truth from their 
 readers. If they did not, they were lamentably igno- 
 rant of the literature relating to tneir own business 
 and to the contents of their own journal. In either 
 case, it is they who should make a retraction and 
 offer me an apology for such a misrepresentation. 
 
 The outstanding feature of all antivivisection litera- 
 ture, as to medicine, is that they "know it all." My 
 friends and I, who have diligently studied and taught 
 and practised medicine for forty, fifty and sixty 
 years, deplore our ignorance about many things as 
 to which we long for more light. We wish by all 
 possible means, including animal experimentation, to 
 obtain this additional light. We do know enough, how- 
 ever, to say that Mrs. Lovell's oracular statements as 
 to typhoid fever, yellow fever, smallpox, sanitation 
 and the "stupendous folly of germ hunting" are utter 
 nonsense. 
 
"Yellow fever, like typhoid, is a filth disease. Re- 
 move the filth aud you remove the cause,'* is one of 
 her hold assertions. 
 
 This assertion is not true. They are two diseases, 
 each caused by its own specific "germ" and by nothing 
 else. The fact is, you may like in a filthy hovel and 
 may develop other diseases, but you will not develop 
 typhoid unless there are typhoid germs in the food 
 yon eat and drink. In the same filthy surroundings, 
 you will not develop yellow fever unless there are 
 infected mosquitoes to bite you. 
 
 On the contrary, you may live in Mrs. Lovell's own 
 home, with spotless ultra-sanitary surroundings, bin 
 if you eat solid food over which have crawled flies 
 with typhoid germs on their little feet, or drink wafer 
 or milk which "has no smell and which looks and 
 tastes and appears to be entirely wholesome but 
 which contain the "germs" of typhoid, you will fall a 
 victim to typhoid. If, in similarly perfect surround- 
 ings, you are bitten by an infected mosquito, you 
 will lie attacked by yellow fever. 
 
 But Mrs. Lovell may say this is exactly the "filth" 
 that she refers to. I grant it at once and point out 
 that this filth is composed of the bacilli of typhoid 
 fever. Mrs. Lovell, if she makes that statement, at 
 once concedes my contention that typhoid fever is 
 caused, not by filth per sc, but by filth which contains 
 the germs of typhoid. 
 
 The Boston Journal gave place in its issue of July 
 11, 1912, to a short letter from Mr. Stephen Coleridge, 
 criticizing my address of 1912. and again, on July 
 25. 1912. it published Mrs. White's long letter. The 
 editor then said: "It is only just that these two com- 
 munications should appear in the Journal, since the 
 cause of truth is never better served than by the 
 free expression ami fair hearing of diverse opinions 
 about it." 
 
 As soon as I read Mrs. Lovell's attack upon me, I 
 requested the editor of The Starr]) Cross to allow me 
 equal space for a reply. He curtly "advised" me that 
 •"the columns of the Starry Cross are not open to 
 artieles favorimr vivisection, or intended to asperse 
 the memory of its founder." 
 
 As The Starry Cross refuses to let the light pene- 
 trate the minds of its readers. I am askini the 
 courtesy of your columns as you believe that truth is 
 best attained by hearing both sides. 
 
 Yours trulv. 
 
 W. W. Keen. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2012 with funding from 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/humanvivisectionOOkeen