"When the unfortunate creatures cried and moaned under the operations, many of the students actually mimicked their cries in derision." (466)
Once again, I'd like to draw knowledge from a novel I read, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. There's a very primordial taboo centered on the dissection of creatures, particularly humans. And for a long time (I'd even venture to say today) there was a fear of donating your body to science because of the treatment by medical students. Everyone has heard the stories of medical students disrespecting the corpses and degrading the science that is meant to improve doctors technical skills, not make them less empathic towards their patients. But Mary Roach, the author of Stiff visited several medical labs and found that the students were actually extremely respectful. In fact, because each student practiced on the same body throughout the course, they sometimes became attached to the cadaver and it improved their ability to relate to patients. Maybe there were problems of students acting questionably in the past, but the field of medicine has been quick to correct such inappropriate behavior.
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| http://ahdu88.blogspot.com/2010/08/does-bodies-exhibition-ridicule-human.html |
There was another argument which I found to be rather unrealistic.
"Once nature ceased to be a constant antagonist, it could be viewed with affection. Wilderness became attractive rather than ugly, wild animals might evoke sympathy rather than scorn." (475)
I think this is a construct of the human imagination more than a true blanket statement for the time. People love the idea of nature. They don't necessarily see the real thing though. It's like going to the zoo and seeing the animals in cages and then claiming, "I love wild animals!" It's simply unrealistic. I'm not complaining about the attitude exactly. It's these same zoo-visiting people that donate money for wildlife conservation and protection of our rain forests. It's just they don't have a true understanding of what a wild animal is like. There's too much Bambi versus man-eating tiger (sorry Bengal) and not enough people who see the whole range as a scale of grey. We try so hard to impose our social constructs of good and evil on creatures that have their own needs and reasons for actions. It just bothers me that we try to put them into neat little categories in which they will never quite fit.
But while we weren't asked to find support for the cases made in the articles, I was curious about some of the statements and decided to do a bit of personal research. In particular, the author made a plea towards pathos in the stream of "where will vivisection end?"
"Next, perhaps, the inmates of our refugees for incurables-then the hopeless lunatic, the pauper hospital-patient, and generally "him that hath no helper"." (470)
As I read, I couldn't help but think of the famous quote (click here) about how "they" came for the different types of people but I didn't speak up because it wasn't me. It's just so easy for little changes to accumulate into something dangerous. And in truth, there has been human vivisection and not just in sci-fi or horror novels. During WW2, the Japanese had a group called Unit 731 whose sole goal was to test the limits of human suffering and discover a means to produce weapons of mass destruction. I don't want to spoil anyone's sleep with nightmares but they preformed unspeakable "tests." They tested the extent of burns that humans can survive. They took pregnant women and removed the fetuses for study. They instigated gangrene to watch it's progression and the effect on the body. And these horrors weren't just limited to POWs or locals. The Japanese also dropped packages of disease-infested clothes and food in parts of unoccupied China.
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| http://strangeworldofmystery.blogspot.com/2009/07/unit-731.html |
As I said before, my goal isn't to ruin your day (and I sincerely hope I don't) but I can't believe that I had never heard of these experiments until. I consider myself rather well-informed and I love learning about WW2 but it wasn't until I did some real digging that this information came to light. And what's worse is how America reacted to this abomination. When Japan surrendered to the Allied forces, General Douglas MacArthur made a secret deal with the head of the research which protected them from legal action by the US in exchange for their information on biological warfare. The US felt the information might be "useful" and ignored the source. Is this not as bad at the Holocaust which we so rage against in history textbooks? And the Soviet Union, whom we cast as an enemy and "evil" nation, actually did prosecute and punish the members of the unit whom the US did not whisk away. I find something ironic in our enemy being more just than the great United States. It's definitely food for thought.
Dude, did you mean to say that you could not bring yourself to completely justify 'dissection'??? Because vivisection is like an autopsy done on LIVING people. Dissection is done after death. I started laughing when I read the line ''CANT FULLY JUSTIFY vivisection''. God I hope not!! LOLLL I hope you cant even partially justify slicing open a living person for the purpose of experimentation.
ReplyDeleteThe woman in your photograph (from Unit 731) was injected with syphilis and the VIVISECTED to see what effect it had on the baby. She was sliced open while still alive.
Also, just thought you might be interested, but not only did they make a deal with the head of Unit 731, he was immigrated to the United States and lived out his life as a college professor.
The European courts ruled that none of the information that Mengele recorded from his 'living' experiments could be used due to the way it was obtained, and allegedly destroyed. But no such law covered Japan's experiments. Wonder what subject he taught.