Animal Experimentation and Medical Advancements

Animal experimentation is a big part of medical progress. Opponents of animal testing point out the amount of animals used and the different types of animals used but if you look at it, it’s all for a good reason. Animal experimenters don’t do this just to do it. It’s for a purpose. There are thousands upon thousands of medical situations that couldn’t have been done without animal experimenting. Animal suffering is pointed out but for the most part animals go without feeling any pain. Animal experimentation has helped advance us so much medically that no matter what extent of suffering you find or what type of alternatives you find, it will never fully disappear. Animal experimentation is not a recent event. It‘s been around for thousands of years. “The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the third and fourth centuries BC, with Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Erasistratus (304-258 BC) among the first to perform experiments on living animals” (Wikipedia, 14 Oct. 2006 ¶4). Erasistratus was a student at Aristotle’s school in Athens. It was there that he got the name “The Father Of Physiology” due to the work he did on the studies of the circulatory system and the nervous system on animals (Paul and Paul, 2001 p 24). Another person of great influence with the history of animal experimentation is Galen of Pergamum. During his time it was illegal for anyone to dissect a human therefore he had to move to animals for his learning and observations. “He put pigs, sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, bears, mice, monkeys, and even an elephant all under his knife; in doing so, he ‘put animal research on the map, not only for his contemporaries but also for the next fifteen centuries.’” (Paul and Paul, 2001 p 25). There are numerous types of experiments that were performed after animal testing was first discovered. After Galen, there were many other highly intelligent and important people who followed him in his ways of working on animals for

References: Baumans V. 2004. Use of animals in experimental research: an ethical dilemma? Gene Therapy Festing S. 2005. The animal research debate. The Political Quarterly. 76.4: 568. http:// www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2005.00720.x (15 Oct fbresearch.org/survivors/quickfacts.htm (14 Oct. 2006)