Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/242

* VIVIANITE. 194 VIVISECTION. monoclinic system. It has a pearly lustre, and is blue to green in color. It occurs associated with copper, iron, anJ tin sulphides in veins, and also with iron ores, as limonite, and some- times in cavities of fossil or buried bones. This mineral is found in Cornwall, England ; in Tran- sylvania, in Greenland, in France, nnd in the United States at various localities in Xew York, New Jersey, Slarylnnd. Virginia, and California. It is sometimes called "blue iron earth,' or 'na- tive Prussian blue.' VIVIEN DE SAINT-MAKTIN, ve'vyax' de saN'mar'tax', Louis (1802-97). A distinguished French geographer, born in the Department of Calvados. He went to Paris in 1814, and de- voted his life to the writing of works on geog- raphy. Among his works are two volumes of a Eistoire univcrsrile _ des dfcouvertes gcogra- phicjiies (1845-47); Etudes de geographic an- cienne et d'eilinogruphie asiatique (1850-54); Etude sur la tjcographie et Ics populations primi- tives du ?i^ord-Oucst de I'Inde d'apres les hipnnes vMiques ( 1800) ; Etude sur la gdograjihie grccque et latine de I'Inde ( 1858-60) ; he nurd de I'Afrique dans I'antiquite grecque et romaine (1SG.3) ; Eis- toire de la g6ographie et des decouvertes geo- grapliiqucs (187.3); L'atlas universel de geo- graphie moderne, ancienne et du moyen age (1877). He also issued the first two volumes of the monumental work, Xoiivcau dictionnaire de gdographie universelle, and the next two with the assistance of Louis Rousselet, who completed the work (7 vols., with a supplement, 1879-90). VIVIPARY (from Lat. viviparus, bearing living young, from virus, alive + parere, to bear, produce). (1) The development of young sep- arable shoots in those regions of the plant usually devoted to the formation of reproductive struc- tures of other kinds; or (2) the development of young plants from unshed seeds. Vivipary of the first sort is exhibited often in the regions of the flower, where either the entire flower or only those parts of it which would produce spo- rangia (sjjorophylls) are replaced by a purely vegetative structure capable of growing at once into a new plant. The sporangia of ferns are sometimes reidaced by yoiuig plants (apospory, q.v. ), a form of viviparj'. The term is some- times applied also to the formation of plantlets in any unu.snal position, as on the winged leaves of Bryonia. (See !M.T,FoiiM.TTOX.) Vivipary from seeds is best illustrated by the mangrove (q.v.). VIVISECTION (from Lat. virus, alive + scrlio, n ciiltiiig, from srcare, to cut). A terra originally employed to designate cutting opera- tions upon living animals for the purpo.ses of experimentation, but now broadened to include experimentation of any kind, painful or pain- less, to demonstrate or discover physiological facts or theories, upon living creatures. Those experiments comprise inoculation with disease, sulijection to different comlilions of temperature, atmospheric pressure, or food, or to the action of various drugs and medicines, as well as to cut- ting operations involving the ligature of arteries, exposure of nerves, or removal of vital organs. Physiological investigations on living animals were carried out by Galen and the Alexandrian school, and all the important discoveries during the later centuries of the Christian Era were made in this way. The method was accepted as a necessary means to scientilic knowledge until the nineteenth century, when the widely pub- lishe<l and needlessly cruel and numerous experi- ments of Majendie and other investigators in France, Germany, and Italy, caused public dis- pleasure. Persistent agitation in England re- sulted in the appointment, in 1876, of a royal commission to investigate the subject of vivi- section in that country, and the passage of the Vivisection Act, which regulated, and to some extent restricted, the practice. Experiments per- formed for instruction were, in particular, per- mitted only under stringent limitations. In- vertebrate animals were not protected, but horses, dogs, mules, asses, and cats were especially safe- guarded. An active propaganda for the total suppression of vivisection has been steadily main- tained in Great Britain and in the United States. Anti-vivisection protests include objections to alleged experimentation upon human beings in pauper hospitals and insane asylums. The chief argument against vivisection (based mainly on the undoubtedly cruel experiments carried on before the days of anaesthetics ) are that the prac- tice is unneces.sary and cruel. The whole weight of scientific opinion is in favor of vivisection conducted in a humane man- ner. Experiments as at present performed in- volve no avoidable sufTering. Cutting operations are done under complete anaesthesia. with ether or chloroform, as in the human subject. Ani- mals seriously mutilated are killed before re- gaining sensibility. There is nothing to gain and much to lose by the infliction of pain, in the conduct of most experiments, and the in- vestigator, for this reason, if for no other, is led to avoid it. The benefits to mankind derived from animal experimentation are incalculable. Practically all our knowledge of physiology, of the efTect of medicines, and of bacteriology is gathered from this source, and there is hardly a life-saving or pain-relieving appliance, measure, or operation that has not been directly derived through vivi- section. Only a few benefits derived from it can be mentioned here. The whole subject of the circulation of the blood, of transfusion of blood and saline fluids, was worked out on ani- mals. All the facts concerning respiration were discovered in the same way, and the practical ap- plication of the knowledge thus derived has led to the life-sa,ving procedure of artificial respira- tion in cases of asphyxiation from gases, drown- ing, hanging, and [loisoning, to the use of oxygen in eases of failing respiration, and to the science of ventilation. The functions of the nerves, spinal cord, and brain and the location of the various nerve centres are among the most ditlicult and important prolilems solved by vivisection. The treatment of aneurism by ligature, the repair and traiispl:uitati(in of lione. skin-grafting, ab- sorbable ligatures, the arrest of hemorrhage by torsion of the arteries. tlu> e]iocli-mnking dis- covery of general ana>sthesia, the diagnostic and theralieutic uses of electricity, hypodermic medication, and the phenomena of inflammation are examples of the usefulness of animal ex- perimentation. The immense advances in our knowledge of contagious and infectious diseases, their bacteriology, and their prevention, were made through vivi.section. Diphtheria antitoxin,