Excerpt from Plea for Mercy to Animals: I. Claims of the Lower Animals to Humane Treatment From Man; II. Various Forms of Needless Suffering Inflicted by Man; III. Means of Prevention, Legal and Educational; IV. Vivisection, and Other Experiments on Living Animals Prize essays of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Report of Committee of British Association for the Advancement of Science - Classes of experimental physiology in schools of medicine - Demonstrations of ascertained facts needless and cruel - Use of chloroform and other anaesthetics - Professor Schid', of Florence - Introduction to England of vivisection as practised in French schools - Prosecution of Norwich vivi sectors - Cruelties in London schools of physiology - Dr. Johnson on experiments on live animals - Testimony of teachers of physiology to the needless cruelty of such experiments - Examples of cruel operations - Bxami nation of alleged results of vivisection - Fallacies of this mode of research Testimony of Sir Charles Bell, Dr. Barclay, Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Elliotson, Dr. Carpenter, M. Legallois, Baron Cuvier, and others - Pmposed methods of checking needless cruelties-proposals of Dr. Bardsley, Professor Haughton, Sir Thomas Watson, and others - Proposal for special legislation - Appeal to the medical profession. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A powerful and wide-ranging indictment of the treatment of animals by humans--and an eloquent plea for animal rights. Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or “entertainment,” and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.