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This essay’s audience is comprised of the general public concerned about animal experimentation.
Benefits of Animal Experimentation
Animal testing has developed medical research that can save peoples lives and help them lead better lives. Many of the medications and procedures that we currently use today would not exist and the development of future treatments would be extremely limited without scientific animal research. Research assists in discovering ways to help people and other animals for the future. Animal testing has been used in the past and the present to develop solutions and vaccines for infectious diseases, making it necessary to continue research which benefits both the human race as well as animals.
In the mid-19th century, most debilitating diseases resulted from bacterial or viral infections, but at the time, most physicians considered these ailments to be caused by internal derangements of the body. The proof that such diseases did in fact derive from external microorganisms originated with work done by French chemist Louis Pasteur and his contemporaries, who studied infectious diseases in domestic animals. Because of his knowledge of how contaminants caused wine and beer to spoil, Pasteur became convinced that microorganisms were also responsible for diseases such as chicken cholera and anthrax (Morrison). Prominent British surgeon Joseph Lister, who pioneered the use of carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments, used animal testing to study the prevention of infection through wounds. In 1875, Queen Victoria asked Lister to address the Royal Commission inquiry into vivisection—as the queen put it, “to make some statement in condemnation of these horrible practices.” As a Quaker, Lister had spoken publicly against many cruelties of Victorian society, but despite the request of his sovereign, he was unable to condemn vivisection. His testimony to the Royal Commission stated that animal experiments had been...