Criticism and Defence of Vivisection in the Seventeenth Century.

Abstract

Experiments on animals have a long tradition, going back to ancient times. In modern times animal experiments, together with the sixteenth-century revival of anatomy, were increasingly used to explain the functioning of organs and accounting, to explain the difference between a living and a dead body and for advocating the idea of the pulmonary transit. However, it was only in the XVII century that extensive physiological research was carried out, including vivisection as a key element. Discoveries made in the 20s of the XVII century by William Harvey on blood flow as a closed circulation system, as well as by Gaspare Aselli on lymph vessels were possible because of numerous animal experiments. These experiments and the interpretation of their results became the subject of polemical debate – both on the reliability of results obtained in this way and on the ethics of the enterprise. This article is an attempt to describe these disputes.