How did animal experimentation become so established to begin with?
However unreliable, subjecting animals to experiments for which humans would never volunteer has immeasurable plusses, evident throughout time. Animals cannot dissent. There have always been abundant human bodies, tissue and blood to illumine our knowledge base. However, in the West, Christianity pervaded, and papal decree forbade autopsy. During the second century AD, a Roman physician named Galen performed endless animal experiments to inform his over-500 treatises that drew conclusions about human physiology. Many of these conclusions were entirely faulty and contributed to the “darkness” we now associate with medieval times, during which powerful Church officials continued to frown on autopsy. The Renaissance offered a slight reprieve. Competitive intellectual inquiry emerged to overwhelm Church injunctions. Autopsies revealed medical inaccuracies that had prevailed for 1,300 years since Galen. They began to cast light on real causes of disease. In the mid-nineteenth century a man
