Viviani

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

RENE, a French statesman, born in Sidi-bel-Abbis, 1863. Having finished his education, he Algeria, in became an associate editor of the "Petite Republique," then was elected by the Socialists of Paris to the Chamber of Deputies. In 1893 he became Minister of Agriculture in the Clemenceau Cabinet, and when Clemenceau created the Department of Labor he made Viviani its chief. After the reorganization of the Cabinet under Briand, Viviani remained as one of the members. In 1914 he became Minister of Instruction in the Cabinet of Gaston Doumergue, which resigned in June, whereupon Viviani was called upon to form a Cabinet, of which he was Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs. After the outbreak of hostilities he retained the position of President of the Council of Ministers, without portfolio. In the latter part of October, 1915, Viviani and his Cabinet resigned, because of opposition to the Allied policy in the Balkans, though no vote of lack of confidence was actually passed in the Chamber. Briand succeeded Viviani as Premier, but the latter remained in the new Cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs, holding various other portfolios in later cabinets. In 1917 he was a member of Marshal Joffre's party sent to the United States by the French Government, and in the spring of 1921 he again came on an official mission to this country. VIVISECTION its strict signification, the dissection of , a term denoting, in living animals, but popularly employed to denote the practice of performing operations with the knife on living animals, with the logical knowledge; (2) of converting view (1) of increasing physiospeculative into positive conclusion; and (3) of acquiring manual dexterity in operative surgery. In this last sense vivisection is principally confined to the VIZAGAPATAM French veterinary schools. By biologists the term is extended to include the performance of all scientific experiments of a kind calculated to inflict pain on living animals, and having for their object the investigation of the laws which govern life, the processes of disease, the action of heat and cold, poisons and therapeutic remedies. The practice appears to have been introduced by the Alexandrian school in the 4th century B. c.; and to this practice we owe, among many other benefits, the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey; Harvey; the treatment of aneurism by ligatures by Hunter; the distinction of the sensory and motor nerves by Bell; the introduction of chloroform; and the improved treatment of cerebral diseases which resulted from the researches of Brown-Sequard and Bernard. Among the chief investigators by this method of research at the present day are Burdon-Sanderson, Greenfeld, and Klein, in England; Pasteur in France, and Koch in Germany. Vivisection has met with vigorous and organized opposition in Europe as well as in the United States, where bills have been brought before various legislatures for the restriction or abolition of the practice. On Feb. 21, 1900, a Senate Committee gave a hearing in Washington, on a bill "For the Further Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the District of Columbia," prominent professionappearing on both al men and officials ap The proceedings were afterward sides. The published. President Eliot of Harvard is one of the leading advocates of vivisection in the United States, basing his arguments on the great advance made by its means in medical science in recent years. He objects, however, to its use in secondary schools or before college classes for the purpose of demonstration only. In England, the passage of the "Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876 legalized vivisection with restrictions according to which it must be performed under license, the only experiments allowed without anesthetics being such as inflict no pain greater than the prick of a needle. The "London Anti-Vivisection Society," founded in 1876, has worked actively for the abolition of the legalizing act. A similar society exists also in the United States and a number of other countries.