Roman Animal Testing

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Pages: 7

As to Aristotle stated, non-human creature were viewed as living for the human’s interest. This was anticipated as the Great Chain of Being, where all life forms were represented as existing for the purpose of those forms higher within the chain, this infers that humans are of a higher rank. Therefore, those creatures were treated as contemptible and were produced to serve the people. In late 18th to the 19th century, a few reformers advocated anti-cruelty treatments that animals were being received, this created an emergence of the fight for animal authorities. Some people began realizing the brutal and unfair behavior that had been set on non-human creatures and hoped to give them the morality that they deserved, which made the topic of …show more content…
Many Roman physicians first used human bodies as their testing subjects but soon were forbidden by the Roman Law, which states that human bodies must not be kept captivated as testing subjects. The Romans created this law because they assumed that the disturbance that is made to a dead body was sinful and may anger the gods, which may result in tragedies to the country (O’Neill). During the early 500s BC, physician scientists such as Aristotle, Galen, and Rene Descartes operated procedures on animals to discover the functions of living organisms. They all explained their beliefs of to why they had only applied animals for these testings. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, assumed that animals lacked intelligence, therefore the notions of justice and injustice should not be certained to them. Galen, a Roman physician and philosopher, presumed that the vivisection of animals without sympathy and sorrow is a better method to understanding anatomy without breaking the Roman law of dissecting human cadavers. Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, assumed that non-humans cannot consciously sense pain nor suffer the same way as the human race (Background of the Issue). Thus, non-human subject laboratory experiments began in Rome and the cause of animal subject examination that are still going on in the …show more content…
According to Justin Worland’s article “Here’s How Many Trees Humans Cut Down Each Year”, 15 billion trees were cut down each year, which resulted in a decrease of 46% of the tree count since infrastructuring had began and 90% of native forests have been removed (Logging: Cutting Down Wildlife Habitats). This meant that the 70% of Earth’s land animals lose their habitat, food sources, and shelter. These animals, such as tree kangaroos, giant pandas, saolas, orangutans, and African forest elephants, will decrease in population growth (Living among the trees…, Population). Millions of those creatures are also terminated by humans for clothings and accessories, which is another factor to animal population decrease (Animals Used for Clothing). This may result in very extreme consequences such as a disruption in the food chain, which will trigger in limited food source. Also, trees produce oxygen in which humans need. Therefore, cutting down trees also restricts the humans’ oxygen