Vivisection
Although cutting operations on living animals for the purpose of acquiring physiological knowledge were practised to a small extent as far back as the time of the Alexandrian school of medicine, William Harvey was the first to make any great and conclusive discoveries as the results of experiments on living animals. Harvey had a favorite dog named Lycisca, whose experience in vivisection was made the subject of a poem by a sympathizer, which is thus referred to by a recent English writer:
“This discovery of the circulation of the blood, in 1620, is attributable to our countryman Harvey, ascertained by experiments on a dog, whose name, Lycisca, and whose sufferings and whose usefulness to mankind, have been immortalized and handed down to posterity in some beautiful touching lines.”