¶ … Animal Testing Today, there is hardly any product, from shampoo to pharmaceutical drugs that has not undergone animal testing before reaching the public marketplace. Without this research, many of the life-saving therapies available today would not exist.

Human use of animals for experimental purposes dates from pre-Christian times, and Alexandrian physicians Herophilus and Erasistratus were the first to use living animals during the 3rd century B.C. (Animal Pp). Andreas Verslius created the modern science of anatomy by systematic dissection of and experimentation on living animals during the mid-1500's, and William Harvey's demonstration of the circulation of the blood in 1628, relied on a combination of dissection and animal experimentation as well (Animal Pp). During the 1820's and 1830's, Francois Magendie conducted extensive animal experiments that led to notable advance in neuro-physiology (Animal Pp). In the 1880's, the emergence of bacteriology and immunology hinged on experiments on living animals (Animal Pp).

Supporters of vivisection have always argued that such experiments provide great benefits for humankind, that animals suffer to prevent future human and animal suffering (Animal Pp). Diabetes is most often cited as an "example of a disease tamed through a cure developed by the use of animal experimentation and using a substance, insulin, taken from animal bodies (Animal Pp). Through the years the number of animal experiments has steadily risen, over five million experiments were being performed annually on vertebrates in Britain alone by 1980 (Animal Pp). The United States has taken an active role in encouraging proper care and use of laboratory animals since 1896 when the National Institute...

The United States Department of Agriculture's Animal Welfare Regulations are among the most important documents setting forth requirements for animal care and use by institutions using animals in research, testing, and education and have been effective since 1985 (Vivisection Pp). Animals most frequently used in laboratories include rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, and monkeys, when animals that closely resemble humans are need, dogs and chimpanzees are used (Vivisection Pp). Animal experimentation is especially advantageous when offspring of several generations can be observed, for example, five generations of mice can be observed for a year, where the same experiment using humans would require over a hundred years (Vivisection Pp).
A few of the major medical milestones that depended on animal research include:

1900's - corneal transplants and local anesthetics

1920's - insulin for diabetics and canine distemper vaccine

1930's - modern anesthetics and diphtheria vaccine

1940's - broad spectrum antibiotics for infections, whooping cough vaccine, and heart lung machine for open heart surgery

1950's -- kidney transplants, cardiac pacemakers, replacement heart valves, polio vaccine, high blood pressure drugs, and hip replacement surgery

1960's -- german measles vaccine, coronary bypass operations, heart transplants, drugs to treat mental illness

1970's -- drugs to treat ulcers, asthma and leukemia, improved…