==JAPAN: KM== [Education]

"Help! I am going to be killed by a monster using a terrible weapon. Help, help me!" he screamed at the top of his voice as he was pinned to the dirty aluminum tray with the black rubber. "Ouch!" he cried. "Oh, my God! God, please save me! My belly is being slashed with a pair of scissors," he exclaimed again and again. He complained of great pain though he was under anesthesia. "Why must I feel such a pain like I have never gone through before? Ouch, ouch..." His deep cry became fainter and fainter, quieter and quieter, and at last it stopped.
The day, when we were to dissect a rat, Rattus norregicus albinus HATAI, in the biology class, I was strained and feeling negative. The reason why I had such feelings was because this was my first experience to slash an animal into pieces. I have certainly sliced fish or meat for food with a kitchen knife, but what a cruel action is dissection, that a person kills a cute animal not for food but for study! I went to the biology laboratory with heavy steps. Coming near it, I felt my heart beat faster and faster. "If I can, I want to run away from this brutal action. But I have to do it because it is vital for students." I made up my mind and headed for the lab with quick steps. And at last I reached it.
After the professor explained the procedure, the associate professor laid a rat on each person's dissection plate. We wet the rubber board on which it was lying so bits of fur would not fly off. It was dead, for it had been anesthetized with ether or chloroform, but it still had warmth as if it was alive and would be able to stand up. So I thought that the warmth increased the cruelty of this deed, allied dissection. I fixed the limbs on the rubber board with several pins so that it might not move throughout the cutting.
My hands became the Devil's. The Devil picked up a pair of scissors and opened the skin of the belly so the entire body cavity was bare, and fixed the skin to the right and left. In the same way the Devil cut the muscle of the belly. Then, several organs which are in the belly-stomach, kidney, liver, and so on appeared at last. From the bad smell, I grimaced a little. But what came next was worse. I wounded the liver with the scissors, and a lot of blood flowed out to dim the area around the internal organs, but I finally calmed down enough to wipe off the blood with tissues.
I very carefully made a sketch of the digestive organs that consisted of the liver and stomach and small intestines and large intestines. I was surprised that from the rat of a length of about twenty centimeters came out a digestive tract of about one meter. After that, I looked at the unitary system and the genital organs. In the end, I dissected the chest. The points worthy of note in the chest are the lungs and heart. The assistant professor did a demonstration in which he breathed into the lung through the trachea with a straw. Then the lung expanded like a balloon. "Oh, Great!" students surrounding him cheered. I had heard about dissection many times, but I actually faced it for the first time, so it became a very precious experience.
I had thought of dissection as a wretched and heartless act. I felt as if I heard the rat's scream. However, this laboratory exercise changed my view toward dissection. It is an irreplaceable thing by which we can study, even though it is at the sacrifice of the life of living things. That is to say, dissection has a value equal to life. We must learn many things from it. In fact, I felt a mystery and the preciousness of life. The things got from dissection may be useful in my coming life. I have grown up to be more humane through the process of dissection.

COMMENT
I had thought of dissection as a wretched and heartless act, too. And even now, the thought isn't changed. We do not have the right to kill the other animals for human benefit. However, it can't be denied that dissection is very important to understand the structure of the body. To dissect the rat is much more significant than to use a dummy. Your hands might have been seen to the rat the Devils' as you say. However, if you have learned many things through the precious experience and study hard, your hands will be the Angel's for your patients someday. I think you ought to be so for the rat.

Konichi Arai