Ribbit Ribbit …

Another soggy Wednesday morning. The amphibian lab.

Our first amphibian practical had us all slightly grossed out. In my parents’ time, they had to dissect the frogs themselves, but now all we had to do was watch as the professor did it. Probably to spare the poor frogs any more brutality than necessary.
The initial experiments were all to do with muscle stimulation, so all we got to see was a single muscle with a nerve attached to it. Not too hard on the eyes. It was when we got to the amphibian heart experiments that our tolerance was severely tested.
In front of our eyes, the professor took a pithed frog ( a procedure in which the frog’s spinal cord is damaged by twisting a needle through it- ironically, it’s supposed to be a humane procedure to spare the frog any more pain) and made an incision on its chest.

She then cut through the frog’s ribcage with a pair of scissors and extricated the heart, which, to our mingled horror and fascination, was still beating. As if this weren’t enough, she suspended the heart, so we could view it, by passing a hook through it.
And then, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, she launched into a description about conduction and ectopic pacemakers. For a few minutes, nothing she said registered. We were still trying to come to terms with the fact that a live frog had just had its heart impaled on a hook. How could she talk so matter-of-factly about it??
Something of our shock must’ve registered in our expressions because she stopped teaching. Looking us squarely in the eye, she repeated what she must have said to countless batches before us.
“I know this must come as a shock, but you have to get over it. The frog, although brain dead, is not feeling any pain and that’s the most we can do for it at this point. Sacrifices have to be made for the purpose of research, and we cannot experiment on our patients. If this frog helps save even one life in the future this experiment will have been worth it. As it stands, realise that it is both a privilege and a responsibility to work with experimental animals. Treat them, as such, with respect, just as you do the cadavers in dissection. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am.”
The rest of the class passed as usual, and we left within an hour. On my way out, however, I caught a glimpse of the frog tank. Somehow, the thought that frogs somewhere were being bred specifically to be killed undid all the cool logic the professor had tried to instil in us. It just couldn’t be right, that there was no other way.
I couldn’t reconcile myself to it then, and I’m not sure I’m completely ok with it even now. However, like they say, repetition breeds habit, and habit breeds indifference. Not like that’s a good thing. It just is.