Though most students began the investigation of rat innards with some reluctance, "only [Fitzpatrick] fainted as he half-heartedly gazed at a long incision being cut into the soft underbelly of a white rat by the laboratory instructor."
The experience left Fitzpatrick disgusted enough to write a letter to The Student. "The deliberate brutality, the purposeless savagery which we were forced to perform on little white rats today in Evolution 24 laboratory has made me reconsider Amherst's 'liberal education,'" he wrote.
Writer David Luria '58 reported on the reactions of the rest of the students, which ranged from bloodthirsty glee to deep revulsion-though no one was affected as much as Fitzpatrick. "'I couldn't touch it,' remarked one cringing soul who swears he saw the animal's heart beating.
"Another student found the experience 'scintillating and delicious' as he melodramatically poked his way through soggy liver and slimy muscle tissue."
After their initial hesitations, some in the class became quite enthusiastic. "It soon got to the point where I was ripping things out savagely," said one student who brought a rat tail home to hang on his bulletin board.
Luria pointed out that most students were a long way from anatomical expertise. "'Where are the ovaries?' queried a bewildered dissector after a thorough search among rat gizzard.
"'In female rats, my friend,'" the instructor answered.