Stephen Paget

THE CASE AGAINST ANTI-VIVISECTION

[The following pages are taken, with a few changes and omissions, from a pamphlet which I published in 1904. I am glad to say that the tone of the Anti-Vivisection Societies is not quite so bad as it was a few years ago; but I think that what I wrote in 1904 is still fairly accurate.]

1. Anti-Vivisection Societies

The early history of the anti-vivisection movement is given in a pamphlet by Dr. Leffingwell, of Brooklyn, entitled "The Rise of the Vivisection Controversy"; and in a pamphlet published by the National Anti-vivisection Society, entitled "Dates of the Principal Events connected with the Anti-vivisection Movement." Dr. Leffingwell calls attention to a fact not generally known—that the movement, in this country, was begun by the medical journals. The Medical Times and Gazette in 1858, the Lancet in 1860, and the British Medical Journal in 1861 condemned in a very outspoken way certain experiments made on the Continent, and raised the question whether these or any experiments on animals could be justified. Later, in 1872, the Medical Times and Gazette declared outright that all experiments, from the time of Magendie onward, had done nothing for humanity that could be compared to the discovery and use of cod-liver oil and bark. In 1874, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took proceedings against those who had made certain experiments at Norwich during a meeting of the British Medical Association. These experiments, and the publication of the Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory, roused public comment; and during 1875 the opposition to all experiments on animals took more definite form. On June 22nd, 1875, the Royal Commission was appointed; on January 8th, 1876, its report was dated; and on August 15th, 1876, the present Act received the Royal assent.

At the time when the Royal Commission was appointed, the only anti-vivisection society was that which Mr. Jesse had just started; and if any one will read Mr. Jesse's cross-examination, by Professor Huxley, before the Royal Commission, he will not attach much importance to that society. The National Anti-vivisection Society was founded in November 1875; the Irish Society, the London Society, and the International Association in 1876; the Church Anti-vivisection League in 1889, the Humanitarian League and the National Canine Defence League[45] in 1891, and the British Union about 1898. These dates show that the oldest of these societies came after the Royal Commission, not before it; the first societies and the Royal Commission were alike the expression of a widespread opinion, thirty years ago, that experiments on animals ought either to be forbidden or to be restricted. This same opinion had been favoured, fifteen years before that, by the representative journals of the medical profession. We have seen something of the work of the medical profession; let us now see something of the work of the societies.

The chief anti-vivisection societies in this country are the National Society, the London Society, the British Union, the Church League, and the Canine Defence League. In February 1898, the National Society declared itself in favour of restriction; it set before itself abolition as its ultimate policy, and restriction as its immediate practical policy. Thus, at the present time, these societies are divided into two parties: one asks for restriction, another asks for nothing short of abolition. This division between them, and the tone of the National Society toward the smaller Societies, waste their energy and their funds, and hinder them from working together. The National Society, in its official journal (January 1902), speaks as follows of this schism, in a leader entitled "The Folly of our Subdivisions":—

"Nobody seems to know how many Anti-vivisection Societies there are. A few hundred Anti-vivisectionists divide themselves up into divisions, subdivisions, coteries, and cliques, without order, without discipline, without cohesion. The Anti-vivisectionists between them all contribute but a few thousands a year, and dribble them around among multitudinous antagonistic associations.... The pitiful absurdity of the disunion fostered by some Anti-vivisectionists was illustrated very forcibly last year by the issue of a prospectus of a Society with a world-embracing title, in which its promoters declared that irreparable injury would be inflicted upon our cause if electoral work were not taken up by them.... The accounts of this stupendous organisation showed that its total expenditure for the year was £13, 19s. 4d., out of which ten shillings was devoted to 'electoral work.' ... A much graver injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid Secretaries. The existence of many quite needless Societies cannot be justified on any grounds of humanity combined with common sense."

Nothing need be added to these very grave admissions, written by Mr. Coleridge himself. He proposes a very simple remedy for these "quite needless" societies:—

"The National Society, as the chief Anti-vivisection organisation in the world, is always ready to put an end to this grievous waste by receiving into its corporation any of the smaller Societies."

But the leaders of smaller societies have two grounds of complaint against Mr. Coleridge's society: they do not believe in his policy, and they will not submit to his "discipline." They call his society "the weak-kneed brethren," and say that its policy is "miserable, cowardly, and misleading"; and they take it ill that he so often accuses them of inaccuracy. He refers again and again (see the official journal of the National Society) to this mode of discipline:—

December 1901.—"I decline to be made responsible for the 'anti-vivisection party.' There happen to be small anti-vivisection associations whose chief occupation is the dissemination of quite inaccurate pamphlets. I have nothing to do with them, and cannot prevent anything they choose to do."

January 1902.—"Time after time has this sacred cause been undermined and betrayed by its professing friends by their reckless habit of making erroneous statements."

March 1902.—"I am quite aware that with many of my opponents in the exclusive total-abolition coterie, the motives that actuate them are far removed from the question of the salvation of the wretched animals, and have their foundation in emotions that seem to me singularly unworthy and petty."

May 1902.—"As representative of the National Society, I have again and again written to the representatives of some of the smaller anti-vivisection societies, protesting in plain terms against their publication of inaccurate statements."

No society could submit to be thus taken to task four times in six months. The Church League writes to him, "What the Church League may or may not think fit to say does not in the very least concern you, who are not a member of the League. Interference in such a matter from an outsider is an obvious impertinence." Such rejoinders are met, in their turn, by angry leaders, "A Stab in the Back," "Stabs in the Back," in the National Society's official journal; and the Hon. Secretary of the London Society, who is a lady, is accused of want of chivalry for Mr. Coleridge. The leader, "A Stab in the Back" (April 1902), is a curious instance of the tone of one anti-vivisection society toward another:—

"The time when a man is assailed by a large section of the press, threatened with violence by laymen, attacked on points relevant by vivisectors and points irrelevant by their supporters, is scarcely the moment that a generous rival would have chosen for hurling a dart; and yet, incredible as it may appear, the Honorary Secretary of another Anti-vivisection Society, seizing an opportunity afforded by an article in the Globe, enters the arena, and, by a letter repudiating any connection with Mr. Coleridge, appears to sanction the unfriendly criticisms expressed in that paper. It needed no chivalry to refrain from writing such a letter. A small amount of good taste would have amply sufficed.... This letter, which will convince the public of nothing but the writer's lack of taste, might well be ignored were it not that it is but one of the many attacks made by members of other societies, either by open statement or innuendo, against the Honorary Secretary of the National Society."

But we cannot wonder at these occasional stabs. For the National Society does not stop at charging other societies with inaccuracy. It makes yet graver charges against them. Here are three made by Mr. Coleridge's society against Miss Cobbe's and Mr. Trist's societies:—

March 1901.—"The February number of the Abolitionist contains a leading article in which allusions are made to subjects that are never discussed by decent people even in private. As the leading organ of the Anti-vivisection movement, we enter our solemn protest against the publication of this unspeakable article, which must inevitably inflict the gravest injury upon our cause."

February 1903.—"It is our duty to inform our readers that Mr. Trist has published the correspondence, but that he has mutilated it, omitting some of his own letters altogether, and excising whole paragraphs of Mr. Stewart's letters."

June 1903.—"Our amiable contemporary, the Abolitionist, is good enough, in a long article in its last issue, to suggest to those preparing the libel action against Mr. Coleridge what are the most vulnerable points in his armour."

Thus divided in policy, and quarrelling among themselves, these societies are still agreed in appealing to the public for approval and for money. Here the London Society's opposition to the National Society comes out clearly. In its annual report (1903) the London Society says:—

"Join a really effective Society with a frank and straightforward policy—namely, the London Anti-vivisection Society, 13 Regent Street, London, S.W. This is a National and International organisation. It has greater medical support than any other. It is the most 'alive' humane organisation in the world.... Get into touch with the society. Write to us. We shall be glad to hear from you and answer any questions."

"If you can provide for the Society's future in your Will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now. Thousands of pounds have been lost to the Society and the Cause by the fatal procrastination of well-meaning friends. The pity of it! Legacies should be left in these exact words: 'To the London Anti-vivisection Society.' Caution. It is of great importance to describe very accurately the Title of this Society—namely, The LONDON Anti-vivisection Society—otherwise the benevolent intentions of the Donor may be frustrated. Please Note.—Those charitable persons who have left money to the Society would do well to notify the same to the Secretary."

Contrast the tone of this appeal for money with the tone of the Report:——

"Your Society are glad to note that the Christian Churches are becoming alarmed at the pretensions of scientific authority.... The Christian laity has been largely uninstructed or misinformed on this grave question.... Happily, the signs of the times are propitious; not all of the leaders of religious thought in this country have succumbed to the dictation and pretensions of the professors of vivisection ... a base and blatant materialism, a practice which owes its inception to barbarism, and which has developed in materialism of the lowest possible order."

Surely such eloquence should avail to tear the money even out of the hands of the dying, lest the National Society should get it. The National Society, oddly enough, also says: "Caution.—It is of great importance to describe very accurately the Title of this Society—namely, The National Anti-vivisection Society—otherwise the benevolent intentions of the Donor may be frustrated." I do not know which of these two societies is the inventor of this phrase. Still, it is not improbable that the National Society receives more money than all the smaller societies together. Of course, we cannot compare the working expenses of an anti-vivisection society with the working expenses of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The former of these two societies in one year obtained 8798 convictions; in one month alone, 689 convictions; and it paid the full costs of committing 34 of the 689 to prison. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has an equally good record. But an anti-vivisectionist society cannot show results of this kind. Nor can we compare its working expenses to those of a missionary society; for the missionaries give direct personal service to their fellow-men. But we can fairly compare an anti-vivisection society to an anti-vaccination society or a Church of Christian Science. That is to say, it is a publishing body. In 1902, the National Society's expenditure, in round numbers, was £970 on printing and stationery; £1193 on rent, salaries, and wages; £1255 on books, newspapers, periodicals, &c., including the Illustrated Catalogue and the Hospital Guide; £1380 on lectures, meetings, organising new branches, &c.; and about £500 on all other expenses. Let us take, to illustrate these figures, what the National Society says from time to time in its official journal:—

June 1899.—(From the Society's Annual Report): "The whole controversy has been collected and published in pamphlet form by your Society, and more than 10,000 copies have already been issued to the public. Over 200 people have joined your ranks and become members of the Society in consequence of it, while two cheques of £1000 each were received by Mr. Coleridge in aid of the cause."

June 1899.—"We have received more money within the past six months than we got in any two years previously."

June 1899.—"We cannot better employ the funds at our disposal than in securing the constant help of experts to insure the accuracy of all our statements, and in sending well-informed lecturers to every city in the kingdom."

June 1900.—(From the Society's Annual Report): "The receipts of the society from subscriptions and donations show an increase over those of the previous year. This increase in itself, however, would hardly have justified the increase in the expenses which it has been found necessary to incur in almost every department, and especially in the distribution of pamphlets and papers, had it not been for some legacies which fell due, notably one from——, of £6386."

May 1901.—"With heartfelt gratitude we have once more to announce that the National Society has received a gift of a thousand pounds from an anonymous donor. Nothing could be more opportune for the Cause than this munificent support, coming as it does just as the issue of 20,000 copies of Mr. Stephen Coleridge's Hospital Guide has been made at so great a cost to the Society."

June 1901.—"Our editorial table is buried deep in press cuttings from all parts of the kingdom."

March 1902.—"We employ two press-cutting agencies to send us cuttings from the journals of the whole English-speaking world."

July 1903.—"We start branches in various towns, and send lecturers to speak at working men's clubs and debating societies. All this means a very large expense. We very often issue a pamphlet likely to do good by the tens of thousands. Last year we issued 50,000 copies of the 'Illustrated German Catalogue of Vivisectional Instruments and Appliances.'"

The smaller societies, of course, spend their funds in the same sort of way. Thus the National Canine Defence League says that its anti-vivisection work, the most important of all its works, is earnestly carried forward by (1) The Writer's League, in a ceaseless flow of letters to the press; (2) The circulation of lists of hospitals free from the shameful practice; (3) The publication of twenty-one strong leaflets on the subject; (4) The circulation of 300 copies of a book on the subject. This society in two years sent out 650,000 leaflets and pamphlets; but they were not all of them about experiments on animals. Another Society, in a report published in 1902, enumerates the methods which it employs for "the education of the public at large." These include (a) the publication of literature; (b) the holding of public meetings in all parts of the United Kingdom; (c) the delivery of lectures with or without limelight illustrations; (d) participation in debates even with high scientific authorities; (e) inducing the clergy and ministers of all Churches to deliver sermons dealing with the subject; (f) organisation of a press bureau, through which the newspaper press of the country is watched, and correspondence and articles contributed. This Society has also a van, "the only one of its kind in existence. No sooner is our winter and spring campaign concluded than the van takes up the thread of the work and carries it on through the summer, and it may truly be said that the track of the van across country is white with the literature which the van circulates on its educational mission."

It is evident, from these and the like statements, that these Societies, during the last quarter of a century, have published a vast quantity of literature. We must examine the style of that literature during some recent years, and the arguments which it puts forward. But, before we do this, let us consider what attitude is taken by these Societies, or by well-known members of this or that Society, toward certain problems and interests that closely concern them.

I

They do not hesitate to take advantage of all those improvements of medicine and surgery which have been made by the help of experiments on animals. They denounce the work of the present; but they enjoy all the results of the past, and will enjoy all those of the near future. "If anything of value to medicine has been discovered by vivisection, it would be as absurd to reject it on that account as it would be to abandon Ireland because centuries ago we took it by force." And again: "We are no more morally bound to reject benefits acquired by indefensible means than are the descendants of slaveholders bound to abandon wealth originally acquired by the detestable abomination of slavery." And again, the Animal's Friend (November 1903) takes as further instances the benefits derived from body-snatching, political assassination, and the French Revolution. But, in the matter of experiments on animals, it is the very same men and women who denounce these experiments and who profit by them. What should we say of an anti-slavery reformer who was himself drawing a vast income out of the slave trade?

But there is one gentleman, and, so far as I know, only one, who did carry his opinions into practice. He told the story at a debating meeting—how his little girl had a sore throat, and the doctor wanted to give antitoxin, and he forbade it, and the child recovered. "Of course," he says, "it was only an ordinary sore throat." Truly, a great victory, and a brave deed, to make an experiment on your own sick child.

II

The attitude of these Societies toward sport may seem at first sight purely negative; but it is worth study. I have the honour of knowing a very eminent physiologist who will never shoot, because he thinks it cruel—a man much abused by the National Society. And Lord Llangattock, the President of that Society, is well known as an a "ardent sportsman."

This contrast is of some interest. Let us see what the National Society says about sport. Of course, it is not bound to attack sport. But the reasons which it gives for remaining neutral are to be noted.

1. It says, very truly, that it is in great part supported by sportsmen.

2. It says, further, that the cruelties of sport lie outside its own proper work:—

"Our opponents frequently ask us why we do not attack some form of cruelty other than vivisection, which they consider more heinous. Our Honorary Secretary recently summarised this argument in his own amusing manner thus: We must not arrest the man in Tooting for kicking his wife till we have stopped the woman in Balham starving her children, and we must not arrest the woman in Balham for starving her children until we have stopped the man in Tooting kicking his wife." (1901.)

Later (1903) the dramatis personÆ are a man in East Islington jumping on his wife, and a woman in West Islington stabbing her husband. But this argument, of course, will not hold. For it is the same men who denounce wounds made (under anÆsthetics) for physiology, and who make wounds (without anÆsthetics) in sport.

3. It says that the "object" of the sportsman is to kill; but the "object" of the experimenter is to torture:—

"There is a vast difference between the killing of animals and the torturing of them before killing them. The object of the sportsman is to kill his quarry; the object of the vivisector is to keep his victim alive while he dissects it."—Mr. Wood (1903).

"The object of the sportsman is to kill, and the object of the vivisector is to keep his victim alive while he cuts it up."—Lord Llangattock (1901).

"The vivisector is nothing if not a tormentor; the sportsman is not a true sportsman if he seeks to inflict pain on his quarry.... One (the pain of a horse falling on asphalt) is the result of an accident to be deplored, the other (the pain from an experiment) is done of devilish malice prepense."—Leader in the Society's official journal, (1899).

"I am not so mentally and ethically confused as to be unable to distinguish between the entirely different moral acts of killing and torturing."—Mr. Coleridge (1901).

Here are four statements. One is by Mr. Wood, the Society's lecturer; one by Lord Llangattock, its President; one is published in its official journal; and one is by Mr. Coleridge, its honorary secretary and treasurer. That is the sort of thing which seems good enough to the National Society to say to its friends in Parliament; this childish nonsense about the true sportsman and his quarry.

III

The attitude of these Societies toward the medical profession, and toward the Hospitals, must be studied. Let us look through some numbers of the official journal of the National Society, and see the attitude that it sometimes takes toward the medical profession:—

June 1899.—"The charm of this sort of thing is that you are always sure of the post-mortem if of nothing else."

July 1899.—"There is a disease, well known to the vestrymen of London, called 'the half-crown diphtheria.' This is common sore throat, notified as diphtheria because the vestry pays a fee of half-a-crown to the medical notifier."

December 1899.—"The patient died, made miserable by the effect of inoculations which even on bacteriological grounds gave no promise of success, but the scientific physician, nowadays, must inject something in the way of a serum."

March 1901.—"There will always be those who, unable to think for themselves or exercise their independence on therapeutic methods, are prone to bow down before authority which is self-assertive enough to compel the obedience of weak minds. Such men would inject antitoxin though every case died. They administer it not knowing why."

April 1901.—(From "Our Cause in the Press"): "What effort does the medical profession make to make clear to its clients what is well known to itself, that disease is the result of wrong living? Practically none at all. The medical profession as a whole have winked at sin, and have merely sought to antidote its results."

September 1901.—"Some day we shall have our surgeons disembowelling us just to see what daylight and fresh air will do for the stomach-ache."

December 1901.—"The new medicine demands a mere laboratory habit; the patient is nothing, the disease everything. He is a test-tube; such and such reagents are needed to produce a certain result, and there you are. The patient's malady, be it what it may, is due to a microbe, a toxin, or a ptomaine; he must be inoculated with the serum or antitoxin which counteracts his disease, and this must be done not secundum artem but secundum scientiam, and the science means the inoculating syringe and so many cubic centimetres of filth wherewith to poison the man's blood and so cure his disease, though the victims die."

December 1903.—(From "Our Cause in the Press"): "Not only did we see great callousness in the field hospitals in South Africa, but conversation with the class that finds its way into our hospitals in England will reveal that a great deal of refined cruelty is constantly occurring."

Why does the official journal of Mr. Coleridge's society publish these things? For this reason—that it must attack those methods that were discovered by the help of experiments on animals. The medical profession uses these methods. Therefore, that profession must be attacked.

The same reason, of course, helps to explain the National Society's attack on the great Hospitals of London. It would take too long to tell here the whole story of that attack. Three charges were made against the Hospitals: (1) that they maltreat patients; (2) that they promote the torture of animals; (3) that they endow this torture at the cost of the patients. They were accused, to put it plainly, of treachery and fraud; and of course the Council of the King's Hospital Fund got its share of abuse. Mr. Coleridge said on this subject:—

1. (Annual meeting at St. James's Hall, May 1901): "How have Lord Lister, the vivisector, and his Committee distributed the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund? They have so distributed this fund as to make it clear to hospital managers that the more they connect their hospitals with the torture of animals the larger will be the grant they may expect to get from the Prince of Wales's Fund. That fund, therefore, has been used as an insidious but powerful incentive to vivisection."

2. (Annual meeting at St. James's Hall, 1902): "Sheltering itself now in its most repulsive form behind those ancient and glorious institutions, founded and sustained for their Christ-like work of healing the sick, sapping their foundations and smirching their fair fame, malignant cruelty has taken up its position in its last ditch. There it has summoned to its aid vast interests, ancient prejudices, enormous endowments, and under illustrious patronage it has pilfered the funds subscribed for the poor."

With these statements before us (and it would be easy to add to them) we cannot doubt that the plan of campaign against all experiments on animals is also hostile to the Hospitals, whenever that hostility seems likely to be of the very least use to the cause.

---

Surely there are charities more worthy of subscriptions, donations, and legacies than these Anti-vivisection Societies. They quarrel among themselves; they spend vast sums of money on offices, salaries, press-cuttings, reprints, lectures and meetings, tons of pamphlets and leaflets. Their members denounce all experiments done now, while they enjoy the profit of all experiments done before now; they say that the object of the physiologist is to torture his victim out of devilish malice prepense; they accuse doctors of fraud, and lying, and refined cruelty, and madness, and winking at sin; they blacklist and boycott the best Hospitals. And the whole costly business, these thirty years, has done nothing to stop these experiments; they have increased rapidly. Surely, if a man wishes to help and comfort animals, he had better give his money to the Home for Lost Dogs, or the Home of Rest for Horses.

II. Literature.

We have now to examine the style of the literature of these societies. But, out of such a vast store of journals, pamphlets, and leaflets, we can only take one here or there.

From time to time a book or a pamphlet is, for good reasons, withdrawn. Thus, in 1902, the London Society withdrew Dark Deeds. (The Shambles of Science, now impounded, was published by a chairman of committee of the National Society, but not by that society.) In 1900 the National Society withdrew one or more pamphlets involving acceptance of Dr. Bowie's mistranslation of Harvey. In 1902 it withdrew and destroyed a whole store of diverse pamphlets, and appealed to its supporters to "refrain from circulating any literature not issued from our office by the present committee"; that is to say, it warned them to distribute no literature but its own, and not all even of that. But the withdrawal of a few books and pamphlets makes very little difference; and most of them are "revised" and brought out again. Take, for example, the Nine Circles. It was planned and compiled for Miss Cobbe; Mr. Berdoe was "urgently requested by her to point out to her any scientific errors or possible inadvertent misrepresentations of fact, and correct or expunge them"; and he "carefully read through the proof-sheets." The book purported to be an exact account, from original sources, of certain experiments, some made abroad, some in this country. It was attacked by Sir Victor Horsley at the Church Congress at Folkestone, October 1892, and was withdrawn, revised, and brought out again. Our only concern here is to see what the official journal of the National Society said of the revised issue. This official journal, the Zoophilist and Animal's Defender, was started in May 1881, under the shorter title of the Zoophilist. It speaks of itself as a "scientific journal," and as "the recognised organ of the anti-vivisection movement in England." It is published monthly, and may be obtained through any bookseller. In 1883 it was edited by Miss Cobbe; in 1884 by Mr. Benjamin Bryan; in 1898 by Mr. Berdoe. In 1903, Mr. Coleridge, apologising for an error made in it in 1898, says: "At that time I had not the control over its pages that is at present accorded to me." Thus it is, I believe, still edited by Mr. Berdoe, and is, or was in 1903, controlled by Mr. Coleridge. And we are bound to note here that Mr. Berdoe was in great part responsible for the Nine Circles; and in 1897 was responsible for certain statements as to the use of curare, which the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons, called "absolutely baseless."

Let us now examine the style of this "official journal." And, to begin with, what does it say about the Nine Circles? To make this point clear, let us put in parallel columns what was said by Sir Victor Horsley of the original edition in 1892, and what was said by the Zoophilist in 1899 of the revised edition:—

Sir Victor Horsley, Oct. 1892.

I have taken the trouble to collect all the experiments in which cutting operations are described as having been performed by English scientists, and in which I knew anÆsthetics to have been employed. These experiments are 26 in number. In all of them chloroform, ether, or other anÆsthetic agent was employed. But of these 26 cases, Miss Cobbe does not mention this fact at all in 20, and only states it without qualification in two out of the remaining six. When we inquire into these 20 omissions in the 26 cases, we find in the original that again and again Miss Cobbe has, in making her extracts, had directly under her eyes the words "chloroform," "ether," "etherised," "chloroformed," "anÆsthetised," "during every experiment the animal has been deeply under the influence of an anÆsthetic," and so forth.

The "Zoophilist," July 1899.

A revised edition has been issued, which is a stronger indictment against the vivisectors than the original work. There were some half-dozen omissions in the first edition concerning the administration of anÆsthetics in the preliminary operations, but the cruelty of the experiments was in no case modified by the fact that a whiff of chloroform was possibly administered, as stated in the reports, at the beginning of the operation. Our opponents may boast of their success in detecting the omission to dot the i's and cross the t's in the first edition of the Nine Circles, but there are some victories which are worse than a defeat. We have replaced the lantern with which we examined the dark deeds of the laboratories by the electric searchlight. The "researcher" will find it hard to discover a retreat where its rays will not follow and expose him.

For another instance of the inaccuracy of the Zoophilist we have what it said about Professor Sanarelli's experiments in South America on five human beings. Nobody defends him here. But the point is that the Zoophilist in 1899 said that they had all been killed; and in 1902 admitted that they had all recovered. Or, for another instance, we have what it said in 1902 about the case of His Majesty the King. (For these statements, see Zoophilist, August 1902 and September 1903; also its report, October 1902, of Mr. Wood's speech at Exeter.)

But let us take a wider view. A journal, like a man, is known by the company that it keeps. Whose company does the Zoophilist keep? Why does it talk of Our excellent cotemporary, Humanity—Our valiant cotemporary, Le MÉdecine—Our excellent cotemporary, The Herald of the Golden Age? Again, among the journals that it quotes, some of them very frequently, are the Topical Times, Broad Views, Modern Society, Madame, the Humanitarian, the Pioneer, the Vegetarian, the Voice of India, the Herald of Health, the Rock, the New Age, the Journal of Zoophily, the Homoeopathic World, Medical Liberty, and the Honolulu Humane Educator. This may be very good company, but it is not all of it the best company for a "scientific journal." Still, it may be better company than the American Medical Brief, the Journal de MÉdecine de Paris, and the Belgian Le MÉdecine. These journals, being veritable "medical journals," are quoted in the Zoophilist with the most amazing frequency and at great length; which is a compliment that they do not receive from other medical journals. They are, indeed, as vehemently anti-Pasteur and anti-antitoxin as the Zoophilist itself. Take what the Medical Brief says:—

"Bacteriology originated in Continental Europe, where the minds of a superstitious race were further unbalanced by constant delving in pathology, putrefaction, and morbid anatomy. When it spread to the new world, it also became blinded with the revolutionary and fanatical tendencies lying near the surface in such a civilisation."

"They say if you give a calf rope enough, he will hang himself. Bacteriology is equally clumsy and stupid.... What excuse can be found for the cowardice and ferocious ignorance which, under the shadow of the stars and stripes, resurrects the sentiment of the Middle Ages to protect the fraud, seeks to rob the individual physician of free judgment, and denounces him for failing to use the nasty stuff?"

"All Continental Europe is suffering from a sort of leprosy of decadence, mental and moral. The spiritual darkness of the people affects all the learned professions, but more especially medicine."

Such is the Medical Brief, which the official journal of Mr. Coleridge's society quotes incessantly, calling it "an American monthly of great ability and without a trace of the scientific bigotry and narrow-mindedness which is so prominent a feature in some of our own organs of medical opinion." Next we come to the Journal de MÉdecine de Paris. This is anti-Pasteur; the editor, Dr. Lutaud, came to London in 1899, and gave a lecture on "the Pasteur superstition" at St. Martin's Town Hall. From a report of it in the Star we may take the following sentences:—

"The result of the serum craze had been that the hospital was neglected for the laboratory. Microbes of all the diseases were found in perfectly healthy subjects. Microbes existed, but as a consequence, not a cause. Toxins which the seropaths professed to find were only the results of normal fermentation. The English public had always supported him in his fifteen years' struggle against Pasteurism."

Dr. Lutaud, says the National Society, is "the great authority." The New England Anti-vivisection Monthly in 1900 calls him one of "the brightest scientists of modern times." His Journal de MÉdecine de Paris recalls the Medical Brief:—

"To wish to apply the same methods of treatment, whether preventive or curative, for two morbid conditions (a wound with the point of entry abnormal and an infectious malady) in essence so different, is to commit a gross error.... The sick are destroyed by that which cures their wounds."

These two "medical journals," the Medical Brief and the Journal de MÉdecine de Paris, are upheld by the National Society as though they were expert witnesses of irresistible authority, and are quoted with a sort of ceaseless worship in that Society's official journal. Also it quotes the Herald of Health; and Medical Liberty, "a monthly publication issued by the Colorado Medical Liberty League, Denver, Colo., whose eloquent editor seems to be an uncompromising foe to medical bigotry and monopoly, and humbugs of every description."

Such are the medical journals which support the Zoophilist as a scientific journal. Now let us take another point of view. Let us consider whom the Zoophilist praises, and whom it condemns. That, surely, is a fair test of an official journal. And we get a clear result. The late Lord Salisbury and Mr. Arthur Balfour are "notoriously pro-vivisectionist"; Lord Lister has "apostatised from the anti-septic faith"; M. Pasteur is a "remorseless torturer"; the late Mr. Lecky was "degenerate," because he "performed the volte-face and went over to our opponents"; and the late Professor Virchow was subjected to "scathing criticism" by one Paffrath, and was proved to be absurd. But its praises are given to a very different set of men.

There is no room here to note the lighter moods of the Zoophilist; its jokes about cats and catacombs, and two-legged donkeys and four-legged donkeys, and how to catch mosquitoes by putting salt on their tails—and it will even break its jest on the dead—but it rebukes another journal for levity, saying, We regret to see our painful subject treated in this manner. No room, either, for its description of anti-vivisectionist plays, poems, novels, and sermons. Let us, to finish with, take a few statements from its pages, almost at random; some of them are reprinted there from other sources. The supply is endless; let us limit ourselves to six of them:—

1. "As other bacteria (beside those of malaria) were found not to bear sunlight or air, but to habitats in loca scuta situ (? to inhabit loca senta situ), in filth and noisomeness, their habits and customs preached again the old doctrine, 'Let in sun and air and be clean,' as earnestly as those who thought health was due to sun and air and water and fire, the four old elements, and act accordingly, without dissecting hecatombs of animals to prove a thousand times over that if you boiled or baked or drowned or freezed living creatures they would die, or that microscopic parasites did pretty much what visible parasites have been always known to do." (Loud applause)—Report of a speech by the Bishop of Southwell (1901).

2. "It is just as well that you should have heard what the clever level-headed lawyer (Mr. Coleridge) thinks about this abominable conspiracy of cruelty and fraud and impious inquisitiveness which is called vivisection. (Cheers.) ... We are sending out on the world in every direction multitudes of young men who have been trained as surgeons, and they have lived by cutting (reference here to the medical students in Pickwick), and we are sending these young men out with this cacoËthes secandi, this mania for cutting for the mere sake of cutting. I should not be surprised if they tackle our noses or our ears, and set about mutilating us in that way."—Archdeacon Wilberforce (1901).

3. "The task of the crusader against vivisection is not to reason with the so-called scientist, not to truckle to pedants in the schools, or palter with callous doctrinaires, but to inform and arouse the people; and when John Bull is prodded from his apathy, and startled from his stertorous snore, he will rise and bellow out a veto on the elegant butcheries of pedantic libertines, and rush full tilt with both his horns against their abattoirs of cruelty and passion, pharisaically vaunted as research, until the gates of hell shall not prevail against him."—The Rev. Arthur Mursell (1901).[46]

4. "It has been my experience of anti-vivisection among Romanists, that nothing suited my purpose better than taking it for granted that the worshippers of St. Francis, St. Bernard, &c., must, of course, be on our side."—(1902.)

5. "Given money, and influential patronage, the vivisector now expects a time after his own heart, while professedly engaged in investigating the supposed causes of cancer, or the transmissibility of tuberculosis. He can inflict the most horrible and prolonged tortures on miserable animals, with such a plausible excuse in reserve, that he is endeavouring all the while to find cures for the ailments of high personages and millionaires."—(1902.)

6. "The day of drugging and scientific butchery is drawing to a close. Already the calm, reassuring voice of the new Life Science, loud and clear to the few, is faintly audible to the many. The sharp, crucial knife, with its dangerous quiver so dear to the heart of the surgeon, the poisonous drug, will be things of the past. Wisdom, thy paths are harmony and joy and peace."—(1902.)

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Such is the frequent level of the Zoophilist, the official journal of the National Society, edited by Mr. Berdoe, controlled by Mr. Coleridge. Let us now take one more of that society's publications, a pamphlet entitled Medical Opinions on Vivisection. Here, if anywhere, should be the society's stronghold. If it could show a large and important minority of the medical profession opposed to all experiments on animals, its power would be greatly increased. On three occasions, many years ago, the medical profession did express its opinion. At two of the annual meetings of the British Medical Association, and at a meeting of the London International Medical Congress, resolutions were passed affirming the value and the necessity of these experiments. At one of these meetings there was one dissentient vote; at one, two;[47] at one, none. These three meetings were truly representative; they were the great meetings of the clans of the profession, from all parts of the kingdom, for a week of practical work tempered by festivities. What more could any profession do than to go out of its way three times that it might record, in fullest assembly, its belief? And most certainly it would do the same thing again, if it thought that any further declaration were needed.

There are in this country about 40,000 medical men. The National Society's pamphlet quotes 39, or one in 1000. It could quote more; but we must take what it gives us. Of these 39, we may fairly exclude Professor Koch, Sir Frederick Treves, and the late Sir Andrew Clark, who would certainly wish to be thus excluded. Sir Frederick Treves, who is quoted with a sort of explanatory note, has told us in the Times what he thinks of the way in which his name has been used; Sir Andrew Clark is quoted, also with an explanatory note, for an obiter dictum; and Professor Koch for no discoverable reason. That leaves 36. Of these 36, at least 11 (probably more) are dead; one died about 1838, another was born in the eighteenth century, another died more than twenty years ago. Of the remaining 25, one is Dr. Lutaud, one is Mr. Berdoe, one an American doctor, not famous over here, one a veterinary surgeon, one (I think) opposed to vaccination, and three inclined to homoeopathy; one has mistranslated Harvey to the advantage of the National Society's cause, one has written Hints to Mothers, and one has written How to Keep Well. Of these 25 gentlemen, one belongs to a homoeopathic hospital, two to provincial hospitals, and one to a hydropathic institute and a children's sanatorium; the rest of them hold no hospital or school appointment of any sort or kind. I may be wrong over one or two of these names; but, so far as I can see, I have given an exact account of the value of these Medical Opinions on Vivisection. And, if we take the dates of these opinions, we find one in 1830, one in 1858, and seven in 1870-1880. Anyhow, what is the value of an opinion that all experiments on animals are arrant and horrible Sepoyism wearing the mask of Art and Science?

Let us leave the National Society, and turn to the Canine Defence League, and examine that part of its literature which is concerned with experiments on animals. Take the following sentences from pamphlets 179 and 204:—

"Among the general public the majority are under the impression that these so-called physiological experiments are conducted under the influence of anÆsthetics, and that the subjects are rendered insensible to pain; this, however, is not the case, and I am informed that a large proportion—considerably more than half—of the licenses dispense with anÆsthetics entirely. The phenomena of pain are absolutely essential to any practical issue."

"All diseases have a mental or spiritual origin. Upon this subject a large treatise might be written. I have carefully thought this matter over, and can come to no other conclusion. Can we imagine any wild bird confined to its nest with rheumatism, or neuralgia, or consumption, or asthma, or any other affection whatever? I believe them all to be entirely free from disease; that is, all which have retained their freedom, and thus have not come under the baneful influence of man. Take, again, the fishes, and ask whether any fisherman ever caught a fish found to be diseased. This subject is an interesting, though a somewhat melancholy one."

Next, as an example of the literature of the London Society, let us take a speech made at St. James's Hall, May 26, 1903, by Dr. Hadwen, of Gloucester, who is also vehemently opposed to vaccination. He and Lieutenant-General Phelps, at the time of the disastrous smallpox epidemic in Gloucester in 1896, were leaders of the anti-vaccinationists. It would be easy to give other instances of the sympathy between anti-vivisection and anti-vaccination. But our business is not with Dr. Hadwen at Gloucester, but with him at St. James's Hall. He says to the London Society:—

"We are told we must pay attention to what the experts tell us. My opinion is this: If there is one person in the whole of God's creation that wants looking after, it is the expert. (Laughter.)"

Of the House of Commons, he says:—

"If there is one thing in the world that will move a member of Parliament, it is to know that any particular policy will carry votes along with it. (Hear, hear.) You can bring any member of Parliament to your knees as long as you show him that he has his constituency at his back; and with all due respect to our noble chairman, I am bound to say that my experience of members of Parliament is this—that their consciences go as far as votes, and do not extend very much farther." (Laughter and applause.)

He describes an imaginary experiment under curare, and is interrupted by a cry of "Demons!" He goes on:—

"Yes, madam, they are demons. (Applause.) I know no other word to describe experimenters who can submit sentient and sensitive creatures, almost human in intelligence and faith, to diabolical experiments, whilst their victims are rendered helpless and voiceless by a hellish drug. (Applause.) I cannot understand how in a land like this, that boasts of her Christianity and of her liberty, men, women, clergy, and politicians can allow this cowardly science to stand before us, and this demoniacal work to be carried on. (Loud cheers.)"

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We have now seen something of the style of the literature of these Societies; and, in the next chapter, we will consider its arguments. I do not deny that its style is sometimes at a higher level than the examples which I have quoted. But I do say that I could fill a book of 100 pages with quotations from journals or pamphlets of the last few years, all of them on the lower level. And in this chapter I have practically quoted nobody but those who are the leaders of the opposition to all experiments on animals. The official journal of this Society, the annual report of that Society, the leaflets which are sent in answer to a formal request for literature—I have quoted these, as they came to hand, just going through them and marking those passages which were to my purpose.

III. Arguments

We have seen that the societies arose out of the Act, and not the Act out of them; that they are divided or hostile; and that they have next to nothing to show for all the vast sums which they have received. Also we have noted the style of literature which they send broadcast over the country; and the "medical journals" and "medical opinions" that are in favour of the cause; and the general tone and frequent level of the official journal of the National Society. Still, a good cause may be ill served; nobody minds, after all, the style of a thing, so long as it is true. Let us come to the heart of the matter. What is the nature of the arguments and evidences of these societies? They desire to bring about the absolute prohibition, as a criminal offence, of all experiments on animals. By what facts, what records, what statistics, do they maintain this attempt to mend or end the present Act?

Here, at the risk of repetition, let me make quite clear what they are fighting against. Nine out of ten experiments are bacteriological. That is to say, 90 or 95 per cent. Of these inoculations, more than a third are made in the direct service of the national health, and as it were by the direct orders of Government. A vast number of them are wholly painless; nothing happens; the result is negative; the thing does not take. Some are followed by disease, and the animal is painlessly killed at the first manifestation of the disease, or recovers, or dies of the disease. The fate of that animal is the fate of all of us; it has got to die of something, and it dies of it. Anyhow, the talk about torture-troughs and cutting-up has no place here; and the word vivisection, by a gross and palpable abuse, is false nine times out of every ten. Of the remaining 10 per cent. of all experiments; in those that are made under the License alone, or under the License plus Certificate C, the question of pain does not arise. The animal is anÆsthetised, and is killed under that anÆsthetic. The remaining 3 per cent. of all experiments are those that are made under the License plus Certificate B (or B + EE, or B + F). The initial operation is done under the anÆsthetic; the animal is allowed to recover; it may be, practically, none the worse for it. Or it may be the worse for it, and therefore die, or be killed. But Certificate B is not allowed for any infliction of pain on the animal through the operation wound, and never will be.

Here are two sets of experiments: those under Certificate A, and those under Certificate B. One is 90 per cent. of all experiments; the other is 3 per cent. Nine out of ten experiments are inoculations, and the operation of the tenth is done under an anÆsthetic. That is the first fact, which we must fix in our minds, before we consider the arguments of the societies.

Next, the dates and the sources of their evidence. They wish to stop the experiments that are now made in this country. They are bound, therefore, to produce "up-to-date" evidence, and from home sources; not that which is thirty years old, or comes from sources far away. This present use of animals, here and now, under the restrictions of the Act, is what they are fighting; they are bound to draw their instances from here and now.

But this would not suit them at all: they could not bear to be thus limited to here and now. Their arguments and their instances extend over thirty or more years, and are drawn from all parts of the world, from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, from every country. Journals of Physiology, text-books, reports, medical journals, British and foreign, are ransacked to find evidence for the cause; there is a regular system, year in year out, a sort of secret service or detective force, a persistent hunting-up of all scraps and shreds of evidence. One society advertised, in a daily paper, that it wanted confidential communications, from medical students, as to the practices of the laboratory. Another, seeing the chance of a prosecution, says, "Special inquiries were made on the subject, and the society's solicitor went to Belfast to conduct these inquiries on the spot." All this espionage is sure now and again, in thirty years, to detect something which it can magnify into a scandal. And when a fault is found, even a little one, oh the joy in the ranks of the societies. And, at once, the fault, exaggerated, and highly coloured, is made a locus classicus, a commonplace of every drawing-room meeting. What is the date of it, what was the place of it? Was it long ago, was it far from here? Still, never let it drop; what one did then, they are all doing now, all of them of malice prepense; let us proclaim the blessed news from every platform; and please remember us in your Wills.

Among the arguments against all experiments on animals, is this very common argument, that the truth about them is too horrible to be told. "We dare not produce our brief," says the Rev. Nevison Loraine, at the annual meeting of the London Society in 1901; "it is only the courage of a lady that dares to produce tales so harrowing as those that have been briefly alluded to to-day; and it is part of the weakness of our cause with the public that we cannot tell the whole story." But, not long ago, the courage of two ladies, officers of a Swedish Anti-vivisection Society, honorary members of Mr. Coleridge's society, did produce a book full of harrowing tales; they told the whole story to the Lord Chief Justice and a jury. Was not that producing their brief? I have here in my pocket something I have not got the nerve to read to you, says Archdeacon Wilberforce, at the annual meeting of the National Society in 1901; and the next minute a lady in the audience is crying out, Do not go on, we cannot bear it; and he says, You have got to bear it. Good God, they have got to suffer it. Is not that producing his brief? Mr. Coleridge, in 1902, sends out 12,000 copies, just to begin with, of an illustrated German catalogue of laboratory instruments: The question of thus scattering abroad this fearful document has been the subject of very grave consideration.... We have launched upon the world this terrible proof of what vivisection really is, with a full sense of our responsibility. Is not that producing his brief? These things in the pocket, and fearful documents, and briefs that Mr. Loraine dares not produce, are apt to say little or nothing about anÆsthetics, and to be silent over the fact that nine out of every ten experiments are bacteriological, and to over-emphasise experiments made many years ago or a thousand miles away. You bring the speaker down to now and here, to the text of the Act, to the reports to Government, to the Home Secretary's own words in Parliament; and you are told that they are all in a conspiracy, all liars more or less, and that the truth is in the societies, especially in one of them. Or you bring him down to the good that these experiments have done, the lives that they have saved; and at once he is off like the wind:—

"The society does not concern itself with the results of vivisection, whether good or bad, and thinks it is beside the mark to discuss them." (Report of the Canine Defence League, 1903.)

"When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of tears is dry, the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of the desert." (Colonel Ingersoll.)

"I make no pretence to criticise vivisectional experiments on the ground of their technical failure or success. I dogmatically postulate humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character." (Mr. Bernard Shaw.)

"The vivisector, when he stands over his animal, whether with anÆsthetics or without anÆsthetics, is creating, even if the physical health of the nation is enhanced by it, a moral shroud not only for himself, but a moral shroud the edges of which are continually extending into the thought atmosphere, and so deadening the national conscience at large." (Mr. Herbert Burrows.)

"The developed taste for blood and cruelty must in the end find its full satisfaction in the vivisection of human beings when they have the misfortune to come under the power of our future doctors." (Bishop Bagshawe.)

Here, in these five sentences taken merely out of the heap, is the ethical argument; so facile, so pleasant to self, so confident of a good hearing. No wonder that the societies, now that the facts of science are too strong for them, are falling back on the facts of ethics. In the beginning, thirty years ago, they were created out of ethics; they were born auspiciously. What a welcome they had! Tennyson and Browning and Ruskin, Westcott and Martineau, the late Lord Shaftesbury, and her Majesty the late Queen—these all, and many more, among whom were some of the best men and women of the Victorian Age, were their friends. There never was a cause that enjoyed a better send-off. Everything was in its favour. Magendie and Schiff and Mantegazza had made people sick of experiments on animals. The advocates of the method had not very much to show on its behalf; no bacteriology, save as a far-off vision; no great discoveries lately in physiology or pathology. Thirty years ago, good and true men fought a way for the Act; and there are few now who think the worse of them for it, or grudge them that victory. But, though ethics may be the same always, yet the arguments from them are not. The ethical argument now—we try to find it, and it takes all shapes, and vanishes in a cloud of foul language. That text about the sparrows, which is never quoted in full; that fear about the vivisection of hospital patients; and all that nonsense about moral shrouds, and serpents in the desert, and developed tastes for blood; and Mr. Bernard Shaw, who on May 22nd, 1900, suggests to the National Society that "the laceration of living flesh quickens the blood of the vivisector as the blood of the hunter, the debauchee, or the beast of prey is undoubtedly quickened in such ways,"[48] and a week later, before the London Society, dogmatically postulates humaneness as a condition of worthy personal character; and the lady who says, Oh, Pharisees and hypocrites! Oh, cruel and ruthless egotists! and the Falstaff's army of the osteopath, and the fruitarian, and the anti this, that, and the other, who follow the cause; and all these discordant societies, and the begging for money—where, in all this confusion, can we find the ethical argument? Mercy is admirable, but I will wait till mercy and truth are met together. Let us leave the societies to their ethics, and see what they have to say for themselves in the lower realms of science.

I

First, there are the general arguments. That experiments on animals are useless, or of very little use; that they contradict each other; that you cannot argue from animals to men, or from an animal under experiment to a man not under experiment; that the discoveries made by the help of experiments on animals might have been made as well, or better, without that help; that the way to advance medicine and surgery has been, and is, and always will be, not by experiments on animals, but by clinical and post-mortem studies. These and the like arguments we may call general; they are the complement of the horrible stories and magic-lantern slides of the itinerant lecturer.

1. The vague statement that these experiments are of little use, may be answered in several ways. It does not come well from those who say that the question is ethical, not utilitarian; who neither know, nor care, nor are agreed, what is the real value of these experiments. "I challenge you," says one, "to show me what good they have done." Another says, "I admit that they may perhaps have done a little good; but so little; they are a bad investment; you would get a better return from other methods of work." Another says, "I don't care whether they have or have not done good; this is a matter of conscience; we must not do evil that good may come; I grant all, or nearly all, your instances—malaria, and diphtheria, and cerebral localisation, and so forth; but the question is a moral question, and we must not inflict pain on animals, save for their own good." Probably the best answer is, that good has indeed come, and is coming, and so far as we can see will come, out of these experiments; that the instances given are indeed true; that these results were won out of many failures, and contradictions, and fallacies, and harkings-back; and that they have stood the test of time, and will underlie all better results, all surer methods, that shall take their place.

2. The statement that "you cannot argue from animals to man" is not true. Why should it be? Take tubercle, tetanus, or rabies. The tubercle-bacillus is the same thing in a man, a test-tube, or a guinea-pig; the virus of rabies is transmitted from dogs to men; oysters harbour typhoid, fleas carry the plague, diverse mosquitoes carry malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, and dengue. Take the circulation of the blood, the nature and action of the motor centres of the brain, the vaso-motor nerves, the excretory organs, the contractility of muscle, the blood-changes in respiration—where are the differences to support this statement that you cannot argue from animals to men?

3. The twin statements, that all the results got by the help of experiments might have been got some other way, and that clinical study and post-mortem study are infinitely more fruitful than experimental study, may be taken together. We are told that anybody could have discovered the circulation by injecting the vessels of a dead body. Well, Malpighi tried to discover the capillaries by this method, and failed. We are asked to admit that phrenology, long before physiology, discovered the truth about the surface of the brain; I have been told, says Mr. Coleridge at an annual meeting of his society, that the physiologists can now triumphantly map out the human brain. I think the phrenologists have always been able to do that, and whether they or the vivisectors do it best does not much matter. We are told that the use of thyroid extract could have been discovered right away by mere chemistry and thinking. We hear of a proposal for a bacteriological laboratory on anti-vivisectionist principles, where no inoculations shall be made. This argument, that the whole thing might have been done some other way, must repair its wit, and find better instances. Then comes the incessant appeal: "Stick to clinical work; study diseases at the bedside, in the post-mortem room, in the museum, anywhere but in the laboratory. The Hospital taught you to neglect these methods; it made experiments on its patients, it cheated the public, it sheltered malignant cruelty in its most repulsive form under illustrious patronage. Set aside pathology; just sit by your patients long enough; that is the way of discovery."

Or the appeal takes another tone: "Stick to sanitation. If only everybody were healthy, everybody would be well. Diseases are due to dirt, to vice, to overcrowding, to want of common-sense. Abolish all slums, disinfect all mankind, body and soul, make every house clean and wholesome, no bad drainage, or ventilation, or water, or food. Leave your torture-chambers, and open your eyes to the blessed truth that, if everybody were healthy, and everybody were good, everybody would be well." What is the use of talking in this way? Suppose that all the physiologists suddenly rushed into practice, and all the bacteriologists were turned into medical officers of health. What would be gained? What difference would it make? The physiologists, of course, would merely vivisect their hospital patients; and the bacteriologists would hardly feel the change, for many of them are medical officers of health already, public servants, appointed by the State.

This argument, that practice is fruitful of discoveries, and science is barren of them, reaches its highest absurdity in the National Society's official journal; which praises extravagantly those methods of practice which were not discovered by the help of experiments on animals; praises them without experience, criticism, or understanding. It finds a statement, in the Medical Annual, that a year has passed without any great improvement in practice; and at once it lays the blame not on practice but on science. It fights hard against a fact which began in science, though it has been proved a thousand times over in practice. It accuses the bacteriologists now of caring nothing for human suffering, now of rushing after every new method of treatment and flooding the market with drugs. There is money in the business—that is the phrase of the Zoophilist. But there is money, also, in the anti-vivisection business. If you can provide for the society's future in your will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now, says the London Society: this is the most alive humane organisation in the world. But the National Society says, A grave injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid secretaries.

II

Let us leave the general arguments and come to the special arguments. Some of them are concerned with the experiments themselves, some with the men who made them, some with the administration of the Act. These special arguments must be arranged in some sort of order; but they cross and recross, and are of diverse natures, and any attempt at strict arrangement would fail. That the arrangement may be useful for immediate reference, and may help anybody to answer statements made at debates and lectures, a separate heading has been given to each argument. Those arguments are put first which are concerned with the experiments themselves, or with the men who made them; afterward come those which are concerned with the administration of the Act.

Harvey

"It is perfectly true," says Mr. Berdoe, "that Harvey again and again, in the plainest terms, declares that his experiments on living animals aided him in his discoveries." I agree here with Mr. Berdoe. Then comes this sentence: But that is not so important as it appears to be. Why not? What is gained by this attempt to explain Harvey away? Dr. Bowie mistranslates him; Dr. Abiathar Wall half-quotes him; Mr. Adams says that Harvey did not ascribe his discoveries to experiments on animals; Mr. Berdoe says that he did; and Mr. Berdoe's society withdraws every pamphlet that involves acceptance of Dr. Bowie's mistranslation. Why should we take, on Harvey's work, any opinion but that of Harvey?

Sir Charles Bell

For the argument from Sir Charles Bell's words, and for the truth about his work, see Part I., Chap. VII.

Cerebral Localisation

Mr. Berdoe says that it is "pure nonsense" to argue from the motor areas of a monkey's brain to those of a man's brain. Why is it nonsense? What is the difference between the movement of a group of muscles in a monkey's arm and the same movement of the same group of muscles in a man's arm? With a very weak current, so weak that it is not diffused beyond the area where it is applied, the surface of a monkey's brain is stimulated at one spot; and forthwith its opposite arm is flexed, or its opposite leg is drawn up, or whatever the movement may be, according to the spot. A man has some disease, acute or chronic, of his brain; and, as the disease advances, twitchings occur in one arm or one leg, little irrational useless movements, or rigidity, or loss of power, according to the case. Is it pure nonsense to believe that the disease has reached a certain spot on the surface of his brain? There is no question here of the mental differences between men and monkeys; no question of consciousness or of will. But Dr. HollÄnder, who thinks very highly of Gall's system of phrenology, says, Is the laboratory-man, the experimental physiologist, to teach us the mental functions of the brain from his experiments on frogs, pigeons, rabbits, dogs, cats, and monkeys? That is the argument; that we must not compare the monkey's motor areas with the man's motor areas, for we cannot find the mind of a man in the brain of a frog.

But, putting aside phrenology, which is a broken reed for anti-vivisection to lean on, what other arguments are urged against the facts of cerebral localisation? First, that the speech-centres were discovered without the help of experiments on animals. That is true; and there, practically, the work of discovery stopped, till experiments on animals were made. Next, that the physiologists have not always been agreed as to the facts of cerebral localisation; that Charcot doubted them, that Goltz criticised Munk, and so on. What is the date of these doubts and criticisms? They are twenty years old. Next, that the surgery of the brain often fails to save life. That is true; and the anti-vivisection societies make frequent use of this fact. But they are unable to suggest any better method. Mr. Berdoe tells us that he cannot remember hearing, in his student days, anything about brain-experiments on animals:—

"Our work was to observe as closely as possible the symptoms and physical signs exhibited by patients in the hospital wards who suffered from any form of nerve or brain disease, and having carefully noted them in our case-books, to avail ourselves, when the patient died, of any opportunity that was offered us in the post-mortem of correcting our diagnosis."

That is an exact picture of the state of things thirty years ago; the student taking notes, waiting for the post-mortem examination, then correcting his notes there, etc. Every case of brain-tumour in those days died, but many are saved now; and every case of brain-abscess in those days died (one or two were saved by a sort of miracle of surgical audacity); but many are saved now.

Antitoxins and Carbolic Acid

It is said by opponents of experiments on animals, that the active principle, in antitoxin, is not the antitoxin, but the carbolic acid which is added to it. They take this statement from the Medical Brief; and we have learned something of the style of that journal. Here is a sentence from the official journal of the National Society:—

"The Medical Brief calls antitoxin 'the fraud of the age,' and says: Would that physicians could all realise the hideous horror of using this nasty stuff as a remedial agent. It would be nothing less than ghoulishness to inject the matter from an abscess into a child's arm, yet antitoxin is not much better; it is the decomposing fluid from a diseased horse, partially neutralised by carbolic acid."

For a commentary on this sentence, take the following letter from an eminent bacteriologist:—

"As regards diphtheria antitoxin, the addition of an antiseptic is by no means necessary or universal. For fully two years I added none to the serum which I prepared, but contented myself with filtration through a Kieselguhr filter, and bottling under aseptic conditions. At one time Roux used to put a small piece of camphor in each bottle as some sort of safeguard against putrefaction. Nowadays I believe that most makers preserve their sera by adding a trace of trikresol—I am not quite sure of the amount, but it is either .04 per cent. or .004 per cent.!"

But it is probable that the Zoophilist will still accept the authority of the Medical Brief. Baccelli got good results, in tetanus, from the administration of carbolic acid; therefore, in diphtheria, the good results from diphtheria-antitoxin are due to the carbolic acid in it. That is the argument. But there is no carbolic acid in it? Oh, then the patient got well of himself, the treatment didn't kill him, it was not diphtheria after all, the disease has altered its type lately, he was well nursed, the back of his throat was painted with something, the doctor got half-a-crown by calling it diphtheria, the bacillus diphtheriÆ may be found in healthy mouths, and all bacteriology is base and blatant materialism.

The Argument from the Death-rate

There is another argument against diphtheria-antitoxin; we may call it, for brevity, the death-rate argument. It is this. The doctors say that the antitoxin does save lives; they give us statistics from every part of the world. But, if it saves lives, then the total mortality ought to go down. But the Registrar-General's returns do not go down; indeed, they tend to go up. Therefore diphtheria-antitoxin is useless, or worse than useless. By this kind of logic, umbrellas are useless. If they were useful, then the more umbrellas there were, the less rain there would be. But the increase in umbrellas coincides with a positive increase of rain. Therefore umbrellas are useless, or worse than useless.

Despite the absurdity of this argument, Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Somerville Wood, the National Society's lecturer, have worked hard with it; Mr. Coleridge in the press, Mr. Wood on the platform. Surely this confusion between the total mortality and the case-mortality of an epidemic disease is a very serious offence. That there may be no doubt of the confusion, let us consider a set of quotations, out of a correspondence published in September-October 1902, between G. P., whose initials we may take to mean general practitioner, and Mr. Somerville Wood. This correspondence is a good instance of the argument in its usual form:—

A few weeks later, at the Bournbrook and Selly Oak Social Club, Mr. Wood gives his "thrilling lecture, with lantern views," Behind the Closed Doors of the Laboratory: one of his stock lectures. In it, he says:—

"The proof of the pudding was in the eating. In 1881 the death-rate from diphtheria was 127 per million; in 1900 it was 290 per million. He had but to state that the antitoxin treatment was introduced about 1894."

Four days later, at an overflowingly-attended Citizen Social at Birkenhead:—

"The proof of the pudding lay in the eating. In 1881 in each million of the population 121 persons died from diphtheria, while in 1900 the mortality from the same disease was 290 persons in each million of the population, and the antitoxin treatment was introduced in 1894."

A few weeks later, at Ipswich, the same thing. This time, he is challenged by letters in the East Anglian Daily Times, and again quotes the Registrar-General.

A few weeks later, at the Hyde Labour Church: the Closed Doors of the Laboratory again:—

"He found from the Registrar-General's returns that the death-rate had gone up in cases in which they were told that wonderful things had been done by experiments on living animals. If a lower death-rate could be shown, then the vivisectionists might have something to go upon; but they could not show a lower death-rate."

That was in January 1903. In December 1903, Mr. Wood is still using the same argument; this time it is a lecture at Ashton on Vivisection and the Hospitals:

"Again and again had they defied the so-called scientific world to put their finger on the Registrar-General's returns, and show them a single instance where the death-rate had been lowered by vivisection, and they had not been able to do it. On the contrary, he found that the death-rate had gone up in the last 20 years, despite the thousands of animals that had been experimented upon. The death-rate in diphtheria was 100 per million more than it was in 1878."

Mr. Wood in the provinces, and Mr. Coleridge in the papers, have used this argument hard. Let us look at it well. It has been refuted again and again. Take a thousand cases of diphtheria from any civilised part of the world, in the days before antitoxin; how many of them died? Take a thousand cases now, treated with antitoxin; how many of them die? Why do Mr. Wood and Mr. Coleridge run away from that easy question? There is nothing unfair in it; they have all the reports before them; they know the facts well. We do not find any evidence that they are willing to acknowledge the truth of those facts. Follow Mr. Somerville Wood, from place to place, with his magic-lantern and his stock of lectures. The lantern-pictures are many of them taken from foreign sources, and some of them are of great age; but they include a portrait of Mr. Coleridge, and some comic slides to be shown at the end of the lecture, rabbits vivisecting a professor, and so forth. Certainly, he works hard; 95 lectures in one year; we cannot better employ the funds at our disposal than in sending well-informed lecturers to every city in the kingdom to rouse the just indignation of the people. The year after that, 74 lectures; on two occasions he has spoken when unsupported to over 1000 people, and an audience of several hundreds is quite the rule. Here he is at Windsor, with Bishop Barry in the chair, and he says to them:—

"Unhappily, Pasteur left his microscope and chemicals and took up the vivisectionist's knife. In that he got utterly astray and became nothing more than a mere quack."

Here, with a different audience, at the Mechanics' Lecture Hall, Nottingham, giving his lantern-lecture on Pasteurism to a most respectable audience of working men, their wives, sons, and daughters, and in many cases children.

"The thesis he set out to elaborate and maintain was that Pasteurism produces hydrophobia rather than cures it; that vivisection under any circumstances is both cruel and immoral; and that with special reference to bacterial toxicology and the treatment by inoculation, the preparation of toxins by the Pasteur methods was the most horrible form of repulsive quackery and hideous cruelty."

Here he is at Birmingham, asking for money, and hinting that, unless all experiments on animals are stopped, the poor will be the ultimate victims. Here, at Gloucester, saying that it is silly to experiment at all, and that he is not going to take his views as to right and wrong from any man of science, however learned he may be. Here, at Edinburgh, with the Closed Doors again, and the picture of the rabbit "roasted alive": three grains of opium, he tells them, would be enough to kill the strongest navvy in Edinburgh, but 16 grains can be administered to a pigeon; and the death-rate has gone up every year in spite of vivisection. Here, at a drawing-room meeting, asking for money; here, at a garden party, with a considerable number of persons ranging themselves on the grass, and he tells them that they have on their side all that is best in every department of public life; here, at Blackburn, with the Closed Doors again, calling the law a sham and a farce; here, at Cheltenham, with Bishop Mitchinson in the chair, still quoting the Registrar-General, and saying that he does not think the outlook was ever more promising than it is to-day. All over the kingdom, he and his magic-lantern, year after year, goes Mr. Wood. He is a fluent speaker; he has things in his pocket; they are brought out, if you contradict him; or he "challenges" you, or explains you away, or says that you "are not quite playing the game." Let him alone; to-morrow he will pack up his lantern, and be gone.

Mr. Coleridge, in his use of the death-rate argument, carries it even further than Mr. Wood; for he applies it over a wider range. "Look at myxoedema," he says; "the doctors tell us that they can cure it with thyroid extract, and that the use of thyroid extract was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. Myxoedema is due to some fault in the thyroid gland. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of that gland. See, the death-rate has gone up, steadily, during the last 20 years." Was there ever such an argument? It is only of late years that myxoedema has been generally recognised. Till it was recognised, it was not diagnosed; till it was diagnosed, it was not returned as a cause of death. Again, there are many other diseases of the thyroid gland, including various forms of malignant disease. It is cancer of the thyroid gland that decides the death-rate. The number of deaths from myxoedema, especially since the discovery of thyroid extract, must be small indeed. Moreover, apart from Mr. Coleridge's fallacy of argument, it is impossible to see how he can really doubt the efficacy of the thyroid treatment, both in myxoedema and in sporadic cretinism.

Again, "Look at the diseases of the circulation," he says. "The doctors say that digitalis and nitrite of amyl act on the heart; and that the action of these drugs was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. The heart is concerned with the circulation. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of the circulation. See how it has gone up, from 1371 per million persons in 1881 to 1709 in 1900. Therefore, either these two drugs are never used, or they are useless, or the Registrar-General's returns are false." It is impossible to understand how Mr. Coleridge could bring himself to write thus. Digitalis has a certain effect on the heart-beat; nitrite of amyl diminishes arterial tension. The Registrar-General's returns for all diseases of the circulation include every sort and kind of organic disease of the valves of the heart; include also pericarditis, aneurism, senile gangrene, embolism, phlebitis, varicose veins, and 35,499 deaths from "other and undefined diseases of heart or circulatory system."

Rabies

For rabies, Mr. Berdoe praises the "Buisson Bath Treatment for the Prevention and Cure of Hydrophobia." The virtues of this treatment are proclaimed by the Chairman of the Canine Defence League, F. E. Pirkis, Esq., R.N., of Nutfield, Surrey, and it is founded, we are told, on the simple common-sense principle that if poison is injected into a person's veins the best thing to do is to get it out as quickly as possible. This sentence, and the reference to Mr. Pirkis for further particulars, and the fact that there is, or was, a Buisson Bath at the "National Anti-vivisection Hospital," bring us to the question, What is the value of the evidence in favour of this treatment?

Mr. Berdoe, in his Catechism of Vivisection (1903), gives this evidence at considerable length. The treatment, he says, is simplicity itself. It is merely the use of the vapour bath, which causes a free action of the skin to be set up, this draws the blood to the surface of the body, and so relieves the congestion of the internal organs. Let us consider this sentence. (1.) Suppose that X—— were bitten by a mad dog, say on March 1st, and on March 8th he took a course of Buisson Baths, for safety's sake. There would be no congestion, at that period, of his internal organs; what would be the good of drawing the blood to the surface of his body? Mr. Pirkis says that there would be poison in his veins; it would be a very subtle poison. How can Mr. Pirkis tell that it is all in his veins and none of it elsewhere? Again, X—— would be feeling perfectly well. How would a vapour-bath get this poison out of his veins? It could not do it by relieving the congestion of his internal organs, for they would not be congested. How would it do it? And how would Mr. Pirkis know when it had done it? (2.) Suppose that X—— were bitten by a mad dog, and, in due time, were seized by hydrophobia. Has Mr. Pirkis ever seen a case of that disease—ever seen a case of hydrophobia? Are they going to tie X—— down, or steam him under chloroform, or what? And how many baths would he want? But there are cases; there is evidence; a "mass of cures in Asia." Let us look at them; and let us divide them into cases of prevention and cases of cure. Let us take, first, the cases of cure.

There are five of these. Five, and no more. One is Dr. Buisson; cured by one bath, while he was trying to commit suicide; nothing said about the dog. One is a case at Kischineff, near Odessa, 18 years ago; no evidence is given that the dog was rabid. One is a case at Arlington, New Jersey, 18 years ago; no evidence is given that the dog was rabid. One is the case of Pauline Kiehl; no date; no reference to say where the case is published; no account of her symptoms. And one is a case at the Jaffna Hospital, Ceylon; no date; and nothing said about the dog. Of these five cases, three were a boy, a lad, and a little girl; but their ages are not given. Five cases in 20 years; they hail from all parts of the world, France, Russia, the United States, Ceylon, and France again; three of them happened 18 years ago, or more. And, we may be certain, not one of them is genuine. Spurious hydrophobia, the simulation of the disease out of sheer terror of it, as in Dr. Buisson's case, is well known.

Now we come to the cases of prevention. Over 80 of them, we are told; but seven are especially noted. Four in 1895, under the care of Dr. Ganguli of Dinajpur; two in 1896, under the care of Dr. Dass of Narainganj; and one in 1896, Mr. Kotwal of Bassein. Of this "mass of cures in Asia," we all know what would have been said if Pasteur had been in charge of them; that the dogs were not rabid, that the bites were not infected, that the wonder is that the poor deluded victims were not added to Pasteur's hecatomb.

Next, what does Mr. Berdoe say of the division of all patients at the Pasteur Institute into classes A, B, and C? Does he admit that a dog is proved to have been rabid, if a minute portion of its nervous tissue, taken from it after death, and put into a rabbit, causes the rabbit to have paralytic rabies? No; there are still two things left for him to say:—

1. He says, on the authority of the Veterinary Record of ten years ago, that the death of a rabbit with cerebral symptoms is not a positive indication of death from rabies.

2. He says that Vulpian discovered that healthy human saliva was poisonous to rabbits, and that it contained a micro-organism which Pasteur had also found in the saliva of a rabid patient. What does this statement prove or disprove? It is twenty-five years old; but Mr. Somerville Wood, not long ago, used it at a debating society with great fervour.

Also Mr. Berdoe quotes the late M. Peter, Dr. Lutaud's forerunner; quotes an obiter dictum of Professor Billroth, but without any date; tells us that Pasteur himself, in a letter, referring to one particular case, declared cauterisation to be a sufficient preventive, but does not tell us the date of the letter, or the facts of the case; and quotes a death-rate, but stops at 1890. Of course, any method of treatment, if you ransack its records over a sufficient number of years, will show, now and again, failures or disasters. Take, for instance, those methods of light-treatment, which Mr. Berdoe praises so highly. They have had many failures, and one or two disasters. If they had been discovered by the help of experiments on animals, we might have had a pamphlet from the National Society, The Roentgen "Cure": its list of Victims.

Certificate A and Certificate B

Frequent use has been made of some words spoken by the Home Secretary in Parliament, on July 24th, 1899. He was asked whether he would state what rules were laid down with regard to the granting or signing of certificates dispensing with the use of anÆsthetics in experiments on animals; and whether there was any limit to the number of such certificates which one person might sign, or to the number of experiments upon different animals which might be performed by the person holding one such certificate. There can be no doubt as to the meaning of these questions. Certificate A, which is granted only for inoculation experiments or similar proceedings, and never for any serious cutting operation, dispenses wholly with anÆsthetics. Certificate B, which is granted for any kind of operation plus observation of the animal after operation, dispenses partly with anÆsthetics; that is to say, the operation is done under an anÆsthetic, and the subsequent observation of the animal, which is counted as part of the experiment, is made without an anÆsthetic. The questions come to this: When the Home Office grants Certificate A, or Certificate B, what precautions does it take against any abuse of these certificates, and what restrictions does it impose on them?

The Home Secretary answered:

"It is the practice of the Home Office, in addition to the fact that all certificates expire on December 31st of the year in which they are granted, to limit the number, and this is always done in the case of serious experiments in which the use of anÆsthetics is wholly or partly dispensed with."

The Times says that the Home Secretary said "serious experiments." Mr. Coleridge says that Hansard says that the Home Secretary said "serious operations." We need not doubt that Mr. Coleridge is right; but we may doubt whether Hansard underlines the word wholly, as Mr. Coleridge does. Anyhow, it does not matter now whether the Home Secretary, seven years ago, said experiments or operations. His meaning is clear enough; that, in all serious procedures, whether they be under Certificate A or under Certificate B, a limit is put to the number of experiments. Which is the plain truth, as everybody knows who is concerned in the administration of the Act; and the limit may be very strict indeed. After this statement by the Home Secretary in 1899, we still find Dr. Abiathar Wall, the Hon. Treasurer of the London Anti-vivisection Society, saying in 1900 that a vivisector has only to say that he has a theory whereby he hopes to discover a cure for, say, neuralgia of the little finger, and the Home Secretary promptly arms him with a license to torture as diabolically as he pleases and as many animals as he deems fit. And the National Society has made constant use of this phrase about "serious experiments"; declaring that the Home Secretary himself has said that animals are tortured under the Act. Here are three statements to that effect, made by the National Society's Parliamentary Secretary, by its Lecturer, and by its Hon. Secretary:—

Each of the three speakers uses this phrase as a final and irresistible argument. If you are still unconvinced. If you want any further proof. If this were not enough—they all of them play the Home Secretary, as a sure card: at Queen's Hall, at St. James's Hall, they produce him as though it were indeed unanswerable. Since they are willing to go back to July, let us take them back to May. This phrase about "serious experiments" was spoken on July 24th, 1899. On May 9th of that year, a question was put and answered in the House. It was put by the same gentleman who put the question in July; it was answered by the same Home Secretary; and it was practically the same question. The Home Secretary, in his answer to it, said:—

"The sole use of this Certificate (B) is to authorise the keeping alive of the animal, after the influence of the anÆsthetic has passed off, for the purpose of observation and study. I should certainly not allow any certificate involving dissections or painful operations without the fresh use of anÆsthetics."

Here, in May 1899, we have this emphatic statement, that Certificate B is not allowed for "serious operations without anÆsthetics." Why did the National Society stop at July? If it had only gone a few weeks further back, a surprise was in store for it. But at July it stuck; thus it was still able to say all sorts of things about "legalised torture." So late as May 6th, 1902, at the great annual meeting at St. James's Hall, the Rev. Reginald Talbot said:—

"Certificate B makes it necessary that the operator should produce complete anÆsthesia during the initial operation, but (please mark this) after the initial operation is over, after the animal has returned to the state of semi or complete consciousness, there is then allowed by this certificate a period of observation upon a semi-sensible or completely sensible animal. The animal is opened, is disembowelled, and in that condition his vital organs can be probed and stimulated. Now that is something more than pain; it deserves something more than the name of even severe and prolonged pain. Surely this comes within the tract and region of what we may call agony."

As for Certificate A, the inoculations-certificate, which is used for inoculations only, and therefore is granted for nine experiments out of every ten, he said:—

"There is a Certificate A, which, if it were granted, and when it is granted—and pray you mark my words, for I know what I am speaking about, and I want you to know too—would allow major operations to be performed upon animals, cats, dogs, or any other animals, without the use of any anÆsthetic at all. I know quite well that that certificate has not been applied for, or has not been granted this last year, or, so far as I know, in any previous year, but I say this," &c.

It is impossible to understand these words. Certificate A is never granted for major operations. It is never granted (save in conjunction with another certificate) for any sort or kind of experiment on a cat or a dog, or a horse, or an ass, or a mule. It is more in use than all the other certificates put together; it covers nine experiments out of every ten. We shall try in vain to guess how this mistake arose in the speaker's mind. But, at the great annual meeting of the chief of all the anti-vivisection societies, it is strange indeed that nobody seems to have corrected him. This description of a certificate which does not exist—I know what I am speaking about, he says, and I want you to know too—was applauded by an audience that filled the whole hall. Nobody on the platform put him right. And, in the next number of its official journal, the National Society reported every word of his speech, and said that he had analysed the Act and its administration in a striking and powerful manner.

Curare

"Curare," says Mr. Berdoe, "paralyses the peripheral ends of motor nerves, even when given in very minute doses." That is to say, it prevents all voluntary motion. Then comes this frank admission, "Large doses paralyse the vagus nerve and the ends of sensory nerves." That is to say, it can be pushed, under artificial respiration, till it paralyses sensation. With small doses, the ends of the motor nerves lose touch with the voluntary muscles. With large doses, under artificial respiration, the ends of the sensory nerves lose touch with the brain. Let us agree with Mr. Berdoe that curare does act in this way; that it does not heighten sensation, and has no effect, save in very large doses, on sensation, and then abolishes sensation. Only, of course, to procure this anÆsthetic effect, the animal may have to be subjected to artificial respiration.

(The evidence as to the action of curare on the sensory nerves rests not on the case of accidental poisoning recorded by Mr. White, though that case does point that way, but on Schiff's experiments on the local exclusion of the poison from one leg of the frog by ligature of an artery.)

This, surely, is a true definition of curare, that it is a painless poison, which in small doses prevents the transmission of motor impulses; and, in large doses, which may necessitate the use of artificial respiration, prevents the transmission of sensory impulses. Mr. Berdoe can hardly refuse to accept this definition; indeed, it is his own. And, certainly, he would be a bold man who said that a small dose of curare has any effect on sensation; or that the exact strength of any one specimen of curare is standardised as a supply of antitoxin is standardised.

Now we have a perfect right to take a practical view of curare. At the present time, and in our own country, how is it used? The Act forbids its use as an anÆsthetic. What evidence does Mr. Berdoe bring that it is so used?

1. He quotes Professor Rutherford's experiments. These were made at least 16 or 17 years ago.

2. He quotes Dr. Porter's paper, "On the Results of Ligation of the Coronary Arteries." (Journal of Physiology, vol. xv. 1894, p. 121.) Dr. Porter speaks of four experiments made under morphia plus curare. These experiments were made at Berlin, 14 years ago, by the Professor of Physiology at Harvard, U.S.A.

3. He refers to Professor Stewart's papers, in the same volume of the Journal of Physiology. The one experiment which he quotes at some length was made at Strasburg, 14 years ago or more.

But we want to know what is done now and here under the Act, not what was done at Berlin or Strasburg 14 or more years ago. Still, the experiments by Professor Stewart have been in constant use, among the opponents of all experiments on animals. In May 1900, at the great annual meeting of the National Society, at Queen's Hall, Dr. Reinhardt said:—

"I will pass on to prove to you, by a few conclusive evidences, for which I can give you chapter and verse, that torture is inflicted on animals by British vivisectors to-day. Now, if you buy the 15th volume of the Journal of Physiology, and look at page 86, you will find there," etc.

To prove that animals are tortured in England to-day, he quotes one experiment made at Strasburg ever so long ago. And, in 1901, Mr. Coleridge wrote, in the Morning Leader, saying: It is with curare, which paralyses motion and leaves sensation intact, that all the most shocking vivisections are performed. And, the same year, Mr. Stephen Smith, a "Medical Patron" of the London Society, wrote: I state emphatically that when curare is used, proper anÆsthesia is out of the question.... Curare is used daily throughout England. Mention of an anÆsthetic in a report is no guarantee that the animal was anÆsthetised.

I cannot find, in all the anti-vivisection literature which I have read, any shadow of evidence that any experiment of any sort or kind has been made in this country, on any sort or kind of animal, under curare alone, for the last sixteen or seventeen years. I believe that I might go further back than that. But surely that is far enough.

Certainly, so long as any curare is used (not as an anÆsthetic, but in conjunction with an anÆsthetic) in any experiments on animals in this country, the societies will not trouble to inquire how much of it is used. I wrote, therefore, to the Professors of Physiology at Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Oxford, and asked them to tell me how much curare was used in their laboratories throughout 1903, and what anÆsthetics were given with it. Some opponents of experiments on animals seem to think that curare is used very often. One of them says that it is "used daily throughout England." So I wrote to these Professors at our Universities, and they kindly sent the following answers:—

1. "Your question re curare is easily answered. We did no experiments with it during the past year. Indeed, I have given it up almost entirely for years, chiefly because it is very difficult to get a preparation which—I suppose from impurities—does not seriously affect the heart. There might still be occasions during which it is necessary to use it—if, e.g. the least muscular movement would vitiate the results of an experiment. But I find it possible in nearly all cases to get such absolute quiescence with morphia or chloral (besides ether and chloroform) that to all intents and purposes I have long given up the use of curare. Of course, if I had occasion to use it, an anÆsthetic would be administered at the same time."

2. "I have asked those who worked in the physiological laboratories in 1903 to give me a return of the number of experiments done and of the number in which curare was used. Including my own experiments, I find that 160 in all were made under the License and Certificates B, EE, C. Curare was given in four cases; in two of these the A.C.E. mixture was the anÆsthetic, in the other two ether."

3. At the third laboratory, during 1903, curare was given to seven frogs deprived of their brains before it was given, and to one rabbit under ether.