LAST SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 VIVISECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 LAWSON TAIT, M.D., F.R.C.S., LL.D, 
 
 Ex-Professor of Gynecology, Mason's College, Birmingham. 
 Died : June 10th, 1899. 
 
 ** 
 
 Specially prepared for and delivered at the 
 
 Great Demonstration of the London Anti-Vivisection 
 
 Society, at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly, London, W., 
 
 on April 26th, 1899. 
 
 Condon : 
 
 THE LONDON ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY, 
 13, REGENT STREET, S.W. 
 
 1899. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY. 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 
 ma k&. etxrif a. 
 
 H*T<*UCAL COUU*™°« 
 

 
 I 
 
 " Some day I shall have a tombstone put over me and 
 an inscription upon it. I want only one thing recorded on 
 it, and that to the effect that 'he laboured to divert his 
 profession from the blundering which has resulted from the 
 performance of experiments on the sub-human groups of 
 animal life, in the hope that they would shed light on the 
 aberrant physiology of the human groups.' Such experiments 
 never have succeeded, and never can ; and they have, as in 
 the cases of Koch, Pasteur and Lister, not only hindered 
 true progress, but have covered our profession with ridicule." 
 —From a letter by Lawson Tait, M.D., F.R.C.S., LL.D., 
 in the Medical Press and Circular, May, 1899. 
 
 • 
 
 THE USELESSNESS OF VIVISECTION, 
 
 LAWSON TAIT, F.R.C.S., M.D., LL.D., 
 
 Ex-Professor of Gynaecology, Mason's College, 
 Birmingham. 
 
 Specially revised by the Author, before his death, for the 
 London Anti-Vivisection Society. 
 
 TO BE OBTAINED OF THE SECRETARY, 
 
 THE LONDON ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY, 
 
 13, REGENT STREET, LONDON, S.W. 
 
 PRICE THREEPENCE, POST FREE. 
 
MR. LAWSON TAIT'S LAST SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 VIVISECTION. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — If anything were 
 needed to convince me that I was not addressing myself to a mere 
 fad or to some ephemeral sentiment, I think the faces before me 
 would be sufficient conviction. We — especially those who belong 
 to my own profession — who share in your views either to some extent 
 or completely, are regarded as in the light of faddists — people who 
 look into corners for small objects to speak about, and perhaps still 
 more stringently for things which may catch the public ear for the 
 moment. I was reminded coming into this room that it is some 
 seventeen or eighteen years — I can hardly say which — since I 
 appeared upon this platform as an advocate of your views. The 
 difference in the attitude of the public on this question and of this 
 question to the public has altered very materially during that time. 
 1 do not remember such an audience then as I have before me now 
 either in size or in character, and the earnestness with which the 
 matter is being pursued by all classes of society is clear evidence 
 that this so-called Anti-vivisection movement has come to stay. 
 (Applause.) But I suppose I should be lacking in wisdom if I did 
 not take it for granted that even such as you are not dealing with 
 this merely as an Anti-vivisection question — that there is something 
 very much deeper than this mere word conveys to the mind when 
 you join in a movement such as we are taking part in to-night. 
 There is a delightful division of the creation by Herbert Spencer, 
 and curiously enough, familiar as I am with his writings, it had 
 not caught my eye — it was given to me the other night by a School 
 Board teacher — where he divides the results of the creation, so far 
 as animal things are concerned, into human groups and sub-human 
 groups. These are phrases that are exceedingly useful from a 
 scientific point of view, and I endorse their adoption for popular 
 purposes because they remove from us some bones of contention — 
 bones of contention which this meeting in itself seems tending to 
 remove as well. There are many phases from which we approach 
 
such a question as this and many points of view. There is the point 
 of view of the mere sentimentalist — a man or a woman ; it would 
 be mostly women I think — who shudder and shrink with horror at 
 the idea of .any kind of suffering, particularly when that suffering 
 affects something belonging to themselves. That is a view which 
 I feel for strongly, and it is a view which bears very strongly 
 upon myself as a matter of argument. Then there is the phase of 
 religious development which is much akin to that of sentiment. 
 You know some religions of this world, adopted and followed by 
 millions of our fellow creatures, look upon sub-human life as almost 
 as sacred as human life. There is a line in the hymn which you 
 have just sung which bears upon this point — 
 
 " One in life with all things lowly." 
 
 The Buddhist would join in that, and the Komanist, and the most 
 extreme Calvanist dissenters ; it could not receive from them one 
 single word of objection. Then we come to a third — there might 
 be more if I cared to occupy your time on the subject of these 
 sub-divisions, but there is another which concerns me more than 
 the others, and that is the question of utility. If you wander 
 along the banks of a sluggish stream like the Avon at Stratford, 
 and look into some of the eddies and little pools and bays and 
 creeks at its margin, you will see huddled together about this time 
 of the year myriads of the young fry — things from half an inch to 
 an inch in length — gathered there in myriads ; they are countless ; 
 if you remove them from the water and injure them in the slightest 
 degree they die. We have looked from the time of the ancient 
 Greek philosophers at this extraordinary phenomenon with wonder- 
 ing gaze, and have come to the foolish conclusion that there is a 
 waste of life and gigantic cruelty here. It looks so only at first 
 sight. If you watch a little, you will see a big perch or roach come 
 slowly sailing up and he takes a huge mouthful of these fry and that 
 is his luncheon ; he goes off for some time and comes back, takes 
 another mouthful and that is his supper; he repeats the process at 
 intervals as he may require during that day and succeeding days, 
 and he grows upon his own kind. There must be some kind of 
 cruelty, some small degree of cruelty in the process, but the utility 
 is clear. The intention is that one large fish should grow out from 
 the destruction of a large number of small fish, and so it goes on 
 throughout the world — one sub-human group devouring and fatten- 
 ing upon another below it — until we come to the human group who 
 seem to have had placed at their mercy all those belonging to the 
 sub-human groups, and they have taken upon themselves sometimes 
 to deal precisely in the same way with some of their brethren in the 
 other human groups. I do not suppose the question enters into the 
 mind of the large perch how he can, with the least cruelty, obtain 
 what food he requires, but it has entered into our minds — into the 
 minds of the human groups within a very few years, but still it has 
 entered deeply as to how in their use of the sub-human groups for 
 their requirements, the sufferings of the sub-human groups may be 
 

 diminished. "We use our cattle for food, and we use our horses for 
 agricultural and other purposes, but we have determined by the 
 votes of the people that these uses shall be restrained alike in the 
 community and in the individual to such an extent as, that there 
 shall be the least possible suffering. And this brings us to the 
 point at issue. It is given to all groups to die, to suffer, that death 
 is inevitable may be put aside, cruelty in the method being 
 diminished as much as possible, but in utilization there may be 
 prolonged and protracted cruelty, and by Act of Parliament we have 
 determined that these cruelties shall be shortened and diminished 
 as much as possible. We come then to our corner of the subject. 
 It is said that animals may be, and have been, used with advantage 
 to mankind and to themselves for the purpose of determining the 
 course of disease, the natural functions of the body, and particularly, 
 by these two combined, how disease in animals and in man may be 
 dealt with for the diminution of common suffering, and for the 
 prolongation of common lowly life. With this preamble, it is per- 
 fectly easy to see that any argument on this subject and in this 
 direction must be a critical investigation of the history of the 
 matters that come before us. When someone got up and said, " I 
 am prepared to cure cancer or consumption by some discovery that 
 has been made by observations upon animals," for a long 
 time, mankind was prepared to listen to him, but you have very 
 well said, sir, that the prolongation of suffering and its exaggeration 
 has been so enormous and the results futile, that our patience has 
 at last become exhausted. (Applause.) It was at this point that I 
 myself, some thirty years ago — perhaps less than that, but dates 
 are not of very much importance — was driven to examine the 
 question for myself as to whether my own work had been so 
 satisfactory as I had believed and did believe it at the time to be. 
 It turned out to be unsatisfactory, and I withdrew all that I had 
 said upon the subject, and I have expressed my regret at having 
 been led myself, and having led others, into serious blunders. After 
 that I need not say that my mind became an open one as to the 
 reception of evidence upon any scheme that might be based upon 
 animals. Just at that time — and as I intend to refer from time to 
 time to a criticism of my own views on the matter which has lately 
 appeared in Holland, I may as well take this as an example — the 
 critics to whom I have to reply to-night have found fault with my 
 saying that this question is one which can be discussed by a layman 
 as well as one belonging to the medical profession. The translator 
 of the pamphlet — a translation of which I have in my hand — 
 evidently knows English very well, but it is clear that those 
 very fine distinctions which we can draw in English when speaking 
 to one another have not been entirely mastered by him. We all 
 know that those fine distinctions are extremely difficult to render 
 in another language, and when I say that this question " can be 
 discussed," I may mean one of two things — not very different, but 
 still distinctly different in this pamphlet that I have in my hand. 
 I may mean that it has been done ; or I may mean that 
 
it may be done at any moment. As a matter of fact, I 
 meant that it had been done ; but I would meet my critics by 
 accepting their rendering of my words to the effect that it could be 
 done at any moment, and I have no doubt you will see, in the 
 speeches which follow what I have to say, examples of what I 
 contend for. As a matter of history it is very interesting that this 
 movement was begun almost by one man — certainly by two men 
 and one woman — it was the writings of that one man, a layman, 
 I mean Mr. George Jesse, which converted me absolutely to 
 the views that I now hold. That is my justification for saying 
 that he, as a layman, could and did discuss the question; he 
 discussed it with some of the keenest intellects belonging to my 
 profession : such men as Sir Eichard Owen, Sir Spencer Wells, 
 and undoubtedly discussed it and beat them hollow in their own argu- 
 ments. (Applause.) Again, anything more ludicrous than the defeat 
 of Sir Eichard Owen, in the discussion with Mr. Charles Adams, 
 on the question of v< Hunter and the Stag" I do not think 
 exists in the English language. If any of you possess that 
 pamphlet — it is difficult to get hold of now — I advise you to 
 read it from that point of view, how it is possible for a layman, 
 by sheer power of criticism and historical investigation, to defeat 
 a man, who from the chair of authority makes an assertion 
 which history will not sustain. You will see then that I have 
 narrowed down very considerably the points which I have to 
 discuss. I come to utility, and I come to the fact that this 
 question of utility is open to all the world to investigate. We are 
 not a privileged priesthood who can say to the public, " We assert 
 that, and you must believe it." The days of priestcraft of that kind 
 have gone for ever. (Loud applause.) I do not know which of the 
 three I should dread most — a priest of that kind of the legal, the 
 ecclesiastical, or the medical order. I think, perhaps, my 
 discomfort would be greatest from the third. Now then, sir, I 
 reached this platform some seventeen or eighteen years ago, at 
 this point. As a disciple of Mr. George Jesse, and one who fol- 
 lowed his method, and who had been made eager and ready to 
 follow that method by the awful statements which I found coming 
 to me on every hand in support of this process of experimentation 
 on animals, I had to submit to a deep humiliation, for it was no small 
 matter for an ambitious young man of twenty-four or twenty-five to 
 acknowledge that he has been wrong in his published conclusions, 
 and to admit that his experiments were not only utterly wrong, but 
 mischievous and misleading. I was humiliated, and I feel 
 that those who made similar assertions might with some 
 advantage to their profession look, again and again, 
 and more carefully, and again to see if their seat was quite 
 as secure as I thought mine was. The result of that was — it is 
 well-known to the older members of your Society — a pamphlet 
 which I issued on the uselessness of experimentation upon animals 
 for any purpose that you can imagine. I will just state a few as I 
 go on. Now bear in mind I did not use the word " absolute." I 
 
1 
 
 am not an absolute abolitionist, i have said so before, and you 
 must patiently wait for my explanation, because I am quite ready 
 to make one. I see door after door closed for the utility of this 
 proceeding. I see revelation made after revelation of the mistakes 
 that have been made — how the same experiments have been 
 repeated century after century, the recorders being perfectly honest 
 men, perhaps, but like everything that is human they have desired 
 results, and, therefore, have obtained them. The story can be told 
 of any item in particular, especially in surgery, how generation after 
 generation one man has said one thing, and another man has come 
 up and said the reverse, and we have had battledore and shuttle- 
 cock going on until the thing was a mass of confusion and 
 ignorance to a degree that was disgraceful. I say this — I am not 
 afraid to say it, because I have humbled myself before the public and 
 before my profession, as a sinner who has come to repentance. My 
 pamphlet was brought about by one which contained a large 
 number of illustrations and arguments in favour of the conclusion 
 that experimentation upon animals ought to be allowed to go on as 
 it was, uninterrupted. Eemember this was before the time of the 
 great agitation, and I think before your Society was started. At 
 any rate, it was somewhere there or thereabouts. We were only at 
 the beginning of the question. I proceeded on Mr. George Jesse's 
 plan, I simply went to the records of medicine and surgery, and 
 found out how futile all the illustrations were. I will take one 
 example — though I shall not allude to it at any length — the surgery 
 of the brain. We were told of all the marvellous cures of epilepsy 
 and all other diseases arising from depressed structure of the skull ; 
 we were told of all the results of experiments performed on monkeys 
 by Professor Ferrier and various others. But we found also that 
 these operations had been done last century, and there was a list 
 of 166 of them that were done before Ferrier was born, and with a 
 vast amount of success, both primarily in saving life ; and secondly, 
 in curing disease. Therefore we declined to accept the statement 
 that these results were attributable to Ferrier's experience. You 
 may take that as an example of the method of criticism that I 
 adopted. I have also to tell you that that little pamphlet of mine 
 was taken up by your Society and other societies ; it has appeared, 
 I think, in every civilised language — I have seen a copy of it in 
 Japanese, and it is in all the European languages, and I .vould 
 not like to say how many hundreds of thousands of copies have 
 been circulated. It seems, in some quarters at least, to have made 
 a distinct impression ; I am glad to say that it has made an 
 impression in my own profession. I am in altogether a different 
 position in relation to my profession on this matter to that in 
 which I was five or ten years after that pamphlet appeared. 
 (Applause.) I had a very unpleasant time to go through, but I 
 came through it, and I have not suffered in the long run. (Applause.) 
 Before coming here, I consulted my friend, Mr. Trist, and he 
 thought that I might usefully take up a few of your minutes by 
 glancing over the first reply which has been made, after seventeen 
 
years, to this pamphlet. I do not mean to say that it has not been 
 criticised, and that it has not been largely abused, but there has been 
 no serious attempt made to answer me for seventeen years, and it now 
 rests with two Dutch physicians to enter the arena. The gentleman 
 who sent me a copy of this reply writes me : " Our anti- vivisection 
 movement is happily growing in our country, but we are very 
 poorly supported by the medical faculty. We lack the technical 
 ability to take away the unfavourable impression that the pamphlet 
 of the said doctors has made on the public, and we hope you will 
 be so kind as to help us in this difficulty." It is my desire to 
 help them now. He tells me that, in spite of their not getting on 
 very well, they have 109 physicians who have declared tbemselves 
 more or less against vivisection (remember Holland is a small 
 country) amongst whom were forty-two total anti-vivisectionists. 
 (Applause.) As I do not think we can reckon that we have 
 progressed at that rate in England, after our twenty years, and 
 with our large medical population in Holland they have not done 
 so badly. The first objection which my Dutch critics have to me is 
 that I am not a physiologist. No ; in their sense I am not, and I 
 am very thankful for it. (Loud cheers.) But I will tell you what 
 I am. I am placed by my profession and my position in the position 
 of a judge of physiologists. (Applause.) They make their experiments, 
 they assert their conclusions, and it has to come to the Court of 
 practitioners to determine whether those conclusions are valid 
 and of use, and I pronounce them of no use. (Applause.) They 
 believe that physiologists are the best judges of physiologists, and 
 they would leave all expresssion of opinion, and all judgments 
 of physiological results, to the physiologists themselves. But 
 we have an English saying, that " we do not set thieves to 
 catch thieves." (Applause, and some interruption.) My friends 
 at the back would not try criminals by a jury selected from the 
 convicts. We in this country are already tired of the so- 
 called medical inspection of vivisection. I will tell my friends 
 at the end of the hall there that it is a fraud (Cheers.) You 
 will get no satisfactory inspection of vivisectionists until you have 
 a lawyer to do it, or a business man, or somebody wholly uncon- 
 nected with the medical profession. (Cheers.) And, as I see and 
 hear and feel ripples of dissent among various sections (I am sorry 
 to have to use the word) of the Anti-Vivisection party, I strongly 
 beg them to stop their dissensions, whatever they may be, and 
 unite upon that one point — the abolition of the medical inspector. 
 (Applause.) And if I give you no other good advice to-night, with 
 all I have said and the rest that I have to say, let that sink into 
 your souls as a matter for the deepest consideration. 
 
 Then, after pages of the ordinary abuse, we come to one argument 
 upon which I have made playful allusions — I have never used it as any 
 very active argument, but I am tempted now to push the matter a 
 little further home. My words were, " To urge its continuance (the 
 continuance of vivisection) on the ground that it was useful in 
 the seventeenth century, is just as reasonable as to ask the 
 
astronomer to go back to the cumbrous methods by which 
 Huyghens worked his lenses." " Surely," says my critic, " such a 
 proceeding would not only be slightly foolish but very mad 
 indeed." He grants my argument to begin with. " However, so 
 far as vivisection goes, no testimony of any physiologist is known 
 to me where it is demonstrated that it was useless then and 
 totally useless nowadays." Well, all I can say is, that he has 
 searched the records of the old works on physiology but very 
 scantily if he has seen no evidence at all. Let us take the much 
 disputed case of Harvey and the circulation. The vivisectionists 
 assert that Harvey discovered the circulation by means of experi- 
 ments—and cruel experiments they were — upon living animals. 
 Well, suppose he did ; and suppose that the circulation had to be 
 discovered now ; would any man in his senses go back to those 
 experiments, when, with a pint of coloured water and a syringe, he 
 could do it just as well upon a dead body ? The syringe is not a new 
 discovery ; it was invented in the third century ; and Harvey used the 
 syringe. If he had taken the dead body of the donkey upon which he 
 experimented, and pushed the nozzle of that syringe into the aorta, 
 or into a vein, or any large vessel of the body, and poured in his 
 coloured water, he would have made out the circulation far more 
 easily and far more perfectly than was done by him and his 
 successors. What makes one angry about these so-called illustra- 
 tions of what is due to vivisection in past times is, they are so 
 stupid ; they are so clumsy, they assist not in clearing the sky of 
 clouds, but in bringing bigger clouds down. All these experiments 
 led them into false conclusions about the circulation. The circula- 
 tion was not established until Malpighi located the fine vessels, and 
 some one else afterwards saw them in the frog's foot. It was 
 altogether matter of speculation before that. If you read the 
 columns and pages and volumes of the speculators, you will see 
 that even the few original observations which were made by 
 Harvey were misrepresented and misunderstood, and for them he 
 was persecuted by his fellow physicians of the time. It was not 
 until generations after him that even his discoveries were made 
 clear. Now, in the old days, when a witness, especially in certain 
 kinds of legal proceedings, was refractory and would not yield the 
 evidence which it was supposed he had in his possession, there 
 were several kindly ways of impressing upon him the necessity of 
 giving up the truth. They pinched his thumbs with thumbscrews, 
 they smashed his legs with " boots," and stretched his joints with 
 the rack, and many other things of that kind. But we are told 
 by our friend here that that has no kind of analogy with vivisection. 
 I wonder what the dogs would say about that. The analogy comes 
 in pretty strongly if one looks at the confessions of the late Dr. 
 Eutherford, who tells us that you must be very careful in physio- 
 logical investigations not to use any means which will vitiate the 
 results. I fancy when the press came upon the chest of the poor 
 wretch who had to plead, knowing that if he did plead his lands and 
 possessions would go from his wife and children ; the man who had 
 
10 
 
 the courage to be pressed to death for the sake of his little, ones 
 was pretty much in the condition of the dog, who could not speak 
 English and could not tell his tormentors what was going wrong, 
 and how he felt when nerve after nerve was being divided. This 
 poor man under the press was only influenced by one decision — 
 " I will not plead." The dog could not plead, the man ivould not, 
 and he died in agonies. But supposing in that death of agony 
 you had been standing by him, and feeling his pulse, and taking 
 his temperature, and watching the moisture of his skin — do 
 you think that these simple physiological processes would not 
 have been altered by that weight on his chest, that his pulse 
 would have slowly failed, his temperature under the torture 
 would have fallen and sweat would have poured from 
 every open pore in his body ? Are these not conditions that 
 would vitiate any observation, except the conclusion that the press 
 was killing the poor wretch. I will not go into my own views 
 about the value of experiments from this point of view, but I will 
 read Dr. Eutherford's own confessions. They were very cleverly 
 abstracted in your journal the other day. Apropos of the death of 
 Dr. Eutherford, he once did us an important service. I shall not 
 read the long sentence in which the argument is made clear, because 
 I have practically given you that. The sentence I want to quote 
 is this. " Chloroform was used during the preliminary operation in 
 two cases, but the stimulation of the liver which it induced rendered 
 the experiments worthless." What conclusion can be derived from 
 that but that there is no condition of experimentation possible, with 
 the influence of anaesthesia, from which just conclusions can be 
 formed ! The thing is ridiculous. It is a reductio ad absurdum. 
 Your "patient" must be either conscious or unconscious; if it is 
 unconscious the experiment is admittedly " worthless " ; if it is 
 conscious its nervous system is so stimulated, and it is so upset 
 by the torture, that no truth can be arrived at. Before the days of 
 anaesthetics, these experiments were all conducted under conscious- 
 ness, and the argument, therefore, is that running through them all 
 there was a vitiating condition which rendered them futile. But 
 this word " anaesthetics " just reminds me of one of those futile 
 grounds of experimentation in which there is not very much 
 cruelty, yet it fully shows how absolutely stupid and, from my 
 point of view, useless these experiments are. Let me instance the 
 case of anaesthetics which are used to induce quietness on the part 
 of the patient and freedom from pain. The study of anaesthetics 
 began with Sir Humphrey Davy in the year 1804, when he 
 very nearly — ah ! what a pity he did not succeed ! — gave us a 
 perfect anaesthetic in the shape of nitrous oxide ; he was just afraid 
 to go a little further, and give the patient nitrous oxide without 
 any oxygen at all ; if he had gone on with that, this branch of 
 medical science would have been advanced just one century, or at 
 least three years short of it. Here we are at the very end of our 
 century, and at this moment — I speak now of my own knowledge 
 in the last few days — it appears that we are going to do away with 
 
11 
 
 ether and chloroform, and all those compound chemicals which seem 
 to have more or less danger in them, and go back absolutely to 
 nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic. And why ? Because now we get it 
 pure and we mix with it as we give it, as the case requires, a 
 little pure oxygen, and the thing seems to be perfectly safe and 
 manageable. I saw an operation performed under this method the 
 other day ; it occupied twenty minutes, and the patient was 
 absolutely free from pain, and arose from the operating table 
 without any sickness or distress or trouble. As we watched the 
 patient there seemed to be the minimum of danger or hardly any 
 danger, and here we have been running away with these infernal 
 experiments on animals for generations on the simple question of 
 ether and chloroform, and we have had Sir Humphrey Dav/'s 
 triumphant discovery lying barren for a century. (Applause.) lam 
 reminded by the chairman that I cannot go on indefinitely with these 
 illustrations. (Cries of " Go on.") Although you are patiently 
 listening to me, and the more I go into the question the more I feel 
 enthusiastic about it, I must draw up some time, I can only give 
 you the assurance that in the hands of the Secretary of this Society 
 I shall give my answer in detail to the criticisms which these 
 gentlemen have kindly made, and I think it is very likely you will 
 be able to read them in a second or last or some other editions 
 of the pamphlet which will shortly appear. I have only one thing 
 more to say and that is this : My dear friends here look upon me 
 as an extremely old-fashioned person, a physician who must have 
 been educated last century. Well, I know this, that my brethren 
 here do not think so. (Applause.) They are always rather annoyed 
 by my endeavours after something new, rather than a persistency 
 in the ancient tracks ; and sometimes I have been reproved for 
 being too much advanced. (A voice : " Don't advertise yourself.") 
 Thank you, it is not necessary now. (Loud applause.) If I had 
 wanted advertising I could have done it twenty years ago with 
 more effect. (Applause.) I think that as in this matter the public 
 is in the van of the profession, I may claim to be not so much 
 an old fogey as one of those troublesome new people who are 
 anxious to make the world move on. I certainly am particularly 
 anxious to move my profession out of this old groove in which 
 they are bound hand and foot by nothing but tradition and the 
 authority of the elders. (Applause.) At the end of the room one 
 or two gentlemen have been making comments, and, though I 
 cannot see very clearly at this distance whether they are young 
 or old, I am afraid they are the youngest of the young. (Laughter 
 and applause.) And as a parting advice to them, let me advise 
 them to go home and ponder over these things, and to do as I hav> 
 been compelled to do — to learn the lesson that there is none of us 
 omniscient, not even the youngest. (Laughter and applause.) I 
 now move this resolution : — 
 
 " That this meeting wholly disapproves of experimentation on 
 living animals, as being crude in conception, unscientific 
 in its nature, and incapable of being sustained by any 
 accurate or beneficent results applicable to man." 
 
Che Condon Jlnti=Vtoi$ection Societp, 
 
 13, Regent Street, London, S.W. 
 
 Founded 1876. 
 
 " Heartily sympathising with your efforts." — Extract from a 
 letter from H.M. The Queen to the Secretary of this Society. 
 Lord Shaftesbury.— "Vivisection is an abominable sin." 
 Lord Brampton (late Mr. Justice Hawkins).— " I abominate vivisection : should rejoice 
 
 to see it legally suppressed." 
 
 Viscount Clifden 
 The Earl of Lindsay 
 The Countess of Lindsay 
 The Dowager Countess of 
 
 Kintore 
 The Dowager Duchess of 
 
 Manchester 
 The Dowager Marchioness 
 
 of Ormonde 
 The Earl of Haddington 
 The Countess of Boden 
 The Countess of Korbury 
 The Countess of Munster 
 The Countess of Castle- 
 
 stuart 
 Baroness Kinloss 
 Lord Ernest Hamilton 
 Lord Leigh 
 Lord Brampton 
 
 Patrons: 
 
 Lady Brampton 
 
 Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 
 Bart. 
 
 The Bishop of Argyle and 
 the Isles 
 
 Lady Colquhoun 
 
 Lady Anne Campbell 
 
 The Lady Madeleine Keith- 
 Falconer. 
 
 The Lady Maud Keith- 
 Falconer. 
 
 Lady Windsor 
 
 Lady Paget 
 
 Lady Gwendolen Herbert 
 
 Lady Jane Ellice 
 
 Lady Mary Milbanke 
 
 Lady Walsham 
 
 The Very Rev. the Dean of 
 Durham 
 
 medical patrons: 
 
 The Very Rev. the Dean of 
 
 Hereford 
 The Very Rev. The Dean of 
 
 Battle 
 General Sir John Field, 
 
 K.C.B. 
 Colonel Sir David Carrick- 
 
 Buchanan, K.C.B. 
 Rev. John Hunter, D.D. 
 Rev. Prebendary Webb- 
 
 Peploe 
 J. Maden Holt, Esq. 
 Herbert Philips, Esq., J.P. 
 Joshua Rowntree, Esq. 
 James Sant, Esq., R.A. 
 Miss Vernon Wentworth 
 Lieut. -General Phelps 
 
 Surg.-General J. H. Thornton, C.B., B.A., 
 
 M.B. 
 Surg.-General Watson, M.D. 
 A. Wall, Esq., M.R C.S., L.R.C.P. 
 A. A. Beale, Esq., MB, CM. 
 A. J. H.Crespi, Esq. (Hertford Coll., Oxon), 
 
 M.R.C.P. Medallist in (Surg.). 
 T. G. Vawdrey, Esq., L.R.C.P., MJt.C.S. 
 Stephen F. Smith, Esq., M.R.C.S., L.S.A. 
 Stephen Townesend, Esq., F.R.C.S. 
 Chas. Bell Tavlor, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S. 
 John Clarke, Esq., M.D., M.B. 
 F. Cann, Esq., F.R.C.S. 
 Edward Haughton, Esq., B.A., M.D., 
 
 M.R.C.S. 
 F. S. Arnold, Esq., B.A., Oxon, M.B., 
 
 M.R.C.S. 
 Hector Munro, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 F. E. Vernede. Esq., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. 
 Walter R. Hadwen, Esq., M.D., etc. 
 George Ferdinands, Esq., M.D., M.B.,CM. 
 Henry P. Taylor, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 W. T. Buckle, Esq., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. 
 M. W. Sharpies, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 
 Edward Wood-Forster, M.R.C.S. 
 
 Harry Holmes, Esq., L.R.C.S. 
 
 E. E. Barrington, Esq., M.B. 
 
 John Bowie, Esq., L.R.C.P. 
 
 Charles G. Woodd, Esq., M.R.C.S. 
 
 Charles H. Groves, Esq., M.D., B.A. 
 
 J. Nalton Robson, Esq., L.R.C.P. 
 
 C. P. Collins, Esq., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. 
 
 Frederick A. Floyer, Esq., B.A., M.B., 
 
 M.R.C.S., L.S.A. 
 George Herring, Esq., L.F.P.S., Glasgow, 
 
 L.S.A. 
 George H. Jackson, Esq., M.R.C.S. 
 John McLachlan, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S. 
 Rev. Henry C Lang, M.D., M.R.C.S., 
 
 L.R.C.P. 
 Dudley Wright, Esq., F.R.C.S. 
 M. Weir, Esq., M.R.C.S. 
 Berthon, Dr. Rosalie. 
 
 A. Stoddard Kennedy, Esq., M.D. 
 
 B. Clarke, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S. (Eng.) 
 G. W. Hatchell, Esq., M.D. 
 
 Edwardes Fritche, Esq., L.D.S., L.S.A. 
 (Lond.) 
 
 The Annual Report and Literature Free on Application. 
 
 The Committee most earnestly appeal for Aid to 
 
 enable them to carry on a more 
 
 Vigorous Campaign. 
 
 OFFICES : 13, REGENT STREET, LONDON, S.W. 
 
 Treasurer : Dr. WALL. 
 Hon. Sec. :— Mbs. CULVER JAMES. Secretary :— SIDNEY TRIST. 
 
 DUKE MED. CENTER LIB. 
 HISTORICAL COLLECTION