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PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY: 
 
 OR, 
 
 FACT V. FANCY. 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE VIVISECTION QUESTION. 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILANTHEOPOS. 
 
 I ^J'^^^ i L? ^ •■ ■.^>'VV.„S?t-va.*? 
 
 (<^:/^. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TINSLEY BROS., 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1883. 
 
'Y S3 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In compiling this little book, my aim has been to 
 place in the hands both of professional and unpro- 
 fessional readers a short compendium of the principal 
 established facts and most obvious reasonings on the 
 question of Experiment upon Living Animals. I 
 venture to hope that such a work may prove useful 
 to medical men who have not time to consult books 
 of reference, and examine into the details of the 
 subject for themselves, without its being too technical 
 to interest those of the general public who are 
 willing to give thought and attention to a most 
 important matter. I must risk the accusation of 
 being either too professional, or too popular, only 
 pleading that I have, at any rate, endeavoured to 
 avoid inaccuracy. 
 
 London, April, 1883. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I.— Introductory. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Duty of unprejudiced Investigation — Object of this Book . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II.— What is Pain ? 
 Our knowledge of Pain derived from human experience alone — 
 The process of Sensation and Pain — Reflex action independent 
 of consciousness — Vagueness of " signs of Pain" — Definition of 
 Pain— Feeling and Irritability — Feeling dependent on conscious- 
 ness — Its relation to mental development — Animals less sensitive 
 than Men — Mental element of Pain — Absence of this in animals 
 — Examples — Amount of Pain in operations — Painlessness of 
 Convalescence — Insensitiveness of brain substance — Example . 4 
 
 CHAPTER III.— What is Cruelty ? 
 ■Cruelty defined — What is sufiicient justification for giving Pain 'i 
 — Not merely the good of the sufferer -Nor his consent — But 
 the attainment of an adequate benefit — Benefits aimed at in 
 Physiological Experiment — These surpass the evil of Pain in 
 quality — And exceed it in quantity — Consequently the benefit 
 aimed at is adequate — Answer to objection . . . .20 
 
 CHAPTER lY.— Our Rights Over Animals. 
 ^Experiments on animals asserted to be abstractly wrong — Reasons 
 usually given — Experiment not necessarily demoralizing to the 
 operator — Universality and beneficence of the Law of Vicarious 
 Sufi'ering — Our right to apply it to animals for our benefit — 
 Vagueness of the principle generally acted on — The true prin- 
 ciple — Mr. Hutton's principle — Impossibility of carrying it out 
 — Summary . . . . . . . . ... 31 
 
 CHAPTER v.— What is Vivisection? 
 WTiat is Vivisection ? — Various definitions — Dissecting alive — 
 True sense of the word — Course of study in physiological labo- 
 ratories — Histological department — Chemical department — Phy- 
 sical department — Experiments upon detached tissue and organs 
 — Experiments upon j)ithed animals — Painful experiments — In- 
 oculations — Testing of drugs — Use of aneesthetics — Statistics of 
 experiments performed — Conclusion ...... 40 
 
 CHAPTER VI. — The Relation of Experiment to Physiology. 
 Many non-physiological systems — Only one physiological system 
 — The Empirical system — The Physiological system founded on 
 Experiment — Experiment on living animals part of a rational 
 method of investigation — The Circulation of the Blood — Blood 
 pressure — Contractile power of the arteries — The Absorbent 
 
 h 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vessels — Discoveries of Aselli and Pecquet — Yalue of this 
 knowledge — Respiration — Changes effected in the inspired air 
 — Changes eflPected in the blood — Digestion — The Nervous 
 System — Discoveries of Bell, Magendie, and others — Present 
 state of our knowledge on the subject — Muscular action — 
 Discoveries of Haller — Summary ...... 51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. — The Relation of Medicine to Expeeiment. 
 
 The subject a complicated one — An amputation in old times — An 
 amputation at the present day — Facial nerves — Artificial respira- 
 tion — • Transfusion of blood — Orthopedic surgery — Internal 
 operations — Chassaignac's ecraseur — Removal of one kidney 
 — Removal of larynx — "Animal grafting" — Study of the pro- 
 cesses of disease — Testing of drugs — Preventive medicine — 
 Other benefits of experiment ....... 68 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. — Legislation : Past, Present, and Possible. 
 General state of the law — Martin's Act — No English physiologist 
 prosecuted under it — The "Hand-book to the Physiological La- 
 boratory" — The Norwich experiment — Appointment of the 
 Royal Commission — Its conclusions from the evidence — Recom- 
 mendations — The Act of 1876 — Its principal provisions — De- 
 fects — Autocracy of the Home Secretary — Mode of proceeding 
 under the Act — Action of the Home Secretary — Bill for the 
 Total Abolition of Vivisection — Desirable modifications in the 
 working of the Act — Responsibility to be left to the signa- 
 tories — Certificates unnecessary for inoculations — Licenses held 
 by medical instructors to hold good for their term of office — 
 What is abstractly desirable ....... 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— Conclusion. 
 Summary of previous argument — Supposed demoralization of ex- 
 perimenters — Where the real danger lies — Conclusion . . 103 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 APPENDIX A. — PoPULAE, Fallacies about Experiment . . 112 
 APPENDIX B. — Amount of Suffering Inflicted . . . 119 
 APPENDIX C. — Necessity of Experimental Research, for 
 
 THE Welfare of Man and of the Lower Animals. 
 Section I. Utility to Man. — Section IT. Utility to Animals . . 129' 
 APPENDIX D. — The Fundamental Discoveries due to Experi- 
 ment UPON Living Animals. 
 Harvey and the circulation of the Blood — Discovery of the Lacteals 135 
 
 APPENDIX E.— The Medical Minority. 
 Evidence given before the Royal Commission — Subsequent 
 Literature .......... 142 
 
 APPENDIX F.— Legislation. 
 Object of Legislation i-ecommended by Royal Commission — Scojie 
 of Legislation recommended by Royal Commission — Manner 
 in which the Act is administered ...... 152' 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Duty of unprejudiced Investigation. — Object of this Book. 
 
 When a question lias been made the subject of hot 
 debate, and been tossed up and down in discussions where 
 feeling has played as large a part as argument, it becomes 
 enveloped in a dust-cloud of words, sweeping charges, and 
 irrelevant recriminations, in which it is difficult to keep 
 sight of the central object. The first duty, then, of any one 
 who wishes to see the truth for himself, and to show it to 
 others, is to get rid, as far as may be, of all this turmoil, — 
 at least, to keep the door of his own mind close shut against 
 it, — to silence any strong prepossessions for one side or the 
 other, and strive quietly to see the thing which is, not that 
 which he hopes, or fears, or thinks may be. 
 
 This is never an easy thing to do ; and in the " Vivi- 
 section " controversy it is peculiarly difficult, for it involves 
 the sacrifice on both sides of the strongest feeling involved. 
 A physiologist must lay aside his abstract devotion to 
 Science ; he can no longer use the advancement of her 
 interests as the ready test of his work, and the sanction of 
 her greatest servants as his justification ; but he must be 
 
 B 
 
2 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 content to inquire whether the practice of performing ex- 
 periments on living animals is or is not reconcileable with 
 true humanity, and what is its eftect upon the moral sense 
 of those who use or approve it. On the other hand, a lay 
 man or woman must not be swayed by the natural love of 
 animals, and dislike to the infliction of pain, which make it 
 grievous to think that any feeling creature has been hurt 
 deliberately ; still less must they excite their feelings by 
 the attempt to realize the necessarily repugnant details of 
 the operations, and to imagine their own pet dogs subjected 
 to them. What they have to ascertain is — what is really 
 done of this sort, whether Avhat is done is necessary, 
 wdiether it is justifiable, and how it is regarded by those 
 who practise it. The question of whether it is pleasant or 
 painful to think of has absolutely no more to do with the 
 matter than it has with surgical operations, which few of 
 the general public would care to witness, or to hear de- 
 scribed in detail. I do not write for readers who take a 
 pleasure in ghastly descriptions and ugly minutiae, which 
 are totally unnecessary for the discussion of principles. 
 Such a pleasure is morbid, and I desire to address only the 
 sane. That class of mind which, in a lower stratum of 
 society, revels in the Police Heius and tlie "penny dreadfuls," 
 will never be at a loss to provide itself with repulsive 
 literature, and I shall not cater for it. In the text of this 
 little book, therefore, there will be found only such medical 
 details as are indispensable to the argument, further in- 
 formation on special points being added in the Appendix. 
 
 I desire now to make an attempt to look fairly at all the 
 points of this large subject, and to carry my readers step 
 by step along the inquiry which has brought my own mind 
 to certain definite conclusions. We shall insist, as we go 
 along, upon knowing exactly what we mean and are dis- 
 cussing, and having a clear idea for every word used. We 
 
INTRODUCTORY. -J 
 
 shall endeavour to trace the moral })rinci2ile.s which bear 
 upon the matter, and to learn liow to ap])]y tliem. We 
 shall examine into the actual relations of Pliysiology and 
 Medicine to Experiment in the past, and thence deduce 
 their probable relation in the future. We shall see what is 
 and has been the state of affairs in England as to experi- 
 ment upon living animals in our own day, both before and 
 after the passing of the " Cruelty to Animals Act," of 1876, 
 — what has been done in the laboratories, Avhat is permitted 
 by the law. Thence we shall be able to conclude whether 
 any changes are desirable in the nature or administration 
 of the law ; and if so, w^hat they should be. 
 
 There has been enough, and too much, of personal con- 
 troversy over the " Vivisection " question, and I would 
 rather avoid adding to it. As far as possible, it seems best 
 to consider the absolute facts and reasons which bear on 
 the subject, and draw our own conclusions, without stopping 
 l^y the way to argue with every one who has arrived at a 
 different result ; but in reaching any conclusions at all, one 
 is obliged to differ from thinkers either of such eminence or 
 of such influence that to take no notice of their arguments 
 would seem arrogant or cowardly. It will, therefore, be 
 necessary to discuss some of the most notable statements 
 and arguments which have appeared in print. 
 
 As far as possible, I shall give references and authorities 
 for every assertion of fact which can be disputed by any 
 one with a reasonable knowledge of the subject ; and I ask 
 from my readers only that candid attention, and that open- 
 ness of mind, which are the absolute conditions of finding 
 truth in any direction whatever. 
 
 The point chiefly in dispute is the rightfulness of giving 
 pain to animals for certain purposes ; consequently, the 
 question which meets us at the outset of our enquiry is — 
 What is pain ? 
 
 l2 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT IS PAIN? 
 
 Our knowledge of Pain derived from human experience alone — The 
 process of Sensation and Pain — Reflex action independent of Con- 
 sciousness — Vagueness of "signs of Pain" — Definition of Pain — 
 Feeling and Irritability — Feeling dependent on consciousness — 
 Its relation to mental development — Animals less sensitive than 
 men — Mental element of Pain — Absence of this in animals — 
 Examples — Amount of Pain in operations — Painlessness of con- 
 valescence — Insensitiveness of brain substance — Example. 
 
 All that we know about Pain is derived from human 
 experience. This seems veiy obvious, but not the less 
 it is often forgotten. As a matter of fact, we Jcnovi 
 nothing about any pain except what we have ourselves 
 suffered. We cannot feel with another person's nerves ; 
 and when he describes his feelings, we cannot be sure that 
 the words he uses bear the same meaning to him as they do 
 to us : but we take for granted a general analogy between 
 him and ourselves, based on our common nature ; and from 
 time to time we correct this assumption, as we discover 
 minor differences between us, and conclude perhaps that 
 lie feels pain more or less acutely than we do. As men 
 have been acting on this assumption for centuries, and 
 constantly comparing experiences, there has grown up an 
 average standard of human sensibility, by which we guide 
 ourselves, and which allows us to say in a rough way that 
 ^uch and such a person is insensitive or hypersensitive. 
 
WHAT IS PAIN ? 5 
 
 But when wc have to do with animals, we lose ourselves at 
 <-)nce. The community of nature from which we argued wdth 
 men, has sunk from an identity of species to a similarity of 
 type ; the comparison of experiences by which we corrected 
 our conclusions, is impossible. We have nothing left to 
 guide us except an analogy with ourselves wdiich we know 
 must be misleading, and " signs of pain," which are of all 
 indications the vaguest. They are thus vague, because all 
 that they prove is that something is going on which the 
 organism repels ; but they do not prove that there is any 
 consciousness of it, and if there is consciousness they do 
 not show the degree of feeling. This will be clearer if we 
 glance at wdiat actually happens when an injury of any 
 kind is inflicted. 
 
 Every one knows that there are two great classes of 
 nerves, — the afferent, which convey messages (or, more 
 properly, impulses) to the brain and spinal cord, — and the 
 afferent, which bring aw^ay impulses from it. The afferent 
 nerves alone can convey those impulses which give rise to 
 feeling ; the efferent nerves are quite incapable of doing so, 
 and their chief business is to convey those impulses which 
 excite motion. The afferent nerves mainly begin in small 
 organs called touch-corpuscles, great numbers of which are 
 .situated in the skin, making it much more sensitive than 
 the deeper tissues. If you drop some hot sealing-w^ax on a 
 person's hand, all the little terminals of the spot on wdiich it 
 falls are suddenly stimulated, and there is an instant change 
 in the activity of their molecules. Then a change runs 
 along the nerve-fibre to which they belong, until it reaches 
 the spinal cord, wdiere it enters a ganglion, or knot of 
 nerve-cells, full of independent energy. A portion of the 
 impulse will be communicated to the fibres wdiich go up 
 to the brain ; wdiile some of the energy latent in the gan- 
 glion will be released by the arriving shock, run down an 
 
6 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 eiferent nerve, and set in motion the muscles of the hand 
 and arm, — and the hand will be pulled a^vay. This process 
 sounds long in describing, but we feel it to be done 
 instantaneously. It can be carried out by the nerves and 
 the ganglion, quite independently of that part of the 
 impulse which went on to the brain, — and what becomes of 
 that need not necessarily affect the action. Its fate will 
 depend upon the condition in which it finds the brain. 
 That organ may be awake and ready to attend to it, and 
 in that case there will be a keen feeling of pain ; it may 
 be absorbed in its own work, carrj^ing on thought, and give 
 it only a half attention, — and then (especially if the 
 stimulus has not been of quite so strong a kind as the one 
 supposed) there will be a faint impression made on the 
 mind, and soon forgotten ; or it may be stupefied by nar- 
 cotics, and take no notice at all, and in that case there will, 
 of course, be no feeling of pain whatever. But whether 
 pain be keenly felt, or faintl}', or not at all, — the jerk away 
 of the hand, which is the outward sign of pain, will be 
 present all the same, unless the narcotizing has been so 
 performed as to affect the nerve-centres in the spinal 
 marrow which govern reflex actions, as well as the brain. 
 So long as only the higher centres are laid asleep, reflex 
 actions will go on, even more markedly and with greater 
 energy than when it is awake. People operated upon under 
 chloroform will shrink and scream, because the stimulus 
 from the irritated nerves has gone round to the nervous 
 centres which set the vocal organs in motion ; but their 
 intellectual and higher sensory centres are asleej^, and the}' 
 feel nothing. It will not do to say that they did feel 
 the pain at the time, but have forgotten it ; for, firstly, they 
 will sometimes remember having heard themselves scream : 
 and, if so, whv should theY not remember the much 
 
WHAT IS PAIN ? 7 
 
 .stronger impression of pain ? and, secondly, when lliey are 
 only partiallj- narcotized, they feel some pain, and remendjer 
 that they have done so, — whence it is only reasonable to 
 conclude that when they remember no pain it is because 
 they have felt none. Therefore, even cries do not prove 
 that pain is really felt, because they do not prove that the 
 brain is in a condition to feel it. It is the same with 
 motions, jerks, or struggles. We have seen that the process 
 which makes us jerk away our hand, for instance, from any 
 painful touch, can go on quite independently of conscious- 
 ness. It may go on where Ave liioiu that there is no con- 
 sciousness. If a person's neck or back is broken (I.e., if 
 the spinal marrow is so severed or injured that impulses 
 can no longer pass the place of the injury), there will be no 
 consciousness of what goes on below it. Such a person's 
 foot might be cut off, and he would never feel it. Prick the 
 leg, he will tell you that he has no sensation of pain, yet the 
 leg will be pulled away from the prick ; tickle the sole of 
 his foot, and the foot will be jerked away. What is more, 
 such reflex actions will be much more violent than they 
 would have been if he had been conscious, probably because 
 all the energy of the impulse is expended upon producing 
 motion, and none of it upon producing sensation. It is 
 often difficult to keep such patients covered up in bed, 
 because the sliq-htest ticklino- or irritation from the bed- 
 clothes will make them kick them off". A horse can kick 
 after he is dead. A' knacker, after he has cut oft" a horse's 
 head, will pass a long rod down the spinal marrow to destroy 
 its activity; otherwise, as soon as he began to skin the body, 
 the legs would kick with sufficient force to break his 
 arm.*' Such a motion in response to a stimulation is called 
 
 "^ Evidence of Dr. Anthony before the Koyal Commission on Vivi- 
 section, Q. 2484. 
 
8 THYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 in scientific language a reaction; in agitationist language 
 it is called a " spasm of agony."* It is best marked 
 where there is no agony at all, which is, perhaps, a reason 
 for preferring the former phrase. Motions, cries, jerks, 
 and struggles cannot, therefore, be depended upon as indi- 
 cations of pain. 
 
 But it may be asked ; If so, why do phj^siologists per- 
 forming experiments under anassthetics tell us that they 
 give a fresh dose whenever they see the animal move ? 
 Clearly, in order to be a long way on the safe side. When 
 the reflex functions of the spinal cord are laid at rest, the 
 consequent ansesthesia is deeper than when only the higher 
 brain centres are aflfected ; and we have the test of motion 
 for the one, and have no test for the other. It is known 
 that an animal ')nay he unconscious while it struggles vehe- 
 mently ; but there is no doubt that it is unconscious, when 
 it does not struggle at all ; and to save it pain and keep it 
 quiet for the time are the objects of the oj)erator ; he need 
 not also think constantly of the danger of its succumbing 
 to the ansesthetic, as he would with a human subject, — con- 
 sequently, he gives it much more freely. 
 
 It would of course be absurd to say that there are no 
 such things as signs of pain ; all that can be said is that 
 such indications are exceedingly vague, and cannot be 
 interpreted rightly without a knowledge of the condition 
 of the brain. When we see a creature struggling and 
 kicking, or hear it cry, we cannot tell from that alone 
 whether it is feeling pain, or whether it is feeling much or 
 little. In order to know if it feels any pain, we must know 
 whether its consciousness is at work, or whether the im- 
 pulse is circling round its nerves and muscles, Avithout 
 
 * " The very fact that physiologists select delicate petted dogs to 
 exhibit reactions (cfnglice, spasms of agony) under their operations . ." 
 Miss Cobbe, in ForttdgMly Review, January, 1882. 
 
"WHAT IS TAIN ? 9 
 
 jiroiising the Ijraiii at all ; and in order to know if it feels 
 much pain, we must know what sort of cognizance its brain 
 is capable of taking of such messages, when they do arouse 
 it. In other words : In order to judge of the pain suffered 
 hy any creature (human or other), we must be acquainted 
 Avith both the ordinary quality and the present condition 
 <:»f its brain. 
 
 Pain (like many other words upon which much depends) 
 is used with a good deal of ambiguity. It is often far from 
 clear — even to the speaker — whether he means by it the 
 t^ffect produced upon the nerves or upon the organism, 
 whether he is thinking of what the nerves feel or of what 
 the creature feels. Yet there is a deep distinction. One 
 often hears it said that a person has undergone a very 
 painful operation, but that he did not feel it, because he 
 was under chloroform. As soon as we look at this critically, 
 we are inclined to ask : If he could not feel, he could have 
 no pain ; and if he had no pain, how was the operation 
 painful ? And the criticism seems valid. There is evidently 
 a confusion between two meanings of the same word, and 
 confused speaking leads to confused thinking. Let us 
 therefore avoid both, by clearly defining the sense in which 
 we use our terms. 
 
 A moderate stimulation of a nerve produces an agreeable 
 or a useful effect. Nerves were meant to work, and for 
 <_'ach there is a degree of activity which is normal and 
 pleasant. Beyond this point stimulation becomes dis- 
 tressing and injurious, and, with sensory nerves, passes into 
 pain. Pain may therefore be described as the result of the 
 excessive stlmidation of a nerve. Of course, if the brain is 
 narcotized, it is not affected by this excessive stimulation 
 (though it takes place just the same) ; and therefore it is 
 not nonsense to talk of a painful operation being performed 
 without pain. But when the brain is awake, and working 
 
10 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 healthily, it takes note of the excessive stimulation ; we 
 become conscious of it, and the result is Feeling. The nerve, 
 however, is not narcotized, and then the impulse runs along 
 it, and is reflected by the ganglion cells into the corre- 
 sj)onding efferent nerve, which responds accordingly. This 
 capability on the part of a nerve of being affected b}' 
 stimuli — is called Irritability ; it lies quite apart from con- 
 sciousness, and is entirely different from Feeling. A muscle 
 cut out of a freshly-killed animal has Irritability, because 
 it will contract under a current of electricity ; so has the 
 heart taken from a decapitated frog, because it continues 
 to beat, and its action can be hastened or retarded by heat, 
 cold, or drugs ; but they have no brain, and so can have no 
 consciousness and no Feeling. So, when the cerebral hemi- 
 spheres are removed from a frog, all its nerves possess their 
 old Irritability, and the reflex actions go on as well as if it 
 were a complete creature. Touch it, and it will jump ; put 
 a drop of acid on one leg, and it will rub it off' with the 
 other ; put food into its mouth, and it will swallow ; but all 
 this time it has no Feeling, for it has no organ of con- 
 sciousness, and acts like a machine, which merely moves 
 Avhen you work the springs. If, instead of removing the 
 cerebral hemispheres, we suspend their action by narcotics, 
 the effect for the time being is as if they were not there, 
 and there may be the highest Irritability of the nerves, but 
 still no Feeling in the creature. There may be all the signs 
 of pain, Avhich result from the general sensitiveness of the 
 nervous system ; but these prove that it is sensitive, and 
 nothing more ; they prove nothing about Feeling, of which 
 we know them to be cjuite independent. And observe, 
 when it is said that a pithed frog {i.e., one whose spinal 
 marrow has been cut through, near its junction with the 
 brain), a pigeon without cerebral hemispheres, or a chloro- 
 
WHAT IS PATN ? 11 
 
 formed cat, cannot feel, the statement is not a conjecture. 
 We are on firm ground, because we are going upon human 
 experience, assisted Ly trustworthy analogy. We liaye the 
 eyidence of men and women who can be questioned, and 
 can tell us what they haye felt, and not felt. We know 
 that we cannot feel without our Ijrains ; and we find that 
 whereyer we can test the functions of the brains of other 
 animals, they are like ours in kind, though differing in 
 degree. We see also that the general type of the neryous 
 system is the same in all vertebrate animals ; and that its 
 increasing specialisation, as we ascend in the scale, is all in 
 the direction of resemblance to our own. We haye, there- 
 fore, eyery reason to belieye that the brain is always the 
 organ of consciousness, and that when it is abssnt, or in- 
 active, there can be no consciousness, and consequently no 
 feeling. 
 
 As the existence of feeling depends upon the activity of 
 the brain, there is a fair presumption beforehand that it 
 also increases with the more perfect development of that 
 organ ; and we should naturally expect to find that animals 
 can both enjoy and suffer more, as they stand higher upon 
 the ladder of being, and that man — the highest of animals 
 — is also chief in sensibility. We can never get inside the 
 consciousness of a creature with which we cannot commun- 
 icate ; but in the human race we find a certain rough pro- 
 portion between sensibility and intellectual development, 
 which leads us to believe in a similar proportion existing 
 in the ranks below us. Savages will undergo with equan- 
 imity tortures which no civilized man (except perhaps 
 under great excitement) could endure ; and it is impossible 
 to believe that the prolonged pain of tattooing could be 
 borne for the sake of ornament l>y any one who felt it as T\ e 
 should do. The arguments used for the special protection 
 
12 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 of cats and clogs against experiment are founded on this 
 greater sensitiveness in the more highly organized creature. 
 
 There are two factors in nervous and intellectual activity. 
 One is the structural factor, i.e. the actual amount of nervous 
 matter to be set in action, the quantities of blood supplied 
 to it, and the arrangements by which the blood bathes 
 numerous surfaces of the brain ; the other is the functional 
 factor, i.e. the amount of nerve force in action, or the 
 energy both actual and potential evolved by and stored up in 
 the nervous cells. Neither the size of the skull, nor even the 
 weight of the brain, is a clear index to a man's intellectual 
 faculties, because the more ethereal component always 
 escapes from our weights and measures. But it is clear 
 that sensibility must vary as this supply of nervous force 
 varies, because the same properties which cause us to think 
 a thought enable us also to feel a sensation. If the nervous 
 system is not easily excitable, a painful stimulus will 
 travel through it slowly, and even while producing its 
 appropriate reflex action, will have little power left to 
 affect the brain, and will produce a feeble effect when it 
 arrives there ; whereas, sensitive nerves will convey im- 
 pressions rapidly to a sensitive brain, and the result is a 
 quick and vivid sensation of pain. 
 
 This all seems so obvious as to be hardly worth saying ; 
 yet it is ignored by those who argue from our feelings to 
 those of the lower creatures, as if they were the same, and 
 assert that animals are as sensitive as man. Their re- 
 actions may be as prompt as those of men, because a larger 
 proportion of their nervous energy luorks through the spinal 
 cord and inferior brain-centres, and less is expended on 
 tho light. But the question is not — Does a prick of a needle 
 make them start as quickly as a man would ? but — What 
 impression does this needle-prick make on their con- 
 sciousness ? And the answer must depend upon the ainount 
 
WHAT IS TAIX ? ] •> 
 
 of nervous energy wliich goes to ^•ivify that consciousness. 
 But the veiy fact that man's intellectual activity is so much 
 greater sho^ys that a larger surplus vitalizes his hrain, and 
 proves that the whole stock of nervous energy from which 
 that surplus is taken must be larger than that of inferior 
 creatures. Therefore, though an animal's nerves may dis- 
 play as much irrltahillty as a man's, it is impossiLle that it 
 can have as much feeling as he has, for the simple reason 
 that it has not as much stuff to make them both out of. In 
 fact, seeing that its mental power (which is the index of its 
 supply of nervous force) is so much less than his, we should 
 be more inclined to believe that its actual feeling came near 
 his feeling, if the demonstration of it were less ; because 
 (as was said before) we see that in human beings reflex 
 actions are most marked when there is no intellectual 
 action, -i.e., when they are asleep, narcotized, or have sustained 
 injury of the spinal cord. 
 
 Thus much about the raw material (so to speak) of pain, — 
 the nerves which convey the impulse to the brain, and the 
 brain which receives it. But there is a distinct element 
 contributed to the feeling of pain by this organ itself, 
 actively as well as passively. In all that adult human 
 beino's suffer there is a mental factor which is almost 
 absent in animals. It cannot be better described th-an in 
 the words of Mr. Edmund Gurney. " The sense of rebellion, 
 the helpless beating about of the intellect, the counting of 
 time, and vivid sense that each moment will be like the 
 last, the demand, ever urgent and ever baffled to find a 
 meaning for such experience, — more than all, the sense of 
 wrong that comes from comparison, the consciousness of 
 self as an exception, of clueless isolation, of being marked 
 off from normal sentient life by an intolerable something 
 which none can share,— all this points to the close relation of 
 suffering to intelligence ; and the consequent difference 
 
14 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 between man and brute would presumably be at its max- 
 imum in eases of protracted suffering helow the agony-point 
 where intellect is too blinded to be active."* 
 
 Such intelligent creatures as dogs have, of course, 
 memory, and are capable of recalling places and things 
 which have been associated with suffering, and dislikino' 
 them ; but with an average dog such memory is faint, as 
 compared with what we should exert under the circum- 
 stances. Dogs kept at physiological laboratories for the 
 purpose of experiments (of course, not severe ones, as 
 animals cannot ever be kept alive to undergo these 
 again and again,) display no such horror of the operating 
 room as was described in a sensational paragraph (without 
 names or authentication) which was sent the round of the 
 papers some time ago. A dog released from experiment 
 lias been known to jump up upon the operating table and 
 sit there to inspect with interest his companion having his 
 turn, showing that no very painful impression could have 
 been left on his mind by whatever disagreeables he had 
 undergone. Dogs with gastric fistulaD {i.e., with an opening 
 in the stomach, in which a silver tube is usually fixed,) 
 enjoy life in perfect health, and will sit up or lie down 
 when told, to have different substances injected or extracted. 
 At Professor Lud wig's laboratory, in Leipzig, the dogs used 
 as subjects for many such experiments are neither tied nor 
 chloroformed, but merely patted and talked to while the 
 process is going on. 
 
 Amono- human creatures we see the effect of mental 
 development upon the sense of pain very clearly in the 
 case of children. An infant can be vaccinated without 
 making it cry, if its mind is kept occupied by a bit of sugar 
 
 * "A Chapter in the Ethics of Pain," Fortnighthj Preview, De- 
 cember, 1881. 
 
WHAT IS TAIN 1 15 
 
 held before it ; and it will undergo even nuicli more pain 
 without discouiposui'e, it' well amused. But wlien that 
 child is three or four years older, he will understand that 
 something is going to be done to him ; he will be terrified at 
 the preparations ; neither sugar nor anything else will 
 divert his mind ; and he will be conscious of all the pain 
 given, and probably exaggerate it from terror. If pain 
 can thus be a secondary thought in the minds of infants, 
 it can be still more so in that of animals. 
 
 A house-dog met Avith an accident, l:)y which a large 
 piece of' the skin and flesh above the eyebrow was cut, and 
 hung loose over the eye. His master, a surgeon (who 
 furnishes the anecdote), determined to stitch it. Now, it is 
 well known that — the skin being extremely sensitive — 
 stitching is one of the most painful parts even of serious 
 operations. The dog was taken into a shed, muzzled — for 
 the safety of the operator — and the cut stitched up. All the 
 time that it was beino- done, he Avas strainino" and struo-o-lino- 
 to get away, though never whining nor crying. The 
 instant he was released, he dashed into a corner of the shed, 
 and seized a bone which he had had his eye upon, and 
 which had possessed his soul Avhile he had been undergoing 
 operation without anassthetics, and proceeded to enjoy it. 
 
 A horse, whose leg was badly broken, was sentenced to be 
 shot, but there was considerable delay before the execution 
 could take place. The bones were completely broken 
 through, so that the leg hung loose, a state of things during 
 which the least motion causes a human patient most ex- 
 quisite agony. No suffering is worse than that from a 
 broken bone, and the only w- ay to prevent its becoming- 
 intolerable is to avoid the slightest jar which can grate the 
 fragments against each other or the surrounding flesh. 
 But during the two hours between its injury and its death 
 
16 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 this horse grazed, and limped about to graze, carrying the 
 fractured limb dangling !"*" 
 
 Such cases as these leave it no longer to conjecture 
 whether animals feel as keenly as we do. We knew 
 beforehand that they were not likely to do so, on account 
 of their lower mental calibre, implying an inferior supply 
 of nervous energy, and also on account of the absence of the 
 mental element in their sufferings ; we saw that their 
 reactions (commonly called " signs of pain ") proved only 
 irritability, and not feeling ; and here is absolute demon- 
 stration of the truth of our inferences. 
 
 It may be well to add a few words on the absolute pain- 
 fulness of important operations, both upon the human sub- 
 ject and upon animals, whether for purposes of cure or of 
 experiment. The suffering is really much exaggerated. 
 The cutting of the skin is very painful, because it is amph' 
 provided with fine twigs of nerves, apd, above all, with the 
 terminals of nerves. But the deeper tissues below are, for 
 the most part, only sparsely penetrated by trunks of nerves, 
 and are supplied with nerve terminals which have nothing- 
 to do with sensation ; and unless a nerve trunk be cut 
 (when there is a momentary flash of intense pain), there 
 is little feeling. From the few operations that must still 
 be clone without the use of anaesthetics, surgeons know that 
 only the cutting of the skin causes the patients any great 
 deo-ree of pain. Indeed, the deeper structures may be 
 probed, incised, or pinched, without causing even uneasiness, 
 except a nerve-fibre lie in the way of the instrument. In 
 such a case, the patient being a man, we can hear what is. 
 really felt, and know that the pain is moderate, even with 
 
 * Both this and the preceding anecdote are vouched for by eye- 
 witnesses, and will doubtless recall to most readers similar instances. 
 of the indifference shown by even the most sensitive of our domestic 
 animals to what we should call intense pain. 
 
WHAT IS PAIN ? 17 
 
 extensive laceration of the deeper soft parts. Such facts 
 .show us that it is not safe to judge of what is terrible to 
 suffer by what is terrible to witness. 
 
 The pain of convalescence is often counted among the 
 sufferings inflicted upon animals by experiment, and not 
 obviated by chloroform. But in reality they scarcely 
 suffer at all. It cannot be supposed that they are worse ofl' 
 than human beings recovering from severe operations, and 
 as long as no complications set in, such patients are easy 
 and comfortable. Even a severe cutting operation which 
 removes some source of irritation, is felt to give immediate 
 relief; the mere healing of the cut surfaces actually causes 
 no pain ; and if one questions the recent " operation cases " 
 in the surgical ward of a hospital as to how they feel, the 
 usual answer is " quite comfortable." Indeed, if it is not, 
 the surgeon suspects that something has gone wrong, and 
 the wound must be examined. The healthy flesh of 
 animals heals more rapidly and even more painlessly than 
 that of men, and their supposed suflerings during convales- 
 cence are really a myth. 
 
 The introduction of the aseptic^' treatment of wounds has 
 certainly assisted to ensure this complete absence of pain 
 after cutting operations. As inflammation is thus warded 
 off, the heat, swelling, and painful throbbing, which are 
 almost inseparable from its slightest form, are also 
 prevented. Some time ago, a case was brought into a 
 police-court, in which a surgeon was charged with having 
 kept monkeys in torture for months, because he had per- 
 formed a series of experiments upon their brains. Now, 
 what were the facts ? During the whole of the actual 
 operation, it was necessary to keep the animals in a state 
 of profound anaesthesia ; the most exquisite care was needed 
 
 * Treatment witli carbolic acid, in order to destroy the microscopic 
 organisms which cause inflammation in wounds. 
 
 C 
 
18 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 in its performance, that the result might be successful ; the 
 wounds were treated antiseptically, to avoid inflammation, 
 and as a result, it only took place in one case out of the 
 twenty-six operated upon. How then were these animals 
 " tortured " ? 
 
 It seems to be supposed by many people who write on 
 this subject, that injuries to the brain are in themselves 
 painful ; and the ugly expressions "washing the brain away" 
 and " reducing a dog's brain to the condition of a lately- 
 hoed potato-field "* are quoted and re-quoted as if they 
 implied the infliction of horrors. But as a matter of fact, 
 injury to the brain itself causes no pain, and wounds of the 
 skull often pass through their entire course without the 
 patient having even a headache. The accurate scientific 
 account of such an injury, occurring in a human being, 
 Avhich appears in a recent German medical periodical, seems 
 to put the question beyond doubt. A 3'outh, aged 18, re- 
 ceived a blow of a hammer in the temple, which cut the 
 scalp, fractured the skull, and ruptured the coA^ering of the 
 brain. The result of this was that a considerable quantity 
 of the brain-substance escaped on three several days. The 
 wound was dressed aseptically, and healed shortly without 
 any inflammation. Although many paralytic symptoms 
 followed, the patient never lost consciousness, and remem- 
 bered perfectly every circumstance connected with the injury, 
 symptoms, and treatment, from first to last. From the time 
 when the wound was first dressed, to its complete healing 
 and the disappearance of all symptoms, he never coiniiiilained 
 of any 2'Kiin, nor even had the least headache.'f Every 
 practical surgeon is familiar Avith cases proA^ing equally 
 AA'ell the Avant of sensibility in the substance of the brain. 
 
 * Miss Cobbe, quoting from a German writer. 
 
 t " Ein Fall Traumatischer Apliasie." Sitznngsbericlit der Wilrz- 
 burg. Phys. Med. Gesellschaft, 1882. 
 
WHAT IS PAIN' ? v.) 
 
 Sucli cases enable us to estimate the value of the indii;-- 
 nation expended upon all these experhnents on the Ijraiii. 
 The only pain given is that to the feelings of tender-hearted 
 people ignorant of physiolog}' ; but that appears to ha\'e 
 been so intense as to render it necessary to stop tlie expe- 
 riments, arrest English inquiry into the functions of the 
 brain, and limit the gaining of experience in the treatment 
 of its injuries to what can be acquired b}' Nature's experi- 
 ments upon human subjects. 
 
 We have now seen that the Feeling of Pain is dependent 
 upon Consciousness, and, in a certain degree, proportionate 
 to Intellect ; consequently, an animal at any time suffers 
 less than a man would do fi-om the same cause ; and under 
 anaesthetics (like man) does not suffer at all. Injuries to 
 the brain are painless to men, and must, therefore, be 
 painless to animals. Prolonged and deep operations are 
 not more painful to men than superficial ones (since the 
 cutting of the skin is the acutely painful phase of any 
 operation), and therefore they cannot be so to animals ; and 
 we have moreover seen from facts, that what would cause 
 us agony hardly disturbs their equanimity. Convalescence 
 after operations is normally painless to both. All these 
 facts must be borne in mind in further discussing the 
 question of experiment on Living Animals. 
 
 C '2 
 
20 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHAT IS CRUELTY ? 
 
 Cruelty defined — What is sufficient j ustification for giving Pain ? — 
 Not merely the good of the sufferer — Nor his consent — But the 
 attainment of an adequate benefit — Benefits aimed at in Physio- 
 logical Experiment — These surpass the evil of Pain in quality — 
 And exceed it in quantity — Consequently the benefit aimed at is 
 adequate — Answer to objection. 
 
 We are "all agreed that cruelty is wrong. 
 
 The question to be solved, therefore, is : — What is 
 cruelty ? 
 
 The simplest thorough definition seems to be : — The 
 wanton or excessive infliction of pain. 
 
 The tvanton infliction of pain is that for which there is 
 no justification ; the excessive is that for which there is 
 justification in fact, but not in degree. Both terms imply 
 that there can be such justification. Let us try to ascertain 
 what it is. 
 
 The first consideration that suggests itself is — that it is 
 justifiable to infiict pain upon another for its own good. We 
 act upon this principle constantly, with clear consciences, 
 and in the cases of those whom we love best. In the 
 education of children, and the care of the sick, or in the 
 treatment of criminals — who are socially children, and 
 morally sick — we do not hesitate to refuse what is pleasant, 
 and enforce what is painful. But this principle is not a 
 
WHAT IS CRUELTl' ? 21 
 
 sufficient guide. It is quite possible to do (-omjthing 
 which is really cruel, for the good of the sufferer. Let us 
 suppose a case. Two children — a boy and a girl — are dis- 
 figured by teeth which have been allowed to grow crooked. 
 The mischief has gone so far that it can only be remedied 
 by long and painful treatment. There will be constant 
 discomfort and distress for months, and tooth drawing and 
 other very painful minor operations from time to time. 
 The teeth are sound, and there is no danger of w^orse 
 consequences than the ugly appearance. It is certainly 
 for the children's good that this should be amended, and 
 the father takes them to a dentist. But the boy is very 
 nervous and sensitive ; he suffers agonies of terror at the 
 mere rattle of the instruments in the drawer; he is 
 reduced to fainting by his first experience of them, and 
 loses his sleep from pain and general nervous misery. 
 Would not any friend advise the father : — " Give it up ; 
 it is cruelty to torment the child so for a matter of mere 
 appearance ; when he is grown up he can w^ear a moustache 
 and partly hide the defect; and, after all, looks are of 
 little consequence to a man" ? Whereas, if the boy w^ere 
 sturdy and robust, his father would do well to encourage 
 him to bear the pain, or even insist on his doing so, for 
 his future advantage. But with the girl he would be 
 much more unwilling to give up the attempt, and his 
 lady friends w^ould certainly urge him to persevere, 
 reminding him that if her health suffered from pain and 
 fright, she might be nursed up into strength afterwards ; 
 but that there would never be another chance of saving 
 her from disfigurement, and it would be a ssrious drawback 
 to her through life. In this case, the pain is alwaj's 
 inflicted for the good of the individual, whether girl or boy ; 
 but our judgment of whether its infliction is cruel or 
 not, varies according to the proportion between the pain 
 
2-^ 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 tiiven. and tlic object aimed at. Hence we conclude 
 that — Pain ^iven for the s'ood of the individual itself 
 may Lc unjustifiable, if the good to he obtained is not 
 suffLclent. 
 
 Another qualification which naturally occurs to the mind 
 is the consent of the sufferer. It may be urged that there 
 can be no cruelty with the goodwill of the person chiefly 
 concerned. But in the case which we have just been con- 
 sidering, if the boy liad been very conscientious and 
 obedient, as well as very nervous and sensitive, it would 
 surely have increased the father's cruelty, if he had used 
 the child's conscience to enforce unreasonably harsh com- 
 mands. Let us suppose another case, this time of suffering 
 with consent for the good of others. It is ?aid that the 
 wife of an American doctor allowed herself to be inoculated 
 with a decoction of mouldy straw, in order to see if the 
 result would be an attack of measles, which proved to be 
 the case. Measles (though extremely unpleasant) is not a 
 very painful complaint ; and when we tliink of the risk 
 that the lady ran, and of tlie discomfort to which she sub- 
 mitted, in order to further her husband's investigations, we 
 are only inclined to admire her devotion to him and to 
 science. But suppose that his ascendancy over her mind 
 had induced her to let him inoculate her with leprosy, in 
 order to try the agonizing modes of cure in use among the 
 natives of some of the South Sea Islands. Should we not 
 feel that he had been guilty of cruelty, and that obtaining 
 her consent was no palliation ? Suppose, besides, that he 
 had no intention of practising on leprous cases, or of pub- 
 lishing his results, but was merely gratifying a scientific 
 curiosity ; would he not be deemed brutal beyond excuse ? 
 On the other hand, suppose that he had nearly perfected a 
 mode of healing, however painful, and needed but one test 
 case to decide some critical point ; after which he intended 
 
WHAT IS CRrELTV ? 23 
 
 to devote his life to curing wliat ha<l been hitherto held to 
 be incurable. If, now, his wife gives herself up to the 
 experiment, and he carries it out, do we not feel that the 
 case is altered ? We may blame it as the very madness of 
 sacrifice, or we may honour it as the sublime of self- 
 devotion, but it is no longer a question of cruelty. Here 
 again, the consent of tlic sufferer is always present ; but 
 whether the pain be supposed the same, or greatly 
 intensified, we judge the total action according to the 
 benefit aimed at ; and conclude that — Pain given with the 
 consent of the individual is unjustifiable, '^'/^/d^^ r/ooc? to /j<3 
 obtained is not siificient. 
 
 We are thus constantly thro^vn back — for a test of the 
 justifiable infliction of pain — upon a certain proportion 
 existino- between the evil of suft'ering caused and the benefit 
 of whatever kind sought to be obtained. In a general 
 w^ay, we can roughly estimate this for ourselves, and do. 
 Every one, sooner or later, has to give pain, or to be the 
 cause of its being given ; and this comparative estimate is 
 either deliberately w^orked out, — or half -consciously made 
 in the back of his mind, by old-established habits of judging, 
 — or brutally and carelessly neglected. Upon wdiether he 
 makes it or not, depends the question of his personal cruelty. 
 Any one who hurts another sentient creature wdthout- in- 
 tendino- to obtain a o-ood o-reater than the harm that he 
 does, is in so far cruel. He may be mistaken in his cal- 
 culations, and obtain no good at all ; and then his act lias 
 proved a cruel one, but he himself was not so. This is the 
 justification of the sportsman. If he defends his sport to 
 his own conscience, he does it by weighing the gain to him- 
 self and others in strength, health, skill, and daring, against 
 the sufferino's of the o-ame, which he tries to make as slight 
 as possible. If he is convinced that the advantages pre- 
 ponderate, he pursues his amusement with a clear conscience, 
 
24 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 and is not cruel ; but if we did not agree with his estimate 
 we should pronounce the sport cruel, and wonder that a 
 humane man did not see it to be so. On the other hand, 
 if he took no heed of the pain which he gave, did not try 
 to reduce it as low as possible, or feel that it needed to be 
 justified, we should then condemn him as brutal ; and, 
 much more, if he took any pleasure in looking on at these 
 sufferings. 
 
 What is true of the sportsman is equally true of the 
 scientific experimenter. If a physiologist gives pain with- 
 out being convinced that the object he has in view justifies 
 it, if he is indifferent as to its amount, neglectful of allevi- 
 ating or preventing it, where possible, — above all, if he takes 
 any pleasure in witnessing it, — he is cruel ; and if he is also 
 eminent, his eminence only lifts high his fault, and mingles 
 bars of shadow in the glory of an illustrious name. And 
 as we have now to do with scientific experiment, we will 
 leave aside all the other causes for which pain may be given, 
 and enquire only : What are the benefits aimed at in such 
 experiments, and how can they be estimated in comparison 
 with pain, when any is given ? 
 
 The widest and highest ahn of physiological experiment, 
 whether painful or painless, is the advance of physiological 
 knowledge ; and this is the one which scientific medical men 
 regard most highly, and which it is most difficult to make 
 laymen regard at all. Every scrap of knoAvledge is turned 
 to practical account sooner or later ; the sounder and more 
 accurate that knowledge is, the more trustworthy are the 
 conclusions drawn from it ; the more doctors learn of the 
 nature and working of the machine they have to repair, 
 the less likely they are to make mistakes in dealing with 
 it, and be it remembered that a onedical mistake may mean 
 a lost life. But this is too long an outlook for popular legis- 
 ation, and under our present law, no experiment is allowed 
 
WHAT IS C'RUELTV ? 25 
 
 of wliieli the beneficial olyect is not direct and immediate. 
 This does not aflect the line of armiment ; for the benefits 
 sought are the same in both cases ; only by adyaneiiig- 
 Physiology they are sought indirectly, and on a large scale, 
 instead of directly, on a small one. They may be resumed 
 in four: relief from 2^<^'i^'^, leiigfitened life, vestondion of 
 'mental or hodilij activity, and restoration to health. 
 
 How can we now bring these into comj^arison with pain, 
 and find a common measure by which to estimate their 
 values ? It is not impossible. There are two modes in 
 which a good may exceed an eyil, in quality and in quantity. 
 It may be of a higher class, or it may be of a larger amount. 
 If it should exceed in one and be exceeded in the other, the 
 balance would be yery difficult to strike ; but if it exceeded 
 in both, the question would be solyecl beyond dispute. Such 
 is the case here ; and we find our common measure in ease, 
 freedom from pain. Ease and pain are exact equivalents in 
 quality ; one is a good, the other is an evil, but they are both 
 of the same order. So let A and B be two indiyiduals of 
 the same nature, and exactly alike. If pain be inflicted 
 upon A by which B is relieved from the same amount of 
 pain, and the relief and the suffering last for the same 
 length of time, it is evident that an exact equivalent has 
 been obtained, but no more. But longer life is a benefit of 
 a higher class than ease ; for men will cling to life and pray 
 for it, in spite of discomfort, and even severe pain. And 
 mental or bodily activity are better things than ease ; for 
 men will endure pain rather than cloud their minds with 
 opiates, and toil on when every exertion is distress, and we 
 honour them for so doins:. Health, ao'ain, includes ease, and 
 also the capacity for those activities which we have just 
 seen to be superior to it. Therefore : 
 
 Ease is (as to quality) e(|ual to pain : 
 
 Long life is superior to ease ; 
 
2(j PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 Activity is superior to ease ; 
 
 Health is superior to ease. 
 (Jondusion : Long life, mental and hodlly activity, and 
 health, are benefits which in quality more than balance the 
 cihI of 'pain. And if A's pain purchases them for B, it has 
 heen fully counterbalanced. 
 
 But, it may be said, although the life of the victim may not 
 be shortened, yet while it is being kept in pain for the 
 sake of all these beneficial results to another, its activities 
 are suspended and its health destroyed. This is true, and 
 brings us a step farther. If A and B are exactly equal 
 creatures, the loss of activity to one is not more than 
 balanced by the gain to the other. But if B belongs to 
 a superior class — much morfe, if he is a man and A is 
 any other animal — the activities saved will be very much 
 more varied, numerous, and efficient than those sacrificed ; 
 and the scale will again dij) on the side of benefit. Of 
 course, human activities are sometimes so perverted as to 
 l>e positively injurious to society and to the man himself ; 
 l)ut these are exceptional cases. As a rule, " a man is 
 l)ctter than a sheep,"* or even than " a dog, cat, mule, 
 ass, or horse."-f- The conclusion which cannot be escaped 
 is — that if the keeping of one rabbit, dog, or other animal 
 in pain could buy the health, long life, or activity of one 
 man who would otherwise have suffered equal pain, died, 
 or been rendered useless, a distinct advantage has been 
 gained to the community and to the universe. We reach 
 a stand-point in this minimum of benefit. Let any one who 
 dislikes the conclusion answer distinctly : If the question 
 is whether a man or a rabbit shall have a ceiiain amount 
 of pain, is it better that it should be the man? And if 
 it is not better that he should have the pain, is it better 
 that he should have what is worse to him than the pain? 
 
 * Matth. xii. 12. + Cruelty to Animals Act, 1870. 
 
AVHAT IS CRUELTY ? 27 
 
 It is now clear tluit the evil inflicted on animals in 
 painful experiments is exceeded in quality by the good 
 sought to be obtained for man. We have next to compare 
 the two in quantity. 
 
 We have hitherto been supposing that the pain suffered 
 lasted as long as the benefit purchased. But this is never 
 the case. The most prolonged painful experiment that could 
 be imagined would only last during a few hours*, a far 
 shorter time than many an agonizing disease ; but a 
 restoration to health or a relief from pain for such a time 
 would never be thought worth counting among the good 
 results of experimental medicine. To cure a sick man is 
 generally to give him a period of restored health and 
 efficiency which may be counted by years ; at any rate, 
 whatever is worth calling " a cure " at all lasts for much 
 longer than the longest painful experiment. The pain 
 passes, the relief remains ; the lower creature finds a 
 speedy end to its sufferings in release or death ; the ma]i 
 lives on in renewed health and power ; what is evil is 
 transient, what is good is enduring. Even in the case, 
 then, of one animal suffering for one man, we see that the good 
 obtained exceeds the evil in quantity, because lasting longer. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, such a simple case of one versus 
 one seldom occurs. The only instance of it is the rare one 
 when a surgeon tries an experiment upon an animal, for 
 the sake of perfecting himself in it, before performing it 
 upon a man. This would seem a most righteous use of 
 vivisection, and all the above arguments would apply to it 
 in full force, even if the subject could not be anaesthetized. 
 When a surgeon knows that the life or death of a fellow- 
 creature, with all the innumerable ties of duty and affection 
 
 * A series of experiments might of course last longer, but then they 
 would have intervals ; and so also would an induced illness, but the 
 animal is generally killed as soon as the disease is fully developed. 
 
28 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 which hang round all human lives that are not desolate, is 
 shortly to depend upon his skill, surely it is his duty to fit 
 himself for that solemn charge by every means in his power. 
 Besides, such experiments for gaining operative experience 
 could nearly always be performed under chloroform ; but 
 although they might be quite painless, and their usefulness. 
 is peculiarly direct and obvious, they are expressly forbidden 
 by our English law. We need not, therefore, consider them 
 further. 
 
 The next simple case is that in which a definite number 
 of animals is experimented upon for a definite object, and 
 we know the result. For instance, we know that — in order 
 to perfect the method of performing the operation known 
 by his name — Mr. Spencer Wells operated upon 16 (?) 
 anaesthetized rabbits and guinea-pigs. And we know also 
 that with his ow^n hand he treated successfully 600 women, 
 who would otherwise have had an exceedingly small chance 
 of life, considering the danger of so terrible an operation, 
 before his experiments. We know, moreover, that this. 
 number is constantly increasing, as other surgeons of suffi- 
 cient skill rise up and avail themselves of his method, while 
 no more rabbits need be killed. 
 
 It is not often, however, that we can so distinctly put in 
 two columns the lives sacrificed and the lives saved ; and, 
 though such instances are distinct and impressive, they are 
 not in the least necessary to the argument. Usually expe- 
 riments are made upon a number of animals which we are 
 without means of computing ;* their results are collated 
 with and modified by other trains of investigation; and the 
 conclusion drawn affects an unascertainable number of 
 patients, in different degrees, qualified by the varying skill 
 of the doctors applying it. Moreover, such experiments do 
 not always give the expected j-esult. Theories, which it 
 was sought to prove by vivisection, have been disproved by 
 * Except in England, under the new law, of course. 
 
AVHAT IS CRUELTY ? 29 
 
 it ; and the result of the experiment has been to detect 
 mistake, instead of establishing positive truth. False 
 tracks have been started upon ; and animals have bled and 
 died, only to mark "No Thoroughfare" upon some tempting 
 path. But though the result be negative, and the good 
 done has been indirect, it has not been less real. Human 
 victims would have paid the penalty of these errors, if they 
 had not been ransomed by others of lower kind. Whether 
 results are positive or negative, they all go to build up the 
 fabric of an accurate and scientific physiology, upon which 
 (as we saw before, and shall see later with more detail,) the 
 success of medicine chiefly depends. Every patient any- 
 where on the globe, who is treated by any civilised doctor, 
 profits by this sound and accurate knowledge, which owes 
 ISO much — how much I shall try to show in a subsequent 
 chapter — to experiment. And as new lives come into being, 
 and the human race increases, the number of those who 
 thus benefit goes on ever increasing. The consequence is 
 that though we cannot always assign the precise share of 
 vivisection in any investigation of which it has formed a 
 part, yet we can always know that — whether it be great 
 or small — it is midtiplied by a practically infinite factor. 
 While, if it was a painful vivisection, the pain was endured 
 by a limited number of animals for a limited time. Thus, 
 the greatest pain suffered for the smallest actual result 
 would in time be fully counterbalanced, since the lowest 
 iigure, when multiplied by infinity, exceeds the largest 
 •definite sum. Much more is this the case when the result 
 is large and visible to begin with. We conclude, therefore, 
 that even where we have no means of knowing the number 
 •of animals which have suffered, nor the exact degree in 
 which men have benefited by their sufferings under expe- 
 riment — the good still exceeds the evU in quantity. 
 
 It may be objected to this argument that by it we 
 actually destroy all proportion between the pain inflicted 
 
30 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 and the benefit expected, and would justify the most 
 excruciating tortures, in prospect of the smallest possible 
 addition to our knowledge. This would be true, but 
 for two considerations. First, that in practice minute 
 fractions must always be neglected. The very condition 
 which saves the performance of a painful experiment from 
 being cruelty — is the presence in the operator's mind of a 
 distinct expectation of counterbalancing good ; but if this 
 good is diffused and attenuated over infinite time, his finite 
 mind cannot grasp it, and the condition is clearly destroyed. 
 Secondly, the number of individuals benefited is not really 
 infinite, but only practically so, because incalculably large 
 and quite indefinite. The human race must some day 
 become extinct, and all its physical triumphs die with it. 
 These two considerations make a reditctio ad ahsiirdum 
 impossible, and leave the plain and reasonable deduction — 
 that in order to be justified in performing a painful expe- 
 riment, and free from the charge of cruelty, the operator 
 must have in view a benefit proportional to the pain 
 inflicted ; Init that the benefit need not necessarily be 
 proved to be as great to any one individual as the pain is, 
 because it will be shared by an indefinitely larger number, 
 durino' a much longer time. 
 
 I cannot expect that the facts and arguments of the fore- 
 going chapters will convince every one. When all has 
 been explained and argued, there will still remain irrecon- 
 cilables, determined to persist in their war against scientific 
 experiments. But we can now see clearly what this war 
 amounts to. It is an effort to keep many animals in 
 suffering instead of few, men instead of beasts, the most 
 sensitive creature instead of the less sensitive. Whereas, 
 a true and humane physiology seeks to prevent as much 
 as possible of human suffering, at the cost of as little as 
 possible of animal suffering. On which side is the cruelty ? 
 
OUR RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS. -'51. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUR RIGHTS OVER AXIMAL8. 
 
 Experiments on animals asserted to be abstractly wrong — Reasr)ns 
 usually given — Experiment not necessarily demoralizing to the 
 operator — Universality and beneficence of tlie Law < if Vicarious Suf- 
 fering — Our right to apply it to animals for our benefit — Vagueness 
 of the principle generally acted on — The true principle — Mr. Button's 
 principle — Impossibility of carrying it out — Summary. 
 
 When we have proved that even pamful experiments 
 upon animals need not be cruel, we have not disposed of the 
 whole moral difficulty ; in fact, it is only then that we find 
 ourselves face to face with the true crux of the question. 
 The opponents of such experiments assert that they are 
 wrong in themselves, and that therefore it is time wasted 
 to prove that advantages are gained by them, since no 
 profit can justify a crime. I most unreserved!}' admit that 
 no hygienic gain is worth a moral loss, and that the health 
 of one man's body is too dearly purchased by the disease 
 of another man's soul. But ^-ague declamation is not 
 enough. It must be clearly explained to us ivliy such ex- 
 periments are v.''rong, apart from their object and result, 
 before we can admit either to be quite immaterial con- 
 siderations. 
 
 The reasons usually given are four : 1st, tliat they are 
 cruel ; 2nd, that the infliction of pain hardens and de- 
 moralizes the inflictor ; 3rd, that it is unjust to make 
 
22 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 animals suffer for our good ; 4th, that it is an infringement 
 of their rights which we have no authority to make. 
 
 In the last chapter we saw that experiments, when per- 
 formed for good reasons — are not cruel ; for they are 
 intended to save more pain than they inflict ; and it cannot 
 he cruel — of two sufferings to prefer the least. 
 
 Painful experiments — done with a serious purpose and a 
 sufficient reason — are no more demoralizing to the performer 
 than painful operations. In both cases there must be an 
 absorption in the object and the process which withdraws 
 the nerves from much of the harass of sympathy ; but this 
 is essential to the work being properly done, and has no 
 more to do with demoralization than the hardness of a 
 labourer's hand. It is difficult to see how the fact that the 
 operator's object is in one case the good of his subject, 
 and in the other the good of more numerous but remote 
 l^atients, can make any difference in the eflect on his 
 morals. It may make some in the effect on his feelings, 
 rendering the operation the easier to carry through, because 
 the object is more immediately to be reached ; but we must 
 not confuse feelings with principles. Unsteady nerves are 
 not the same thing as sensitive consciences ; and the fact 
 that people cannot bear to see or give pain means much 
 more often that they are weak and selfish than that they 
 are particularly humane. 
 
 Next comes the more serious assertion — that it is unjust 
 to make animals suffer for our good ; and as many ex- 
 periments are made in investigating the diseases of animals, 
 this spreads itself out into the general question : 7s it right 
 that one creature should suffer for the good of o,nother? 
 
 Vicarious suffering is one of the darkest mysteries — as it 
 is one of the most comprehensive laws — of the sentient 
 world. There are times when we all rebel against its 
 terrible and unequal pressure, and cry out passionately : 
 
OUR RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS, 33 
 
 ' ' That not a moth with vain desire 
 Be shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserve another's gain." 
 
 But in saner moments we bow before its stern beneficence, 
 and recognize that it alone has moulded the forms of beauty 
 and strength which we see around us in insect, bird, and 
 beast ; and that it alone is developing rarer and higher 
 beauty in the spiritual life of man. The most insignificant 
 fly that dances through a summer's day opens out its mar- 
 vellous little wings with strength and dexterity, because 
 thousands of other flies that were slow and clumsy were 
 snapped up by their enemies ; the robin pipes his autumn 
 song, because dozens of quiet caterpillars and writhinf»" 
 worms have been pecked to death to feed that cheery 
 sweetness. It is not all horror. The less goes to make the 
 greater, the imperfect fades before the perfect, the whole 
 creation groans and travails in pain together, yet the New 
 Heavens and Earth are ever being born. Much more is it 
 so in the world of men. By this law the human race is 
 solidaire. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the 
 children, and the children's sins are a curse to their fathers ; 
 but so also a blessing descends from generation to genera- 
 tion, and only those who stand within the shadow of the 
 curse can lighten it. Suflering with the suffering, or for 
 the faults and errors of other men, is the lot of all ; but the 
 knowledge of what it is so to suffer, and the certainty that 
 our own faults and errors will lay the like on others, are 
 among the most powerful motives to hold us back from 
 evil. Were not our hearts bound to each other by cords which 
 wrench one when another breaks, we should be a mass of 
 disintegrated units, with no common life, no racial unity, 
 lower than the beasts who do feel— if not for, at least, with 
 each other. And this we admit and express in our worship. 
 The apotheosis of utter self-sacrifice is that around which 
 
 D 
 
34 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 the Christian's most sacred thoughts and aspirations cling, 
 
 which he aspires, however dimly, to imitate ; at least, which 
 
 he owns as the perfect ideal of manhood. And those who 
 
 do not believe that that ideal ever 
 
 ' ' Had breatli, and wrought 
 With, human hands the creed of creeds," 
 
 must still confess that (tried by the most utilitarian 
 standard) the great law of nature which secures the benefit 
 of all by the sacrifice of some, is justified in its working. 
 
 In the abstract, then, we declare that it is right and well 
 that one should suffer for the sake of another ; there is 
 nothing in it at all revolting to our moral feeling. We live 
 by and under this law ; we submit to it, because we must ; 
 we accept it, if we are wise. It is not possible to carry on 
 this discussion with any one who rebels against it ; he must 
 become a loyal and law-abiding subjectof the world he lives 
 in, before he is qualified to discuss its administration. 
 
 The remaining question is : Have lue the right to constitute 
 ourselves administrators of this laiu, and to apply it to 
 animals for our own interest ? Nature will do so in the 
 interest of their race if we let her alone ; but when we 
 domesticate any creature, we to a certain extent protect 
 it from her action. We withdraw it from the struggle for 
 3xistence, and substitute artificial for natural selection. 
 We do not allow it to be starved out by stronger compe- 
 titors, or devoured by wild enemies. Have we then 
 entirely delivered it from the general law, and are we bound 
 to make its existence nothing but a pleasurable one ? 
 
 Of course no one says anything so unreasonable. It is 
 generally admitted that we may chase and kill an animal, 
 often necessarily with much pain, not because its life and 
 liberty interferes with ours, but because its death will 
 render our life more complete, perhaps in the most trivial 
 detail. We kill them (without anaesthetics) not only that 
 
OUK RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS, 35 
 
 we may have food and clothing, but that the food may be 
 varied and attractive, and the clothing rich and beautiful.* 
 We subject them to painful mutilations in order to make 
 them more manageable for service, to improve the flavour 
 of their flesh, and even to please our whimsical fancies. 
 We imprison them in cages and Zoological Gardens, to 
 improve our knowledge of Natural History, or merely to 
 iimuse ourselves by looking at them. It is abundantly 
 clear that in all our customary dealings with animals we 
 apply to them without scruple the law of sacrifice, and 
 interpret it with a wide latitude in our own favour. What 
 was said in the preceding chapter about the respective 
 values of human and brute activities will go to justify as 
 much of this as is justifiable ; but it is certainly carried too 
 far, and there is a great want of a fixed standard. 
 
 So far, the general principle of dealing with animals 
 which is in a vague way accepted by most humane persons, 
 but seldom distinctly formulated, seems to be that we may 
 kill, inconvenience, or pain them, for any benefit, conven- 
 ience, or pleasure to ourselves ; but that the pain must be 
 within moderate limits (of course undefined), and that it 
 must form no element in our pleasure. For this I propose 
 to substitute the far stricter rule, that we must commit no 
 cruelty towards them, — defining cruelty as the infliction of 
 pain without an adequate good object. This goes far beyond 
 what is usually put in practice, and any one who tries to 
 apply it in every case will find it a sufiiciently stringent 
 limitation. But it certainly does not come up to the new 
 principle which we are askedf to recognize, even the same 
 
 * Sardines, wliite-bait, shrimps — compare the amount of food and 
 the loss of life implied in the words. Fur trinunings, ornamental 
 feathers, gloves— what is the proportion there between the satisfying 
 of human needs and the destruction of animal enjoyment ? 
 
 t By INIr. Hutton, Nineteenth Century, January, 1882, p. 37. 
 
 d2 
 
36 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 that we find it so hard to carry out towards our fellow-men, 
 the golden rule of doing as we would be done by. "We are 
 told to " put ourselves in the place of the lower animals, and 
 ask what we, with their pains, and their sensitiveness, and 
 their prospects of life, and pain, and happiness, might fairly 
 expect of beings of much greater power, but of common 
 susceptibilities." This brings us to our fourth point, the 
 infringement of the rights of animals ; and we can best- 
 discuss it in discussing Mr. Hutton's proposed standard. 
 
 To begin with, such an effort of the imagination is almost 
 impossible. If we transplant ourselves into the place of the 
 lower animals, it is always we who are there ; we, with our 
 own susceptibilities, not theirs, and our intellects working- 
 up the raw material of their feelings. This is precisely 
 what we see happening in a great deal that is written 
 upon this subject. People talk about the rights of animals, 
 and import into the discussion the very feeling of personal 
 outrage and wrong which they themselves would have if 
 any of their own were invaded. But the sense of individual 
 rights is not even necessarily human. How much of it can 
 a Fijian have, who stands still to be knocked on the head, 
 because " the king has willed it ; "* or a Dahomean, who> 
 belongs to a nation of which every man is the king's slave ? 
 Probably the Fijian does not like to be knocked on the 
 head, any more than an ox does, but it is absurd to assume 
 in the beast a sense of injury which is absent in the man. 
 The fact is, that we can realize an animal's sensibility, but 
 not its insensibility ; its knowledge, but not its ignorance ;. 
 its powers, but not their limitations. Nothing is more hope- 
 less than the attempt to expel from our minds that with which 
 we are perfectly familiar ; the old knowledge will sneak in 
 again at the back door of our argument, and we shall find 
 
 * Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," vol. i. p. 583. 
 
OUR RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS. 
 
 87 
 
 it quietly underlying the most novel deduction. This is so 
 with the sentence quoted from Mr. Hutton, where the inno- 
 cent-looking words " fairly expect" involve the whole sense 
 of mutual duty and personal right which is exclusively 
 human, and which some races even of men have yet to be 
 educated up to. We shall see this more clearly if we 
 attempt to make the supposition which he proposes. 
 
 We must try, then, to imagine ourselves belonging to 
 superior beings, who make us obey them in all things, and 
 whose reasons we can seldom understand. They tie or shut 
 us up, in order to prevent our going where we wish — they 
 whip us, to make us go where they wish — they prevent our 
 making love, for fear of its interfering with our work — 
 they keep us in prisons, because they like to look at us and 
 hear us sing — they take away our clothes, in order to wear 
 them themselves — they crop our ears, because they think 
 we look prettier with them short — they do various painful 
 thino-s to us, in order to make us taste nicer when cooked — 
 and, finally, they kill and eat us. We are ignorant of most 
 of their reasons for these unpleasant proceedings ; but just 
 in proportion as our intellects are developed and our cha- 
 racters fine, we acquiesce in this state of things, and are 
 loving and loyal to our masters, with an unquestioning 
 obedience and an unrebelling submission. But having come 
 to this point, if we were suddenly enabled to understand 
 the reasons for each action, our dispositions remaining the 
 same, is it likely that the sense of injury which had not 
 been evoked by anything else would arise when they went 
 on to use us for experiments for the advancement of their 
 science, and the improvement of their own health ? If we 
 were willing to be killed in order to support life as food, why 
 should we object to die in order to preserve it by knowledge ? 
 Of course, it is an absurd supposition altogether ; the con- 
 fusion between what animals cannot possibly understand, 
 
38 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 and what we should have to suppose ourselves in their place 
 understanding, in order to pass judgment on the morality of 
 their treatment — is inextricable, and altogether it is an idea 
 that cannot be worked out ; but the attempt to apply the 
 " put yourself in his place" argument altogether fails to 
 convince us that under any circumstances we should object 
 most to the pain inflicted for the best reasons. 
 
 Mr. Hutton is willing to admit the inoculation class of 
 experiments, " especially as these inoculations may well 
 benefit not only man but the very creatures who suffer 
 them." It is not clear whether he means the individuals 
 which suflfer, or the Jcioid of creatures. If the former, the 
 consideration has little force ; because in every series of such 
 experiments, the failures must be the majority, — for when 
 marked success has been reached, the experiment is at an 
 end. If the latter, it follows that he thinks it more moral 
 to cause an animal pain for the sake of others of the same 
 species than of others of a higher order. It is difficult to 
 follow this reasoning, or to see what difference it would 
 make to the creature concerned. 
 
 Let us gather up the scattered threads of this chapter. 
 We have proved that all creatures — human and other — 
 live under the Law of Sacrifice ; and that animals owe their 
 physical prosperity — and men their social union and spiritual 
 elevation — to this Law, in the first place submitted to un- 
 consciously, in the latter accepted more or less deliberately. 
 We have seen that when we withdraw animals from the 
 natural action of this Law, we apply it to them ourselves 
 for our own interest, and that this is the condition of their 
 being of value, use, or pleasure to us. 
 
 We have laid down for our guidance in dealing with 
 them the rule of causing them no pain without an adequate 
 good object, and have found it to be more stringent than 
 any at present prevailing. 
 
OUR RIGHTS OVER ANIMALS. 39 
 
 We have found it impossible to go further, and apply to 
 them the Golden Rule, the differences in nature, sensibility, 
 and intellect, being insuperable by the imagination. 
 
 But we have seen no reason to suppose that it can be 
 lawful to give pain for purposes of human convenience, 
 pleasure, business, or food, — and unlawful to give it for 
 purposes of human health and knowledge. 
 
 We therefore conclude that to make iKtinful experiments 
 upon living animals lies luithin an universally recognized 
 right over themi, and is not tvrong in itself, hut dependjS 
 for its morality or immorality u]pon the circumstances and 
 motives of each particidar act. 
 
40 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 
 
 Wliat is Vivisection ? — Various definitions — Dissecting alive — True 
 sense of the word — Course of study in physiblogical laboratories — 
 Histological department — Chemical department — Physical depart- 
 ment—Experiments upon detached tissue and organs — Experiments 
 upon pithed animals — Painful experiments — Inoculations — Testing 
 of drugs — Use of anaesthetics — Statistics of experiments performed 
 — Conclusion. 
 
 We have now made some progress in our inquiry. 
 Having obtained a clear conception of what pain is, we 
 have seen when its infliction is justifiable, and when it 
 amounts to cruelty, and we have also decided that we have 
 a right to inflict it upon the lower animals, when necessary 
 for the purposes of beneficent science. We have to deal 
 with an entire denial of that right, and a determined effort 
 to abolish the power of using it. It therefore' seems as if 
 our next step should be to ask what use is made of it 
 already. What is the state of affairs which it is proposed 
 to improve upon ? To what extent is vivisection practised 
 in England ? 
 
 But another question must come before this. What is 
 vivisection ? Literally, of course, the cutting of a living 
 thing, such as opening an oyster, crimping a cod, or foxing 
 a terrier. Sir Thomas Watson rather vaguely explains it 
 as " the cutting into any living animal for scientific pur- 
 
WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 41 
 
 poses."* " Vernon Lee "f says that " vivisection is a generic 
 name for torture," an expression of which much meditation 
 has hitherto failed to reveal the meaning. Webster's dic- 
 tionary gives it as : " The dissection of an animal while 
 alive, for the purpose of making physiological investigation." 
 Probably this is a fair statement of the popular notion.^ Many 
 people suppose that — just as an anatomist lays bare nerve 
 after nerve and muscle after muscle in a dead body, tracing- 
 each from its source to its remotest ramification, until he is 
 thoroughly acquainted with its position and relations — so 
 the physiologist studies the functions of living organs, 
 displaying them and watching their working in the living 
 body, and making each subject serve for as many experi- 
 ments as possible, until death renders it useless. Nothing 
 less than such an idea will justify the language used by 
 some of the anti-vivisectionists about "the most cruel of 
 cruelties." Still, it is rather out of date, for it is about two 
 hundred years since it represented any existing fact. No 
 doubt, the anatomists of the middle ages did cut open 
 living bodies to see what was going on inside ;§ but now, 
 the coarser structure and general relationships of the prin- 
 cipal organs are understood and taught on the dead human 
 .subject, which in olden times was out of the reach of the 
 most skilled anatomist. As we shall see, there are other 
 means of teaching the functions of the different parts of the 
 body to students than the old actual vivisections. The 
 experiments now performed on living animals are delicate 
 .and difficult ; they require much time and expensive instru- 
 ments ; some of the most important involve very little 
 operating; and there is nothing at all corresponding to 
 
 * Report of Royal Commission, Appendix III. , § 1. 
 
 t Contempurary Review, May, 1882, p. 707. 
 
 + See Appendix A., H 5. 
 
 ^ The practice was recommended by Bacon, see Appendix C. , IT 11. 
 
42 PHYSIOLOGICAL CKUELTY. 
 
 dissection, or " cutting up." Webster's definition is there- 
 fore misleadinof, and the literal meanino- is valueless for 
 this discussion. One might speak of vivisecting a plant, 
 for there is vegetable life as well as animal ; and it is 
 certainly vivisection to cut up tissue which is itself living, 
 though removed from a dead animal. But this sort of 
 thing is not what people mean when they talk about 
 vivisection. They mean making any experiment upon 
 animals which gives them pain, whether there is any cutting- 
 in it or not ; they generally have some loose ideas about 
 dissecting alive, like Mr. Webster's ; and the more careless 
 or dishonest of them throw in " torture " as a natural 
 accompaniment, without waiting to inquire into the degree 
 of pain caused. The word has thus become so vague as to 
 be almost useless for purposes of argument, and I have 
 hitherto tried to dispense with it as far as possible, and 
 shall continue to do so ; but if I am obliged to use it, it will 
 always be in the true sense of cutting a living thing, whether 
 animal or vegetable, sentient or insentient, an organism or 
 a part of an organism. When experiments on living animals 
 are in question, it is easy to call them by their right name. 
 
 Only a small part of the work done in physiological 
 laboratories consists of such experiments, but though their 
 proportion to the rest is small in quantity, it is large in 
 importance. Both statements Avill be best explained by a 
 short review of the various sections into which Practical 
 Physiology is divided, both in text-books and in teaching 
 establishments. These will usually be found to be four : i.e., 
 the Histological, Chemical, Physical, and Yital departments.* 
 
 In the Histological department, the pupil studies — by 
 means of the microscope — the minute structure of the 
 tissues of animals and plants. The living animals examined 
 
 * See "The Practice of Yivisection in England," by Professor Yeo. 
 — Fortnighthj Bevieiv, March 1, 1882. 
 
WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 43- 
 
 are (with very few exceptions) tiny animalcule, wliicli 
 swim about under the glass with every appearance of ease, 
 and do not seem to consider themselves victims to science. 
 The common exception is the frog, the web of whose foot is 
 spread out under the object-glass, that the course of the 
 living blood-corpuscles through its transparent substance 
 may be observed. In this case there is no -section at all, 
 and the animal is not injured in any way. It is wrapped 
 in damp cloths, and its toes are held apart by soft threads 
 attached to their tips. Every precaution must be taken 
 against hurting the frog, or irritating its toes with the 
 thread, or even the moderate heat of the human hand, — as 
 the least roughness or want of skill in operating would 
 interfere with the value of the observation, by increasing- 
 or checkino' the flow of the blood in the delicate vessels. 
 A small portion of living tissue is often studied in this 
 department, but then it has been taken from dead animals. 
 Every one, perhaps, may not know that the tissues have an 
 independent life, which may survive for some time the 
 death of the organism, if that has taken place while they 
 were in health. In this way, the movements of the living- 
 cells of man's blood, the contracting of insects' muscles, 
 and many other vital phenomena, may be observed. This 
 study of life without a living creature is not vivisection 
 in the popular sense ; on the contrary, it is necessary that 
 the animal from which the tissues are taken should have 
 been killed as rapidly as possible. On the whole, then, it 
 is clear that in the histological department, which consti- 
 tutes, probably, a fourth of the whole laboratory work, and 
 is the first and most important division of that work in 
 which students have to take an active part — there are no 
 painful experiments, and the vivisections performed are 
 only upon little bits of tissue, and not upon animals. 
 
 We next come to the Chemical department. Here the 
 
44 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 student learns the nature and composition of the secretions 
 and excretions, how to test them, and judge of their cha- 
 racter, — knowledge that will he most important to him in 
 ■diagnosing disease, but in gaining which he works on fluids 
 brought to him in the laboratory, collected painlessly from 
 living human beings, or extracted from the gland-textures 
 of dead animals. Here there is no cause of dispute. 
 
 What I have called the Physical department is that in 
 which the forces of nature are studied in their relation to 
 vital phenomena. The student is provided with an elemen- 
 tary knowledge of the laws of dynamics and mechanics, 
 sufficient to make him understand the action of the atmos- 
 phere in its pressure upon the lungs, the working of the 
 muscles as levers, the principle of the pumping of blood 
 through the body by the heart, &c. Here also mechanical 
 appliances are introduced, to explain the working of the 
 organs, and to investigate and accurately measure the 
 actions of various parts of the body. Models are shown, 
 illustrating the process of breathing, the alternate con- 
 traction and expansion of the heart, the wonderful move- 
 ments of the eyeball, — and the apparatus by which a ray of 
 light is refracted, so as exactly to meet the ending of the 
 optic nerve, and excite visual sensations. The very raison 
 -d'etre of all these expensive and elaborate models and 
 instruments — is to dispense with vivisection. Artificial 
 lungs and mechanical eyeballs would be merely curiosities 
 of inventions, if professors were in the habit of exposing 
 the actual palpitating organs to their pupils' gaze, in the 
 body of a living animal. 
 
 The instruments for measuring the action of certain 
 -organs are indeed used upon living animals, but there is no 
 pain in their application, and the subjects are generally 
 human. The cardiograph writes down the manner in 
 "vvhich the heart beats, the sphygmograph registers the 
 
WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 45' 
 
 character of the pulse, and the ophthahnoscope enables the 
 surgeon to explore the recesses of the eye, and judge of the 
 condition of the nerve itself. The student learns the use 
 of these instruments as well as of the laryngoscope and the 
 thermometer for his future bed-side practice ; but the in- 
 convenience which he inflicts in the process is very trifling, 
 whether he experiments on himself, his relatives at home,, 
 his fellow-students, or the lower animals. At any rate, 
 nothing takes place in the Physical department which need 
 excite any horror, or raise any moral discussion. 
 
 The fourth department is that in which the painful 
 experiments on living animals take place, but they are 
 very far from forming the whole of its work. As in 
 histological investigation, experiments are often made upon 
 living tissue from a dead creature, so here the laws which 
 govern the action of the heart, nerves, and muscles, can be 
 to a great extent studied in organs removed from a re- 
 cently killed animal. If a frog be beheaded,* and its heart 
 extracted, the heart will continue to beat for hours after 
 it has been separated from the body, and influences which 
 will quicken or retard its action may be tried upon it. 
 Nerve-fibre can be stimulated, and muscle wdll contract 
 after they have been taken from an animal thus killed,, 
 and their actions can be excellently studied.-f- Much that 
 was first discovered by vivisection can now be shown and 
 explained in this painless but eflective manner ; and in our 
 English schools it is so explained, and a living creature is 
 never used where a dead one will do. 
 
 Next in order to these experiments upon organs, come 
 experiments upon entire animals, deprived of consciousness 
 and partially of life, by pithing. The creature is put under 
 
 * This mode of death leaves the reflex phenomena of the spinal 
 cord in fullest operation. 
 
 t See Memorandum issued by the Association for the Advancement 
 of Medicine by Research, p. 6. 
 
46 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 an ansestlietic, and the spinal marrow is divided. The 
 nervous centres which preside over the breathing move- 
 ments are thus injured, so that it would die, if oxygen were 
 not supplied to its blood : but by means of a kind of air- 
 pump, artificial respiration is kept up, the heart continues 
 to beat, and functional life is maintained. Still, as has been 
 fully shown in Chap. II., the animal is not really alive ; for 
 it is not capable of spontaneous action, and all sensation 
 has been destroyed, by cutting the communication between 
 the brain and the nerves of the body. The whole appa- 
 ratus, is in the condition of a telegraphic circuit with the 
 wires and battery perfect, but with no operator to work 
 them : there is still receptivity in the instrument, energy in 
 the battery, and conductility in the wire, but there is no 
 spontaneity of action, and there can be no message. 
 
 We now come to experiments more nearly corresponding 
 to the popular idea of vivisection; i.e., those which involve 
 incision or cutting, are performed on living creatures, and 
 are of a nature to give pain, if the subject is not prevented 
 from feeling it. To begin with, it cannot be too often 
 repeated, that in England animals are never " cut uj) " at 
 all, nor are they dissected alive in order to sJioiu the 
 relations of their j)arts. This is taught, as has been 
 already explained, by means of dead subjects, models, and 
 diagrams. When vivisections are performed for teaching 
 purposes, they are done in order to show to students some- 
 thing necessary for them to know, but which they cannot 
 be taught equally well otherwise ; and under the present 
 law ansesthetics must always be used at such demon- 
 strations. So that there is no room for talking about 
 medical students being demoralized by witnessing tortures : 
 there are none for them to witness. Vivisections in 
 original researches are performed only when the question 
 in hand cannot be solved by chemistry, histology, or any 
 
WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 47 
 
 other of the means at command, and always with a definite 
 object in view. The " random experiment " under which 
 we hear of creatures expiring in torment, exists only in the 
 minds of certain excitable but ill-informed writers. 
 
 Painful vivisections are therefore confined to purposes of 
 original research, and in the few cases where pain must be 
 given, it is generally very slight. One large class consists 
 of inoculations, which are chiefly used in studying the 
 orio'in and communication of diseases. There are a few 
 pricks and scratches, giving about as much pain as vacci- 
 nation : and if the disease expected is induced, the subject 
 is usually killed at once, unless kept alive to try modes of 
 treatment. In the former case, it does not suffer ; in the 
 latter, it is carefully nursed and doctored ; and as most 
 sick people prefer being treated to being extinguished, we 
 may fairly suppose that an inoculated rabbit would gladly 
 countersign a certificate to permit the doctor to keep it alive. 
 
 Another large class of experiments consists in trying the 
 effects of drugs upon animals, as a guide to their use upon 
 human patients ; or, in the case of poisons, to study their 
 antidotes and treatment. They are generally administered 
 by injection under the skin, and the — section consists 
 only in pinching up a portion of it, and inserting the 
 pointed nozzle of a syringe. The pain of the actual opera- 
 tion is merely a prick, but that which results will be more 
 or less, according to the nature and action of the drug. 
 
 There then remain a number of experiments which cannot 
 be further classified, relating to the various animal functions, 
 varying according to the points which scientific men desire 
 to ascertain, and which the Home Secretary does not con- 
 sider useless knowledge. In most of these, anaesthetics can 
 be used. Whenever they can be used they are, and always 
 were, before any law was passed on the subject. This was 
 proved abundantly before the Royal Commission, and is 
 
48 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 recognized in their report. Yet, although no fact is better 
 authenticated than this systematic narcotizing of creatures 
 experimented on,* it is quietly and constantly ignored, 
 vivisection is described as the " worst form of cruelty we 
 know/'-f- and the words " agony," " torture," and " torment "" 
 are scattered about as if no such things existed as chloro- 
 form, ether, and morphia. But this is contrary to common 
 sense. If an experimenter did not use them for the sake 
 of humanity, he would for his own convenience. Can any 
 one suppose that it is agreeable to a man conducting a 
 difficult investigation to have the subject crying and rest- 
 less, when he requires perfect stillness for the sake of Ills' 
 delicate instruments, and undisturbed concentration for his 
 own mind ? An anaesthetic of some sort is absolutely 
 necessary for the success of most operations, and equally 
 needful for the feelings of most operators. Doctors are 
 men, — men, the whole object of whose lives is to relieve 
 sufferino^, who live to heal and soothe, and whose feelino;s 
 are constantly cultivated by demands on their help and 
 sympathy, their skill and tenderness. Working physiologists 
 share these influences. They are not a caste of Fakeers, 
 cut off" from all the gentlenesses of life, and vowed neither to 
 pity themselves nor others. They have at home not only 
 their wives and families, but the little child's pet kitten, 
 the devoted dog, their own favourite horse, — all the friendly 
 animal world which gathers round an English home, seldom 
 so poor that it does not hold a pet. Why should it be 
 supposed that they like to hurt a helpless creature lying at 
 their mercy ? As a matter of fact, they do not ; and Mr. 
 Colam's often-quoted evidence % is alone sufficient to show 
 
 * See Digest of Replies to Questions forwarded to the principal 
 Medical Schools. — Report of Royal Commission, Appendix III., § 8. 
 t Miss Cobbe, in Contemporary Bemeiv, February, 1877. 
 X See Appendix B, H 4. 
 
WHAT IS VIVISECTION ? 49 
 
 that no such charge against them could for one instant be 
 supported. If anaesthetics are not constantly mentioned in 
 text-books, it is because their use in every laboratory is 
 talcen for granted.* 
 
 But experiments are sometimes performed without 
 anaesthetics ? That is true ; it can be done under a special 
 certificate ; and let us now see to what extent — under the 
 law as it stands — it is done. We have the reports presented 
 to Parliament of the experiments performed in the years 
 1878, 1879, and 1880. In the report for 1878, the inspector 
 says : " In 16 cases alone, so far as I am able to judge (and 
 these were confined to two sets of experiments), is there 
 any reason to believe that any considerable amount of 
 suffering was directly inflicted." In 24 cases, animals 
 suffered, not from an actual operation, but from induced 
 disease. The report for 1879 states : " The number of 
 experiments in which there is reason to believe that any 
 material suffering was caused appears to have been about 
 25. Of these, 15 were cases in which disease followed the 
 inoculation of infectious matter, but in which no painful 
 operation was performed ; and 10 were experiments upon 
 as many frogs, in which an incision of the skin was required 
 for the introduction beneath it of a medical substance." 
 The account for 1880 is similar. In about 30 instances 
 disease was induced, " which, during the brief period the 
 animals survived, may have caused slight suffering." There 
 were no other painful experiments.-|- 
 
 This then is the sum total of the pain-giving experi- 
 ments upon animals performed in England during three 
 years. Less than 100 cases, of which the great majority 
 consist of inoculations, followed — not by torture, but — by 
 illness, form the contribution of our country to the " syste- 
 matic torturing of thousands of beasts all over the world," 
 
 * See Appendix B, IF 4. t See Appendix B, IT 5 
 
 E 
 
50 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 referred to by a writer on the subject.* It is a pity that 
 95 animals should have been put to any discomfort at all ; 
 and if illness and pain could be abolished from the world 
 at one blow, the happiness of the lower creatures would be 
 no small ingredient in the general joy. As it is, however, 
 physiologists must aim at something humbler ; they must 
 try to decrease what they cannot destroy, and to alleviate 
 where they cannot heal. And those who wish to narrow 
 the means at their command for doing so, by totally 
 prohibiting experiments on living animals,-f- had better be 
 quite sure that they know what the state of things is which 
 they propose to alter. The same writer says that " experi- 
 mentations on living animals is a system of long protracted 
 agonies, the very recollection of which is enough to make 
 the soul sick as with a whifF and an aftertaste from a moral 
 sewer." The degTee of correspondence between this phrase 
 and the facts of English physiological practice will be 
 apparent to the reader of the foregoing pages. And it is 
 with facts alone that we wish to deal. 
 
 * Contemporary Bevieiv, May, 1882, p. 803. 
 
 t A Bill for the total Abolition of Vivisection is to be presented to 
 Parliament this Session. 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY.* 
 
 Many non-physiological systems — Only one physiological system — The 
 Empirical system — The physiological system founded on experiment 
 — Experiment on living animals part of a rational method of invest- 
 igation — The Circulation of the Blood — Blood pressure — Contractile 
 power of the arteries — The Absorbent Vessels — Discoveries of Aselli 
 and Pecquet — Value of this knowledge — Respiration — Changes 
 effected in the inspired air — Changes effected in the blood — Diges- 
 tion — The Nervous System — Discoveries of Bell, Magendie, and 
 others — Present state of our knowledge on the subject — Muscular 
 action — Discoveries of Heller — Summary. 
 
 Since human beings first writhed under the ills that 
 flesh is heir to, and strove to escape from them, various 
 different systems of medicine have won the confidence and 
 relieved or aggravated the sufferings of mankind. How- 
 ever many they are, they must all fall into one of twO' 
 classes — the physiological and the non-physiological. Phy- 
 siological medicine is founded upon study of the organs "of 
 the body and their modes of action : that is, upon a know- 
 ledge — the more thorough the better — of the mechanism, 
 with which it has to deal. Althouo-h, as lonff as this know- 
 ledge is imperfect, different conclusions may be drawn from 
 
 * For the information contained in this and the following chapter, 
 I am largely indebted to an Address delivered before the Surgical 
 Society of Ireland in 1878, by Dr. Robert McDonnell, to Professor 
 Heidenhain's Pamphlet, "Die Vivisection im Dienst der Heilkunde,"' 
 Leipzig, 1879, and to the Arris and Gale Lectures of 1882, delivered, 
 by Professor Gerald F. Yeo, and published in the Lancet, June 10, 
 1882, et seq. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 it, and different methods of treatment proposed and tried, 
 so that it may seem as if there were various physiological 
 systems, yet in reality there is but one ; for all phy- 
 siological workers acknowledge the same principles, and 
 can correct and supplement each other's work, — so that the 
 mistakes of yesterday are set right by the discoveries of 
 to-day, and these will be developed by the results of 
 to-morrow. It is not so with the non-physiological systems. 
 These are many and various, and are based upon principles 
 which are mutually irreconcileable. Nearly all of them, 
 also, have their modern representatives, but I shall not risk 
 bringing all these down upon me at once by specifying 
 their parentage. 
 
 In the earliest times, when every disease was attributed 
 to the anger or malice of some spirit, the only system of 
 medicine known consisted in attempts to propitiate the 
 offended power. Later on, under the influence of Greek 
 intellect, this gave rise to something more deserving of the 
 name. The origin of the empirical system of medicine is 
 very interesting, and it certainly has a solid foundation, 
 since it rests upon the observation of facts. The priests of 
 some of the Greek temples (certainly of that at Cos) to 
 which people used to resort in search of miraculous cures, 
 kept records of the names of the patients, their diseases, 
 and the means (other than miraculous) taken to cure them. 
 These were inscribed upon metal plates, called votive tablets, 
 and were carefully preserved. Hippocrates, himself a priest 
 of Cos, formed the accumulated experience of the temple 
 into his great system, which at least, as has been said, 
 rested on facts and nature. The empirical school has had 
 varied fortunes, sometimes sinking into mere vulgar blun- 
 dering, and sometimes having the success which attended 
 the patient listening to nature, in days when men did not 
 know how to question her. But the mere collection of 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 53 
 
 information without reasoning upon it is simply useless, 
 and a hundred disjointed facts will no more make one truth 
 than a bag-full of acorns will make one oak. One of those 
 seeds, planted in the right soil, and duly tended, may grow 
 into a noble tree ; and one of those facts, in the mind of a 
 man of genius, capable of seeing its relations and working 
 out its results, may lead to a great discovery. Thus empi- 
 ricism — or the mere observation of nature — never created, 
 or could create, a sound system of physiology. It is a 
 system of hits and misses, free from humbug, but not trust- 
 worthy ; because it works on the supposition that one case 
 will be exactly like another, whereas no one case ever is 
 exactly like another. 
 
 It would take a volume to sketch the various non- 
 physiological systems, and the results to unfortunate 
 patients, in days when, there was no such thing as 
 systematic physiology. For there is no third alternative. 
 So far as the physician knows the structure of the body 
 with which he has to deal, the relations of its functions 
 and the working of its organs in health, — so far as he can 
 recognize disease, trace its causes and consequences, and 
 calculate upon the effect of the treatment which he adopts 
 — so far he is working in the light, and is likely to succeed. 
 But so far as he is guessing, theorizing, and experimenting 
 on his patient, — so far he is groping in the dark, and is likely 
 to fail. These seem very elementary truths, but it is some- 
 times necessary to insist on the most obvious things, when 
 they are overlooked ; and the def endei"s of science are 
 obliged to spend such eloquence, research, and time, as are 
 at their command — in defending this apparently unassail- 
 able position: It is necessary that a doctor should know 
 what he is doing. Or, in scientific language : Kational thera- 
 peutics are based upon sound physiology. 
 
 But is the physiological system of medicine firmly 
 
54 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 founded upon knowledge that can be relied upon ? and 
 if so, what share has experiment had in attaining this 
 knowledge ? 
 
 To begin with, it must be noted that experiment upon 
 living animals is not a thing by itself. It is part of a 
 system — the physiological system, and part of a method — 
 the experimental method. No great discoverer was ever a 
 vivisector, and nothing more, though every great physio- 
 logical discoverer has been a vivisector. He did not spend 
 his time in the " random experiment " in which his pro- 
 fession are supposed to delight ; he had something better to 
 do with it. While his mind was open to all ideas, his 
 thoughts were bent on one ; he learnt what anatomy could 
 teach him of the matter in question ; he watched by sick 
 beds, and observed accidental circumstances ; he studied 
 the doings of other workers, and meditated upon them ; he 
 probably — if the subject admitted of it — experimented on 
 himself. All these things — anatomy, clinical observation, 
 and meditation — are absolutely necessary ; but they are 
 parts of an accurate and scientific manner of investigation 
 which cannot dispense with the additional means of 
 experiment on living animals. For it is really the touch- 
 stone by which the theories starting from the other 
 methods are judged, and the results obtained from them 
 are studied. 
 
 In order to trace, as briefly as possible, consistently with 
 clearness, the dependence of physiology upon experiment, 
 let us take in turn some of the great branches of such 
 knowledge, and inquire what were the earliest ideas held 
 on these subjects, what knowledge upon them we have 
 arrived at, and what share experiment has had in leading 
 us to this point. For the sake of brevity, it will be under- 
 stood that experiment means experiment upon living 
 animals, unless otherwise stated. Of course, I must assume 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 55 
 
 in my readers such a general knowledge of elementary- 
 physiology as every educated person ought to possess ; 
 without which it would be absurd for any one to attempt 
 to form an opinion on the subject of vivisection. 
 
 To begin, then, with the Circulation of the Blood. It is 
 difficult to take ourselves in imagination back to a time 
 when the use of the arteries was utterly unknown. Yet 
 Erasistratus, who preceded Galen, thought that they 
 contained nothing but air. Galen (who flourished about 
 131-201 A.D.) was a diligent experimenter, and vivisection 
 soon taught him that this was not the fact. He says : " If 
 one cut many arteries at the same time, they will all let 
 blood escape. This is a fact known to all the world." He, 
 however, thought that they carried both blood and air ; and 
 that their chief business was to conduct air (or vital spirits, 
 as he called it,) from the heart to vivify the whole body. 
 The nourishing material from the food was collected 
 (according to his views) by the gastric and intestinal veins, 
 and carried to the liver, where it was made into blood, 
 which was then distributed to the various parts of the 
 body by the systemic veins. Some of the fresh blood 
 comino- from the liver flowed through the rio-ht side of the 
 
 o o o 
 
 heart, and was conveyed to nourish the lungs, by the 
 pulmonary artery. He thought that the current flowed 
 backwards and forwards in the arteries and veins alike, 
 the former carrying the nutritive, the latter the vital blood. 
 This curious mixture of fact and fancy was all that was 
 attained by the first great experimental physiologist,* and 
 it is noticeable that the facts are clearly due to vivisection, 
 which alone could have shown him the presence of the 
 blood-flow in the vessels, and which convinced him (in spite 
 
 * We know that experiment formed a part of Egyptian medicine, 
 Taut witli our present imperfect knowledge of the state of that science 
 in Ancient Egypt, this must be passed over. 
 
5(j PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 of his former theory) that all the arteries contained blood- 
 Although he had gone thus far in 200 A.D., yet at the 
 beginning of the l7th century, we find knowledge of this 
 subject in much the same position. The great motor 
 power of the heart was unknown, the direction and con- 
 stancy of the flow of blood through the vessels of the 
 system had not been ascertained, and the circulation 
 through the liver was a complete mystery. How was this ? 
 Had not doctors been practising, binding up wounds, ob- 
 serving patients, and reflecting upon what they saw, during 
 those fourteen centuries ? They had ; but they had not 
 been experimenting. Vivisedors there were, in the true 
 sense of the word, who really dissected animals alive,, 
 in order to study the parts of the body ; but these were 
 anatomists, not physiologists. The few experiments that 
 were performed were not sufiiciently numerous, careful, or 
 systematic, to produce any result worth mentioning. In 1 628„ 
 Harvey picked up the wonder-working rod that had fallen 
 from the hand of Galen, and physiology moved on again. 
 
 It was more than a move ; it was the greatest stride that 
 the science ever took at one time. The discovery of the 
 Circulation of the Blood was to Physiology what that of 
 the Law of Gravitation was to Physics. 
 
 Let us learn from his own words how he arrived at it.* 
 
 "When, in 'many dissections of living things (as were- 
 given to hand) I flrst applied my mind to observation,, 
 whereby I might discover the wont and utilities of the 
 heart's motion by personal inspection, and not by the books. 
 and writings of others, I found it a hard subject indeed, and so 
 
 * As the verbal accuracy of Dr. Willis's excellent translation has 
 been impugned, I give a baldly literal version, in order to minimize 
 causes of dispute. The question of Harvey's priority is discussed in. 
 Appendix D, "IT 1. 
 
THE EELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 5T 
 
 constantly full of difficulties that with Fracastorius, I might 
 almost think the motion of the heart to be known to God 
 alone. For neither in what way systole or diastole might 
 take place nor when, or where dilatation and contraction 
 might exist, could I rightly distinguish, on account of the ra- 
 pidity of the motion, which in many animals in the twinkling 
 of an eye — as if in a flash of lightning — brought itself into 
 view and straightway vanished ; so that I might think now 
 I perceived systole on this side, diastole on that, at another 
 time the contrary, the motions to become A^arious and con- 
 fused ; whereby my mind fluctuated, and I could not come 
 to any resolution mj^self, or believe others, and I was not 
 astonished that Andrew Laurentius wrote that the motion 
 of the heart was what the flow and ebb of the Euripus was 
 to Aristotle. At length, from day to day using greater- 
 research, and diligence, hy frequently looking into many 
 and various living animals, I thought to have both 
 attained the object, and to have escaped from this labyrinth,, 
 and at the same time to have discovered things which I 
 desired, the motion and wont of the heart and arteries.. 
 From which I was not afraid to put forward my opinion in 
 this matter not only to my friends in public, but also in my 
 aliatomical lectures, in the Academic method."* 
 
 Harvey did not know all the details of the course pursued 
 by the blood, especially of the manner in which it made its 
 way from the arteries into the veins. Malpighi, who was- 
 the father of minute anatomy, was the first to see it in the 
 capillary vessels, and he demonstrated its passage through 
 the capillary network of the lung of a living frog by a 
 genuine vivisection, thus adding the last link to Harvey's 
 chain of evidence. 
 
 Comparatively recently, the experiments of Waller and 
 
 * "De Mohi, Cardis et Sangirinis." Cap. I. 
 
58 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 Cohnheim have taught us that the walls of the capillaries 
 will allow the solid — as well as the fluid — parts of the 
 blood to pass through them ; and as a white corpuscle has 
 been seen to creep through the thin walls of the vessel, we 
 now know that not only does the blood convey nourish- 
 ment to the tissues, but that these mysterious little units 
 of protoplasm, which are the active agents in the forma- 
 tion of new tissue, can start from it on their work of 
 re-creation. 
 
 The pressure of the blood against the walls of the 
 arteries was first studied by Dr. Stephen Hales, vicar of 
 Teddington. In 1732 he published his Statical Essays, in 
 which he described the experiments by which he estimated 
 the force of the heart. His methods of measurement were 
 improved upon by Poiseuille, and the whole subject of 
 haemo-dynamics (or the force of the blood) was funda- 
 mentally investigated by Volkmann. Of course, it could 
 only be studied upon living animals. As a result of these 
 investigations and experiments, there are now a number of 
 instruments (the kymograph, sphygmograph, and cardio- 
 graph,) which enable physicians to observe — and record 
 graphically — the most delicate changes in the circu- 
 lation, and are most valuable in studying the fluctuations 
 of disease. 
 
 Just when the discovery of the immense pumping-power 
 of the heart was threatening to degrade the arteries into 
 mere conduit-pipes, it was discovered by Haller that they 
 possessed a distinct coat of muscle-tissue and an inde- 
 pendent power of contracting, so as to press upon the blood 
 which they contained. John Hunter's experiments upon 
 the horse, and Dr. John Thomson's demonstrations on the 
 frog's web, put the matter beyond doubt. Claude Bernard, 
 Brown-Sequard, and other experimenters, gradually showed 
 the wonderful muscular and nervous systems by which 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 59 
 
 this contractility is produced and governed, and which are 
 constantly at work, regulating the blood-supply to the 
 various organs. 
 
 Let us now sum up what amount of our knowledge of 
 the blood and its circulation is due to experiments upon 
 living animals. In this manner we have learnt that the 
 arteries contain blood (Galen) — that it is driven into them 
 by the pumping action of the heart under high pressure, 
 and so forced through the body, and that the veins collect it 
 and return it to the heart (Harvey) — that it passes from 
 the arteries to the veins through the capillaries (Malpighi 
 and Leeuwenhoech) — and that it conveys solid nourishment 
 and formative agents to the tissues (Waller and Cohnheim). 
 We can measure exactly the force of its pressure against 
 the vessels which contain it (Hales, Poiseuille, Volkmann) ; 
 and we understand the manner in which these vessels con- 
 tract and dilate, and the nervous system which causes them 
 to do so. It would be quite impossible, in a little book like 
 this, to show in detail the influence which these experiments 
 have had upon medical practice, and how clear an insight 
 they have given physicians into the true interpretation of 
 the various kinds of pulse, the changes in the heart's beat, 
 &c. The question to be asked is not — When is such know- 
 ledge as this useful ? but — What act or conclusion in medical 
 practice is independent of it ? And another question is — 
 How will those earnest anti-vivisectionists, who, like Miss 
 Cobbe, prefer to " die sooner than profit by such foul rites," 
 provide themselves with a medical attendant warranted 
 ignorant of the circulation of the blood ? 
 
 Very closely connected with the circulation of the blood 
 are the flow of the chyle and lymph in their special 
 capillaries and peculiarly delicate vessels, and the nature of 
 the absorbent system generally. The subject was not at all 
 understood in the time of Harvey, and a hot controversy 
 
60 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 was raging as to whether or not the absorption of chyle 
 was the sole business of the mesenteric blood-vessels, when 
 a great Italian anatomist, Gaspardus Asellius, suddenly 
 chanced upon the solution of the whole question. On the 
 23rd of July, 1662, he was making an experiment upon a 
 dog which had lately had a full meal,* when he observed 
 " a number of very fine white cords," which he at first sup- 
 posed to be nerves, but which, when pierced, proved to 
 contain a milky fluid. The discovery which he had made 
 then burst upon him, and he saw that he had hit upon the 
 conduits by which the chyle was conveyed to the blood 
 But he was not successful in tracing their subsequent course 
 correctly ; and, as he held to the old idea that all nutrient 
 matter was carried to the liver, there to be made into blood, 
 he was easily satisfied that the lacteals which he had dis- 
 covered led to that organ. 
 
 By a chance precisely similar to that which had revealed 
 the lacteals to Asellius,*!- Jean Pecquet happened — while ex- 
 perimenting for another purpose — to observe the opening of 
 the main absorbent vessel of the thoracic duct, which carries 
 their contents into the blood current. He followed up the 
 clue thus given him, and by repeated experiments succeeded 
 in tracing the general course of the lymphatic system.;|: 
 The numerous experiments of Hunter, Hewson, Cruikshank,. 
 and Magendie, have given us a clear idea of the mechanism 
 by which food is absorbed from the alimentary canal and 
 poured into the blood, and of the wide distribution of these 
 absorbent vessels, and their other functions in collecting; 
 and carrying away the overflow of nutrient fluid from the 
 textures. It is through experiment — and experiment alone 
 
 * For detailed account in Asellius's own -words, see Appendix D. IF 2. 
 + For detailed account in Pecquet's own words, see Appendix D. IT 2. 
 X For a different account of the matter, see Appendix D. IF 2. 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 61 
 
 — that we know the course and uses o£ the lacteals and 
 other absorbent vessels, know that they bring to the blood 
 nourishment from the alimentary tract, as well as some 
 waste products and superfluous fluid from the tissues ; and 
 know, too, that by their means foreign matter can be passed 
 into the system. The method of hypodermic injection of 
 drugs rests upon the knowledge of their presence and 
 efiiciency ; and what a wonderful amount of relief and 
 healing must be counted to that invention alone ! And if 
 the only result of these experiments had been to make it 
 possible for surgeons to use a catgut ligature that can be 
 absorbed, instead of one of silk or other material, which (as a 
 rule) must be removed with pain and risk, after many months 
 of irritating delay, they would have conferred a very great 
 boon upon surgery, and even a greater upon surgical patients. 
 The processes of Respiration were not so soon traced out 
 as those of the two circulations. The ancients believed that 
 the air passed through the lung into the cavity of the chest, 
 thence to pass on into the heart, where it mingled with the 
 blood. This opinion was held in the beginning of the 17th 
 century, and by such men as Harvey, Hales, and Boerhaave. 
 The mistake survived, because their knowledge was taken 
 partly from experimentation upon birds and partly from 
 the examination of bodies after death — with which prac- 
 tical physiology is now enjoined to content herself. But a 
 lung dead and collapsed is as like a lung living and inflated 
 as an empty balloon is like a full one, and the conclusions 
 drawn from the one for the other were proportionately 
 trustworthy. Haller, however, carried out a series of expe- 
 riments which disproved this fallacy. Malpighi's expe- 
 riments showed the vesicular texture of the lungs, and the 
 manner in which the blood was exposed in a network of 
 minute vessels to the air Avhich they contained, and made 
 
62 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 the air-cells familiar to physiologists. The nature of the 
 change which took place in the capillaries of the lungs 
 still, however, remained a mystery. 
 
 Mayow, by acute reasoning, and a most carefully arranged 
 series of experiments (for the most part upon living animals), 
 arrived at conclusions far in advance of his time, when but 
 few of the chemical elements were known. He pronounced 
 atmospheric air to be a compound, containing as one of its 
 elements a body to which he attributed the properties 
 possessed by oxygen, but which he called (on account of its 
 relation to nitric acid) nitro-cerial spirit. This alone it 
 was which made the air useful for combustion and respi- 
 ration. The times, however, were not ripe for the reception 
 of his discoveries, and they were neglected. 
 
 Later on, in the year 1759, Black showed by experiments 
 the presence of what is now known as carbonic acid in the 
 expired air ; and in 1770 Priestley proved in the same 
 manner the analogy of respiration to combustion, and con- 
 cluded that air in its passage through the lungs lost some 
 of its oxygen. But Lavoisier was the first to give an exact 
 explanation of the chemical changes which occur in the 
 process of breathing ; and this he was enabled to do by his 
 skilful and diligent experimentation. The more important 
 of his principles have been worked out and confirmed by 
 others, also experimentally ; so that we now know even the 
 exact quantities of carbonic acid given off and oxygen used 
 up in respiration. 
 
 So much for the changes in the inspired air worked by 
 its contact with the blood ; but what change in the blood is 
 effected by the air ? This question also was answered by 
 experiment. The diiference of colour between the blood in 
 the veins and that in the arteries had been noticed from 
 the earliest times ; but the first real light thrown upon the 
 subject emanated from an admirable series of experiments 
 
THE EELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 63 
 
 made by Lower, who opened the thorax of a living animal, 
 and discovered that the change in colour took place in the 
 capillaries of the lungs. This discovery was not, however, 
 followed up, and it was Priestley whose experiments 
 actually convinced the world that the alteration was due 
 to the purifying of the blood by means of the oxygen of 
 the air. 
 
 Let us again sum up our debt to experiment. Imagine 
 any doctor trying to treat a consumptive patient on the 
 supposition that the lungs let the air through into the' 
 cavity which contains them ! From such ignorance of facts, 
 and all the consequent blundering in practice, experiment — 
 and experiment alone — has delivered us. Haller thus de- 
 molished the pleural-cavity mistake ; while Malpighi had 
 shown the texture of the lungs, and the manner in which 
 the blood and air were brought into contact, by observing 
 under the microscope the lungs of a living frog ; Mayow 
 learnt the action of oxygen ; Black demonstrated the pre- 
 sence of carbonic acid in expired air ; Priestley proved the 
 loss of oxygen in breathing, inferred the analogy of respira- 
 tion to combustion, and confirmed and explained Lower's 
 discovery that the change of colour in the blood took place 
 in the capillaries of the lungs ; Lavoisier gave a compre- 
 hensive explanation of the whole process ; and later ex- 
 perimenters have ascertained the quantities of each gas 
 subtracted from or added to the air in respiration. This is 
 what experiment has taught us. If all this knowledge 
 about respiration could be wiped out of our minds, and 
 we were left only to what has been learnt by bedside 
 observation, anatomy, and meditation, where would be our 
 improved ventilation, and what efforts should we make to 
 keep a proper amount of cubic space for a number of human 
 beings living clustered together ? Would not the pestilences 
 knoAvn as gaol fever, war typhus, and hospital gangrene be 
 
•64 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 still raging among our prisoners, our soldiers, and our poor, 
 because we should know no reason why the same air should 
 not be used again and again ? 
 
 Various theories on the subject of digestion succeeded 
 one another before experiment acquainted us with its true 
 processes. It was at first attributed entirely to the moisture 
 and heat of the stomach, which produced an action called 
 " concoction." Next, it was referred to a process analogous 
 to putrefaction, or believed to be the result only of tritura- 
 tion. The stomach had been supposed in turn to be a 
 forcing-stove, a rotting-place, and a mill ; and we might 
 now have been thinking it a galvanic battery, if experiment 
 had been unlawful some three hundred years ago. Spal- 
 lanzani and Stephens, however, proved by this means the 
 secretion of the gastric juice, and its effects upon different 
 kinds of food. They were the first investigators in this 
 direction, and it would be impossible to name all their 
 successors, — so numerous and so rich in results have been 
 their researches. It must be enough to say that all our 
 present accurate knowledge of the gastric juice, its effect 
 upon proteid food-stuffs, and its inertness for others, as well 
 as the wide-spread activity of the pancreas (the function 
 of which was so utterly unknown to the ancients), we owe 
 to experiment of comparatively recent date. 
 
 The view of the nervous system held by the ancients was 
 that the brain was a large gland, secreting certain animal 
 spirits, which were distributed by the nerves to the different 
 tissues of the body. " The nerves," says Galen, " like 
 streams from a fountain, convey to the muscles their power 
 from the brain." Experiment had given him a rough but 
 fairly correct idea of the course of this stream of power, 
 especially as conveyed by the spinal cord. He gave public 
 demonstrations on the matter, using young pigs as subjects, 
 that he might not shock the susceptibilities of the audience 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOOr. 65 
 
 by employing the more human monkeys, which he would him- 
 self have preferred. He showed the effects on the respiratory 
 system and other movements produced by section of the 
 cord in the region of the neck ; and he pointed out the 
 results of section at other points, and in various manners. 
 Considering how much he discovered concerning the spinal 
 cord and its uses, it would seem incomprehensible that for 
 seventeen centuries no important step in advance was taken 
 towards understanding the true constitution of the nervous 
 system ; but then, they were seventeen centuries in which 
 no accurate experiments were made upon this subject. 
 
 Galen's idea that the nerves were conduits of a fluid 
 termed " vital spirits " held the field for a long time ; but as 
 this vital fluid was difficult of detection, it gradually ceased 
 to be an object of belief, and the more correct idea gained 
 ground — that the nerves transmitted vibrations. In their 
 marvel at the first discovery of electricity, people were 
 disposed to attribute everything to it, and it was then 
 believed to be the source of these vibrations. Indeed, 
 makers of electric bands and stockings still continue to 
 advertise that " Electricity is Life." We are as far as ever 
 from knowing what Life is ; but, in consequence of experi- 
 ments, we now know that nerve-impulse is a chemical change 
 — not an electric current — taking place in the protoplasm 
 of the nerve, and transmitted from one molecule to another 
 along its delicate central strand. 
 
 As to the functions of the nerves, little progress was 
 made from the days of Galen to those of Sir Charles Bell, 
 Magendie, and Johannes Muller. The great idea of the 
 motor functions of the efferent nerves, so brilliantly struck 
 out by Sir Charles Bell in his few but valuable experi- 
 ments, was worked out, confirmed, and developed by 
 Magendie into a consistent theory of the two classes of 
 nerves with their distinct functions ; and it was chiefly by 
 
 F 
 
66 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 investigating the roots o£ the spinal nerves, in experiments 
 upon frogs, that Johannes Miiller arrived at his accurate 
 conclusions as to the functions of the spinal cord. While the 
 greatest credit is due to Marshall Hall for originality in 
 discovering and persistence in teaching the laws of reflex 
 action which really form the basis of our present knowledge 
 of the uses of the nervous centres. We now know some- 
 thing of the actual constitution of the nerves ; we know 
 their relation to the brain, and the manner in which they 
 bring impulses to and receive them from it ; we are 
 acquainted with their reflex action, and with the powerful 
 influence of the spinal cord ; and in the brain itself we 
 know the situations of the cells and groups of cells which 
 preside over many of our most important organic motions, 
 such as breathing, swallowing, &c. At this point, investi- 
 gation has been arrested in England by the fiat of the 
 Secretary of State. But is it not obvious that without the 
 knowledge already gained by this means, there could be 
 no prospect at all of coping with the increasing nerve- 
 maladies of our time ? It is a knowledge still very incom- 
 plete, but which will continue to advance, if — but only if — 
 experiment is not obliged to stand still. 
 
 Muscular action was attributed by Galen and his suc- 
 'cessors to the brain and spinal cord. " This is proved 
 distinctly," he says, " by the fact that if you divide any of 
 the nerves, or the spinal marrow itself, the part above the 
 incision and in continuity with the brain will still retain 
 its powers ; but the part below will be incapable of pro- 
 ducing either sense or motion." Glisson was the first to 
 dissent from this view; he applied the term irritability to a 
 muscle as distinct from its nerve, and seems to have had an 
 idea of reflex action. Haller, however, (who, like Glisson, 
 was an experimenter) explained the matter much more 
 clearly. He taught us that every muscular fibre contracts 
 
THE RELATION OF EXPERIMENT TO PHYSIOLOGY. 67 
 
 when irritated, and that it is thus distinguished from 
 vegetable fibre, which has no such power. This is the 
 cause of muscular motions after death, for the irritability- 
 remains for a certain time, so that the muscles can be caused 
 to contract. This irritability of the muscular fibre is inde- 
 pendent of the nerves, and cannot be referred to any other 
 power ; its origin is quite unknown to us. Its effects, however, 
 are not ; and they form one of the principal data of surgery. 
 We have now gone in order through six of the j)rincipal 
 branches of physiology, and we have found that in each the 
 most important discoveries have been made by means of 
 •experiment, and that to it we owe the accuracy and certainty 
 of whatever knowledge we possess. It is impossible to lay 
 too much stress upon this point, for it is the stronghold of 
 the case. Those who defend physiological experiment as 
 an absolute necessity to medicine do so — not because this or 
 that drug has been discovered by its means, this or that 
 operation perfected through its practice. They defend it, 
 because without it medicine is based upon ignorance, and 
 every doctor is a charlatan, patching at a wonderful 
 mechanism of which he knows nothing. They defend it, 
 because it is the foundation upon which physiology as a 
 .science stands.* The pseudo-sciences rest upon theorizing, 
 guess-work, and empiricism ; a true science rests upon 
 experiment. If physiology be deprived of this necessary 
 foundation, it will be degraded through no fault of its dis- 
 ciples ; it will not fall to pieces, because that which has 
 been won cannot be taken away, but it will be unable to 
 encroach any further upon the morass of human ignorance, 
 because forbidden to lay a firm footing for its advancing 
 tread. But, after all, interests differ. There are some who 
 do not much care for that morass to be invaded. " Quand on 
 veut dessecher un marais,on ne fait pas voter les grenouilles."-f- 
 
 * See Appendix C. t Madame Emile de Girardin, 
 
 f2 
 
68 PHYSIOLOGICAL CKUELTY. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 THE EELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 
 
 The subject a complicated one — An amputation in old times — An ampu- 
 tation at the present day — Facial nerves — Artificial respiration — 
 Transfusion of blood — Orthopsedic surgery — Internal operations — 
 Chassaignac's e'craseiir — Removal of one kidney — Removal of larynx 
 — " Animal grafting" — Study of the processes of disease — Testing of 
 drugs — Preventive medicine — Other benefits of experiment. 
 
 The facts given in the preceding chapter form by far the 
 strongest proof of the value of experiment upon living- 
 animals ; because they show the part that it has taken in 
 building up — and therefore the part that it is likely to take 
 in perfecting — the science of physiology, upon which all 
 true medicine is based.* 
 
 * "Rational therapeutics must grow out of physiological knowledge, 
 as surely as a plant is the outgrowth of its roots. As the remote root- 
 lets are the exact parts which are all-important for the nutrition of 
 the plant, so experiment feeds physiology, and thereby nourishes the 
 art of medical practice. It would appear silly to ask to what rootlet 
 any single fruit or flower on a widely-spreading tree owed its existence 
 or nutrition ; and so it is idle to expect that each, or even any, thera- 
 peutic agent or method of diagnosis should be traced to the definite 
 experimental discoveries that may have led to its adoption or use. As 
 the branches of our medical tree spread wider and wider, and its dia- 
 gnostic flowers and therapeutic fruits become more and more numerous,, 
 we find that its physiological roots go deeper and deeper in search of 
 pabulum, and the experimental rootlets become still further removed 
 from the more obviously useful and prolific part of the plant." — Arris 
 and Gale Lectures, III., Lancet, August 5th, 1882, p. 175. 
 
THE RELATIOX OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 69 
 
 In such an inquiry, it was not very difficult to know 
 when we had found what we were seeking for. Discoverers 
 have usually given clear accounts of what they learnt, and 
 how they learnt it ; and a fact in physiology can be proved, 
 tested, and verified, as thoroughly as one in chemistry. 
 Either the lacteals do or do not empty themselves into the 
 thoracic duct ; either the efferent nerve will convey motor 
 impulses, or it will not. There may be a mistake about such 
 matters, but there can be no uncertainty. When the truth 
 has once been found out, it is not likely to be questioned 
 again; and so it is comparatively easy to reckon up the debt 
 ■of physiology to experiment. 
 
 The matter is not at all so simple when we come to 
 practical medicine. Here, experiment is only one out of 
 many factors Avhich have combined to produce a certain 
 result ; and if any one chooses to believe that the result 
 would have been produced equally well without experiment, 
 it is impossible to convince him. The fact remains, that it 
 was attained luith it. It is true that in physiological dis- 
 coveries also, other processes are used besides experimen- 
 tation ; but it is comparatively easy to assign to each its 
 distinct share. But when the facts thus gained come to be 
 used for the actual practical treatment of sick and suffering 
 human beings, no two of whom are exactly alike, they have 
 to be so cautiously applied, one deduction has to be so 
 qualified by another, individual peculiarities have to be 
 .■so carefully studied and allowed for, with the constant 
 possibility of some unkno^^m disturbing cause upsetting all 
 calculations, that when success has been attained, it is very 
 hard to say to what it has been due. It would not be 
 .strange, therefore, if nothing positive could be said under 
 this heading about experiments on living animals, except 
 that whatever increased physiological knowledge must 
 improve medical practice. If this were all, it would not be 
 
70 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 a confessicM of defeat. Suppose that no astronomer were- 
 to be allowed to use a sextant, until he could quote some 
 discovery made by its means alone ; or that all thermo- 
 ' meters were to be banished from laboratories, unless it could 
 be shown that whatever we know about heat had been 
 learnt from thermometers and nothing else ! So with 
 experiment in medicine. It is not the sole instrument of 
 discovery, nor perhaps the most important ; but it is an 
 extremely useful instrument,* and in its own place indis- 
 pensable. Much of its work cannot be disentangled 
 from the general results, and put down to its separate 
 account, but we are not altogether unable to trace its. 
 action, and we shall now see what advances in practical 
 medicine can be distinctly ascribed to it. 
 
 At every step in an important surgical operation, we are 
 reminded of the discoveries catalogued in the last chapter, 
 and of others flowing out of them.-]- Perhaps it will be 
 well to quote Ambrose Pare's description of operations in 
 his time,, in order to help us to appreciate our privileges^ 
 " I observed my masters, whose method I intended tO' 
 follow, who thought themselves singularly well appointed 
 to stanch a flux of blood, when they were furnished with 
 various store of hot irons and caustic medicines, which they 
 would use to the dismembered part, now one, then another,, 
 as they themselves thought meet. Which thing cannot be- 
 spoken or but thought upon without great horror, much 
 less acted. For this kind of remedy could not but bring 
 great and tormenting pain to the patient, seeing such fresh 
 wounds made in the quick and sound flesh are endured 
 with exquisite sense. . . . And verily, of such as were 
 
 * See resolutions of the Medical Congress, held in London in 1881, 
 and of the British Medical Association of same year. Appendix C. , 
 m IT 4 and 7. 
 
 t For answers to objections to this line of argument, see Appendix 
 
 E.,ir2, a. 
 
THE RELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 71 
 
 burnt, the third part scarce ever recovered, and that with 
 much ado, for that combust wounds with difficulty come 
 to cicatrization ; for by this burning are caused cruel 
 pains, whence a fever, convulsion, and oft-times other 
 accidents worse than these. Add hereunto, that when 
 the eschar (scale) fell away, oft-times a new heemorrhage 
 ensued, for stanching whereof they were forced to use 
 
 other caustic and burning instruments 
 
 Through which occasion the bones were laid bare, whence- 
 many were forced, for the remainder of their wretched 
 life, to carry about an ulcer ujDon that part which was 
 dismembered ; which also took away the opportunity of 
 fitting or putting to an artificial leg or arm, instead of 
 that which was taken off." 
 
 Compare with this hideous description the processes of a. 
 modern amputation. The patient is probably made uncon-; 
 scious by chloroform, which was studied by Simpson in 
 experiments upon the lower animals* as well as on himself 
 and other men. Some other anaesthetic may, however, be 
 used ; or, perhaps, some peculiarity in the patient's consti- 
 tution may make it dangerous to render him insensible. In 
 this case pain may be saved by the sub-cutaneous injection 
 of morphia,f studied by Dr. Alexander Wood and the late 
 Mr. Rynd (of Dublin) upon sporting dogs, and by a com- 
 mittee of the Medical and Chirurgical Society;]: upon 
 other animals. The next step is to empty the limb of' 
 blood. Experiment has shown that the blood-vessels have^^ 
 a power of contracting ; and they do contract when the 
 pressure is reduced from any cause, such as raising the 
 
 * Eeport of Royal Commission, p. xiii. 
 
 + " Sub-cutaneous injection was used in the laboratory for years 
 before it was applied in practice." — Memorandum of Facts, d-c, pub- 
 lished by the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Re- 
 search, p. 11. 
 
 X Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. 51, p. 199. 
 
72 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 limb. The surgeon, therefore, holds it up for a time, and 
 it becomes comparatively bloodless. Experiments made by 
 Brown-S^quard and others having taught him how long 
 the tissues can be left completely deprived of blood without 
 risk of mortification, he next ventures to apply Esmarch's 
 elastic bandage, and almost completely empties the limb of 
 the vital fluid. 
 
 The cutting being accomplished, the injured arteries are 
 firmly tied before any bleeding occurs, in a fashion which 
 is the result of long discussions and many experiments.* 
 Although the ligature itself is of very old date (definite 
 accounts of it being found in the writings of the Arabians 
 of the tenth and twelfth centuries), yet the right manner of 
 applying it was only arrived at by slow degrees. Up to 
 the beginning of the last century, the nerves used commonly 
 to be tied in, together with the vessels, causing frightful 
 sufifering, and frequent death from tetanus. Going, then, 
 into the other extreme, the ligatures used were wide, and 
 they were loosely tied over corks, &c., so as not to injure 
 the coats of the artery ; but they failed to stop the bleeding. 
 The experiments of Dr. John Thomson, of Edinburgh, and 
 of Dr. Jones, who followed him, proved that the best method 
 was to tie the artery extremely tightly, which caused the 
 blood within to coagulate, and deposit a clot of solid matter 
 that acted as a stopper to close the opening. As the operator 
 is familiar with the action of the absorbent vessels (dis- 
 covered by experiment, as related in Chap. YI.), he will 
 use a catgut ligature, which will not need to be pulled away 
 when the wound is healing,-|- but can be left where it is to 
 
 * See Appendix E., IT 2. e. 
 
 + It is difficult for any one without experience to realize the annoy- 
 ance of the old ligatures. Imagine three or four different strings 
 hanging out of one wound for months, sometimes for years, as occurred 
 in the case of Lord Nelson ! 
 
THE RELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 73 
 
 'be gradually absorbed. And adopting Professor Lister's 
 aseptic mode of treatment (chiefly based upon experiment), 
 his ligature — as well as the dressings which he will sub- 
 sequently use — will be carbolized.* 
 
 The amputation itself takes place, perhaps without the 
 shedding of a drop of blood, certainly without the least 
 dano-er of hsemorrhao-e. Deaths from this cause — once the 
 surgeon's terror — are now almost unheard of. The wound 
 (kept perfectly clean, and free from all causes of irritation) 
 heals naturally and healthily, with very little pain, — if the 
 ^aseptic method be employed, with none. There is no fever, 
 no formation of matter, no fear of bleeding coming on from 
 the ends of the cut vessels ; and the restorative forces of 
 Nature have full play. 
 
 " Look on that picture and on this," and remember that 
 at every step experiment has been the guide from worse 
 to better. The brilliant discovery of Lister was led up to 
 by the experimental researches into wound-fever carried 
 on by Lee, Bennett, Pasteur, Colin, Toussaint, M^eber, 
 Breuer and Chroback, and Koch. They investigated and 
 experimented, finding out gradually what the fever was 
 not, and what did not cause it ; then what it was, and what 
 did cause it ; and thus they prepared the field for the 
 original genius that struck out the method of prevention. 
 And if any be inclined to object that hundreds of animals 
 were sacrificed in the process of discovery, let him think of 
 the thousands of men who have been sacrificed for want of 
 it, and who would in all future ao;es — as long; as man is 
 liable to disease or injury, and particularly so long as war 
 lasts — have died miserably in festering hospitals of all the 
 horrible varieties of simple or secondary wound-fever, and 
 the other consequences of wound-infection. The perfecting 
 of this mode of treatment has now been forbidden by the 
 * See Appendix, E., H 2, 7. 
 
74 PHYSIOLOGICAL CKUELTY. 
 
 Home Secretaiy ; but enough had been done before the 
 reign of " Zoophilism " in England to secure a great saving 
 in human life, and the good work is being carried on in 
 other countries. 
 
 Until within the present century, surgeons used to divide 
 one of the nerves of the face (the portio dura of the seventh 
 pair), in hopes of curing neuralgia. But as the nerve had 
 nothing whatever to do with sensation, the only result was 
 to destroy motion in that side of the face. The experiments 
 which revealed the true functions of the nerve, at last put 
 an end to this piece of stupidity. This same nerve often 
 loses its power of action from one of many various causes 
 affecting different portions of it ; and the treatment must be 
 different according to the part affected. This can only be 
 discovered from indications, the meaning of which has been 
 learnt from vivisections, in combination, of course, with 
 anatomy. 
 
 If a man has fallen into the water, and become insensible 
 before he is taken out, — or fallen down an old well, or in 
 any other way has had his blood poisoned with carbonic 
 acid gas (which we call being suffocated), the best means to 
 restore him is artificial respiration. But here we are again 
 indebted to experiment on living animals ; for this method 
 was used upon them by Vesalius, Hooke, Lower, and 
 others, long before it was applied to the resuscitation of 
 human beings. 
 
 Suppose, however, that he has been suffocated by the 
 fumes of charcoal ; if the mischief has gone far, artificial 
 respiration will not bring him round. We may go on 
 trying it until all hope is lost, if we do not know what 
 Claude Bernard's experiments have proved, — that the car- 
 bonic oxide gas given off by burning charcoal makes a more 
 stable compound with the colouring matter of the blood, 
 which prevents it henceforward from uniting with oxygen. 
 
THE RELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 7o- 
 
 So that it is useless to pump in supplies of fresh air ; the 
 only thing to be done is to get rid at once of the spoiled 
 blood, and replace it with new. This can be done by trans- 
 fusion, or injecting enough blood from a healthy person to 
 keep the system alive until it can produce more for itself.. 
 In the same way, when life is all but lost from hgemorrhage, 
 it can be recalled by a fresh supply of the vital fluid. It is 
 only from repeated and careful experiments that surgeons 
 have learnt how to perform this operation with success. It 
 is never done except as a last resource, when everything 
 else has failed ; and so far has saved more than half the 
 cases in which it has been attempted.* 
 
 Great improvements in orthopaedic surgery are due to 
 the physiological investigations of Stromeyer, Von Ammon, 
 Bouvier, Guerin, and others, in the present century. 
 
 Tenotomy (or the surgery of tendons) has only been 
 carried on in a scientific manner and with successful results 
 since the subcutaneous method of performing the operation 
 was perfected, and the repair of tendons investigated on. 
 the lower animals by the same experimenters.-j- 
 
 The possibility of operating with the knife upon the 
 stomach and intestines was only proved by experiments, 
 upon animals, especially by the easy establishment of 
 gastric fistulse in doo-s. In the same manner, the methods 
 of operation were studied ; and, consequently, diseases- 
 which were formerly considered hopeless are now brought' 
 within reach of amelioration or cure.:|: 
 
 It sometimes happens that tumours are situated either 
 where they cannot be reached by the knife, or where the 
 haemorrhage when they are removed cannot be arrested. 
 In such a case, nothing could be done for the patient until 
 the invention of M. Chassaignac's ecraseuv, an instrument. 
 
 * See Appendix E., IT 2, t. 
 t See Appendix E., U 2, -q. 
 X Heidenhain, loc. cit., p. 37. 
 
76 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 which slowly tears through the tissue instead of cutting it. 
 In this way, there is almost no bleeding, and the operation 
 -can be performed with safety. It was necessary, however, 
 that he should test his instrument before using it on human 
 beings ; and he satisfied himself of its value and safety by 
 experiments upon dogs, instead of upon hospital patients. 
 
 No one would have supposed that a creature could live 
 in perfect health with only one kidney, when Nature has 
 supplied it with two, until the fact had been proved upon 
 dogs. This knowledge has emboldened surgeons to attempt 
 the operation of removal in human cases ; it has now 
 frequently been performed, and repeatedly been successful, 
 where all other means of prolonging life or making it 
 bearable had failed. 
 
 Billroth, the celebrated Vienna surgeon, had a patient 
 who was threatened with sudden death from malignant 
 •disease of the larynx. The only hope that he could see 
 lay in removing the entire organ ; but the operation had 
 never been performed before, and he could not venture 
 to attempt it for the first time upon a man. His assistant, 
 Czerny, however, performed it successfully, upon several 
 dogs ; and by using his experience, Billroth was able to 
 save his patient's life. The man recovered, and with an 
 artificial larynx was able to breathe, and even to speak in a 
 whisper.* 
 
 In some very bad cases of injury to the skin, especially 
 from extensive burns or scalds, when it has been completely 
 <lestroyed over a large surface — the patient would die of 
 exhaustion, before the cuticle could renew itself by the slow 
 process of growth from the edges inwards. But in con- 
 sequence of experiments in animal grafting (as it is called), 
 pieces of cuticle can now be removed from other parts of 
 the body and planted on the denuded surface, where they 
 * Heidenhain, loc. cit., p. 39. 
 
THE KELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 77 
 
 will, as it were, take root from, and cover it over. On 
 a similar principle artificial noses are made, and a 
 hideous disfigurement is changed into a very tolerable 
 uo^liness. 
 
 These are some of the most distinctly quotable cases in 
 which improvements in treatment can be directly traced tO' 
 experiments upon living animals. But as improved treat- 
 ment must almost necessarily follow upon increased know- 
 ledge of the disease, those series of experiments which have 
 taught us more of the processes of illness find their place 
 in this chapter. So many different experimenters have 
 contributed to the advancement of this department of 
 pathology that it would be impossible to name all and 
 invidious to name some, — especially as a discovery has often 
 resulted from the work of one man combined with that of 
 another, and cannot justly be assigned to any individual. 
 It will be best simply to mention some of the most valuable 
 additions to our knowledge of this subject which we owe 
 to experiment upon living animals. 
 
 In few departments of medicine is there a greater advance 
 to look back upon, and to look forward to — than in the 
 treatment of fever. An accurate knowledge of the manner 
 in which it kills its victims is being attained by means of 
 experiments upon animals,"^' and there is every reason to 
 
 * These are the celebrated "baking alive" experiments. The term is 
 an especial favourite, being a peculiarly unpleasant one, and it would also 
 convey to most minds the false impression that the animals are put into 
 a hot oven. The fact is that the temperature of their blood is gradually 
 raised by heat, until they die, — exactly as our blood would be raised by 
 fever, until we died. The symptoms are the quickening of the breathing 
 and the pulse, and then the gasping and panting with which the watchers 
 by sick-beds are only too painfully familiar, but which cannot be de- 
 scribed as acute suffering. Finally, the animal falls into convulsions, 
 when it becomes unconscious, and any sound which it may make denotes 
 no pain. The process now usually lasts for about two hours. Bernard, 
 in these experiments, used two pigeons, two guinea-pigs, less than 
 twenty rabbits, and six dogs. (Sir William Gull in Nineteenth Centurij 
 
78 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 expect that this knowledge will also supply the means of 
 saving them. 
 
 There are two forms of dropsy, one arising from dis- 
 order of the nervous system, and the other from derange- 
 ment of the secretions. Until experiments tipon the 
 mechanism of the circulation, and the effects of the nervous 
 system on it, enabled physicians to distinguish between 
 the two, they used to be treated alike, often with fatal 
 results. 
 
 Apoplexy is often caused by a clot which has formed in 
 the blood, and stops up one of the vessels of the brain, thus 
 preventing that part from obtaining its usual nourishment 
 of blood. Before this was understood, an apoplectic patient 
 used to be bled, and robbed of a quantity of the very blood 
 for which his brain was starving. Experiments on the effect 
 of plugging arteries (embolism) made this clear, and ex- 
 plained other obscure cases of sudden death : and apoplexy 
 is now treated in a more rational and successful manner. 
 
 Formerly, if a bone was found to be diseased, there was 
 nothing to be done but to amputate the limb to which it 
 belonged. But experiments on the mode of repair of frac- 
 tured or injured bone, particularly those of Duhamel (1740), 
 Sir Astley Cooper (1820), and Syme (1831), — have now led 
 surgeons to content themselves with removing the diseased 
 portion of bone, carefully leaving the membrane which 
 surrounded it to produce (as it will in time) a tolerable 
 substitute. In this way, a healthy^hand may now be left 
 
 for March, 1882, p. 460.) A medical opponent replies to this, that 
 zymotic diseases cannot be cured by medicine, though they can be pre- 
 vented by hygiene. If they cannot be directly cured by medicine, they 
 can certainly be alleviated and controlled by treatment ; and how can 
 either treatment or prevention be thoroughly carried out, except with 
 a thorough knowledge of the nature and causes of the disease in ques- 
 tion? Are we to understand that he declines to treat fever cases, 
 considering that "drugs are impotent ?" (See Appendix E.) 
 
THE RELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 7^ 
 
 at tlie extremity of an arm which has lost a piece of its 
 bone, instead of an unsightly and comparatively useless 
 stump. 
 
 E.edfern, Cohnheim, von Recklinghausen, and others have 
 conducted experiments into the nature and origin of inflam- 
 mation, by which knowledge has been gained that is of use 
 almost at every turn in treatment. It is not necessary to 
 dwell on the importance of understanding the most wide- 
 spread of all diseased symptoms. 
 
 Another way in which experiments upon living creatures 
 have contributed to improvements in treatment, is by the 
 testing of various drugs, whose effects are tried upon the 
 lower animals, in order to judge of their probable value or 
 uselessness to man. It is quite true that positive conclu- 
 sions cannot be drawn in this way. All drugs do not affect 
 all animals alike, any more than they do all men. Rabbits 
 can eat belladonna, and be none the worse for it ; while it 
 is dangerous to give chloroform to dogs, though most men 
 and women can take it safely. But these notable excep- 
 tions are noted because they are exceptions : on the whole, 
 a substance which will poison a cat will not agree with a 
 dog, and what will excite the heart of a frog is likely to 
 do the same to a man. In short, the effect of a drug upon 
 one of the lower animals furnishes a strong presumption — 
 though not an infallible indication — of what its effect will 
 be upon a human being. And in such a hazardous pro- 
 ceeding as that of introducing a new substance into the 
 complex human economy, it is surely necessary that there 
 should be at least a strong presumption that it will do 
 good, and not harm. But this could never be gained with- 
 out experiment ; and by means of experiment it often has 
 been gained, Avith the result of adding many new and 
 valuable remedies to the pharmacopoeia. In this way cJiloral 
 hydrate was discovered ; and the fact that it has been 
 
80' PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 sometimes misused does not make it the less soothing and 
 useful when properly administered. The use of atropin to 
 check the flow of saliva was thus learnt, and great relief 
 can now be given to a most distressing feature in some 
 cases of paralysis and fracture of the skull. The manner 
 in which belladonna acts as a poison has been shown by 
 experiments ; and so also has it been proved that a sub- 
 stance extracted from calabar bean is its antidote. The 
 stimulating effects of strychnia upon the spinal cord were 
 made out by Magendie's experiments ; by the same means 
 it was tested for practice, and established as a valuable 
 nerve tonic ; and by the same means also. Professor 
 Haughton introduced nicotin as its antidote. Very little 
 could be done for the agonizing disease called angina 
 pectoris, until it was discovered that nitrite of amyl 
 causes general relaxation of the blood-vessels, which in 
 that complaint are believed to be in a state of spasm ; and 
 it has proved a most valuable remedy. Every new drug 
 introduced into the pharmacopoeia up to the passing of the 
 " Cruelty to Animals " Act, 1876, might in fact be added 
 to the list ; but these are the most salient instances, and 
 they will be valuable for the guidance of those persons 
 who say they are determined not to avail themselves of the 
 benefits of experiment. They now know a few of the 
 remedies they should avoid, in case of meeting with un- 
 toward accidents in the way of poisons and diseases ; and 
 it will perhaps be kinder to increase their chances of life by 
 not mentioning more. 
 
 Bbsides the effect of experiment upon direct treatment, 
 it has had an important influence upon preventive medicine. 
 The investigations which have taught us the origin and 
 processes of many diseases, both of animals and man — 
 though they may not have supplied modes of cure — have 
 erected finger-posts pointing out what to avoid, and what 
 
THE RELATION OF MEDICINE TO EXPERIMENT. 81 
 
 ■sources of disease to eliminate ; and, though it is a good 
 thing to know how to cure a disease when you have got it, 
 it is a much better thing to know how to keep from getting 
 it. Thus, it is of great importance to have learnt from ex- 
 periment that cholera is chiefly communicated by drinking 
 water, and that consumption is infective. The aseptic 
 treatment already referred to is based upon researches of 
 this class, and so is the method of preventive inoculation. 
 This has been greatly ridiculed by writers who have 
 affected to suppose that all sorts of disgusting diseases were 
 to be given to animals and men, in order to prevent their 
 catching them ! Any treatment can be reduced to an 
 absurdity, if it is supposed to be used without common 
 sense or discretion; but sharp weapons are for skilled 
 hands. Preventive inoculation would only be used where 
 there was sufficient danger of contracting the actual disease 
 to make it worth while to produce the milder type. In 
 small-pox such a danger is constant ; in animal epidemics, 
 and probably some human maladies, the occasions for using 
 this preventive arise from time to time, as a wave of 
 infection swells towards us. By this and other means the 
 sources of silkworm disease, small-pox of sheep, cattle 
 plague, splenic fever, farcy, glanders, and anthrax (both 
 among sheep and men), can now be grappled with, and 
 degrees of success attained, varying from perfect immunity 
 to useful alleviations.* All the progress hitherto made in 
 this direction is, of course, due to experiments upon animals 
 of the class concerned ; all the progress to be made in future 
 depends upon whether these experiments are continued or 
 stopped. 
 
 The part of experiment in the progress of medicine is not 
 
 confined to such results as can be catalogued. At every 
 
 turn it controls observations, corrects deductions, verifies 
 
 * See Appendix C. Section II, 
 
 G 
 
82 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 discoveries, tests improvements, suggests inquiries, always 
 (as Professor Sharpey so well said before the Eoyal Com- 
 mission) " putting a lamp in the hand of the physician." 
 This lamp has been turned down rather low in England,, 
 but it still bums. Will the world be the better if it is 
 altogether extinguished, and the task of shedding light 
 upon the onward path of medicine left to the torch-bearers 
 of other countries ? For it is inevitable that — if the present 
 anti-experimental agitation should prove successful — its 
 history must tend to force all physiologists into identifying 
 tenderness to animals with unscientific sentimentalism, and 
 unreasoning; disresrard of the sufierings of men. And that 
 injury to their finer feelings which is now supposed to have 
 resulted from the free exercise of their profession, must in 
 truth come to pass in some measure from its enslavement 
 in England. 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 
 
 General state of the law — Martin's Act — No English physiologist pro- 
 secuted under it — The " Hand-book to the Physiological Laboratorj'" 
 — The Norwich experiment — Appointment of the Royal Com- 
 mission — Its conclusions from the evidence — Recommendations— 
 The Act of 1876 — Its principal provisions — Defects — Autocracy of 
 the Home Secretary — Mode of proceeding under the Act — Action of 
 the Home Secretary — Bill for the Total Abolition of Vivisection — 
 Desirable modifications in the working of the Act — Responsibility 
 to be left to the signatories — Certificates unnecessary for inocu- 
 lations — Licenses held by medical instructors to hold good for their 
 term of office — What is abstractly desirable. 
 
 Every one may not be acquainted with tlie exact state 
 of the law at present, as regards cruelty to animals, and 
 scientific experiments. It is very curious and interesting, 
 and has the great merit o£ being peculiarly British. That 
 is to say, it is not trammelled by any principle previously 
 laid down, or hindered by any consideration of reasoning or 
 consistency. To found a new law upon a distinct principle, 
 from which its enactments develop logically, has a Con- 
 tinental flavour about it displeasing to the national mind, 
 and reminds us in some way of centi'alization. We prefer 
 to make a fresh regulation every now and then, when it 
 occurs to us, or when somebody makes a fuss, and it is 
 necessary to do something. In this way a state of things 
 has come about, in which it is penal to use domestic animals 
 
 g2 
 
84 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 in any way cruelly, but in which any one may torture wild 
 creatures in whatever fashion he likes, provided it he not 
 for scientific purposes; while any invertebrate animal is 
 given up to whatever any one chooses to inflict, for any or 
 no reason. The older law against cruelty to animals, com- 
 monly known as Martin's Act, applies only to those which 
 we call domestic. It did not therefore need the Act of 1876 
 to protect horses, asses, and mules, cats and dogs, from 
 cruelty ; while, now that it has been passed, an otter may 
 be killed by inches to amuse a crowd of men, or boys may 
 roast a rabbit to death for fun ; but if there be a serious 
 scientific reason for giving pain to a rat, the operator is a 
 criminal, unless he is shielded by a fence of licenses and cer- 
 tificates. Thus, Mary Ann, the housemaid, may kill all the 
 mice in the house with the horrible poison of phosphorus, 
 and no one will interfere with her ; but if Mary Ann's 
 master, the surgeon, injects snake-poison into one of them 
 in hopes of discovering an antidote for it, he becomes liable 
 to a £50 fine. And if Mary Ann, being tender-hearted, and 
 disliking smells behind the wainscoting, has recourse to live 
 traps, and is then puzzled to know how to dispose of her 
 prey, she may give it to the stable-boy to amuse his terrier 
 with, but she must not give it to the surgeon to experiment 
 on. Nothing makes it criminal to give pain to a wild 
 animal, except having sufficient justification. In a new 
 sense, qui s' excuse s accuse. Briefly, the case stands thus : 
 You must have a good reason for hurting a tame creature ; 
 you must not have a good reason for hurting a wild 
 creature ; and you need have no reason at all for hurting 
 an invertebrate creature. 
 
 Before physiologists and invertebrates had been thus 
 unfavourably distinguished from their fellow creatures, 
 Martin's Act was the only law upon this subject ; but it was 
 amply sufficient to protect domestic animals from anything 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PKESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 85 
 
 that could be really called cruelty. The Royal Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals exists for the very 
 purpose of prosecuting such acts. As we find it later on 
 proposing legislation for the purpose of restricting expe- 
 riment, we naturally expect to find that it first exhausted 
 the powers of the existing law. We expect to learn that 
 its numerous prosecutions against those who "tortured" 
 cats and dogs failed to repress the odious practice, either 
 because it was so widespread as to be irrepressible, or 
 because the sentences which could be imposed under 
 Martin's Act were not sufficiently severe. But it is not so. 
 We look vainly for the prosecutions, vainly for the sen- 
 tences, most vainly of all for the evidence of " tortures" 
 needlessly inflicted by any English physiologist. The 
 S. P. C. A. itself tells us* that they have employed "the 
 surveillance of detectives, and vigorously pursued the 
 prosecution of offenders ;" but we learn from the same 
 authority that " the only prosecution ever instituted against 
 vivisectors under a penal statute [was] the celebrated 
 Norwich proceedings." After all, detectives and vigour are 
 not all that is needed for an action at law ; there must also 
 be something to be detected. Up to the sitting of the 
 Royal Commission in 1875, evidence had not been forth- 
 coming to bring a charge of cruelty to animals home to 
 any English physiologist. The Society attributes this to the 
 difficulty of obtaining entrance to laboratories, or evidence 
 of what goes on there. But the laboratories at Westminster 
 Hospital, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Guy's Hospital, the 
 Brown Institution, and St. George's Hospital, were opened 
 to its agents when they applied for admission (a privilege 
 of which they seem only to have availed themselves in two 
 cases out of the five) ; and considering the large number of 
 
 * Vivisection, Introduction, p. 5. Published for the Royal Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
 
86 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 students and servants who must be privy to whatever 
 horrors are supposed to go on in other laboratories, it is 
 incredible that no evidence could have been forthcoming in 
 any single case, if cruelty had really been practised to an 
 extent calling for special legislation. Whatever explanation 
 may be put forward, these are the plain facts — that the 
 Society never instituted a prosecution for cruelty to animals 
 against one of the English physiologists, and that — both 
 in the temperate statement above quoted, and in the 
 evidence before the Royal Commission of the Secretary, 
 Mr. Colam (already referred to) — it was admitted that, as a 
 general rule, they used anaesthetics wherever possible con- 
 sistently with the experiment, and could not be convicted 
 of a single case of wanton cruelty. 
 
 Matters stood thus previous to the meeting of the British 
 Medical Association at Norwich in 1874. Considerable 
 feeling had been excited in the lay public by a work 
 written by Drs. J. Burdon Sanderson and Michael Foster, 
 entitled " Handbook to the Physiological Laboratory," and 
 published in 1871. This book was intended for " beginners" 
 in experimental physiology (who must necessarily be 
 advanced students in the ordinary science of medicine) ; it 
 was meant to be used under supervision in a regular labo- 
 ratory ; the use of ansesthetics was taken for granted, just 
 as it would be in a book on operative surgery ; and descrip- 
 tions were inserted of experiments which had been made, 
 but which it would not be necessary to repeat. When such 
 a work was read by excited and sensitive lay men and 
 women, ignorant of qualij&cations which would be obvious 
 to the people for whom it was intended — they leaped 
 to the conclusion that raw medical students were being 
 encouraged to repeat for their pleasure every experiment 
 that had ever yielded results, careless whether the subjects 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 87 
 
 were conscious or unconscious of pain. This misconception 
 did a great deal to raise the temperature of popular feeling. 
 At this time, then, an " Anti- Vivisection" agitation was in 
 the air, but it had not gathered to a point ; the vigilant 
 S. P. C. A. had its detectives at work, but had detected 
 nothing ; and physiologists were going on with their busi- 
 ness, unlicensed and unlibelled. Then occurred the Norwich 
 incident, when Dr. Magnan injected absinthe into the veins 
 of one dog, with the effect of producing epileptic convul- 
 sions, — and alcohol into those of another, with the effect of 
 making it drunk. The object was to show the different 
 action of the two drugs, in order to enable doctors to 
 diagnose their use, and to show the dangers of absinthe 
 drinking. The S. P. C. A. now instituted their first pro- 
 secution, but it was not a successful one. Dr. Magnan 
 was beyond the jurisdiction of English courts, and the 
 English doctors who were arraigned with him could not be 
 proved to have taken any part in the experiment. The 
 public mind, however, was highly excited ; and the agitation, 
 which had been simmering, rose, and boiled over into the 
 newspapers. Letters appeared, describing proceedings in 
 foreign laboratories, in which the experiments were dwelt 
 iupon in painful detail, and nothing was said about their 
 objects, which were probably not known to the writers. 
 And it was concluded that everything which had been done 
 in Florence or Paris was, or would be, repeated in London, 
 because one dog had been made epileptic and another drunk, 
 in the presence of a body of scientific men. 
 
 Many persons who thoroughly appreciated the value of 
 experiment upon living animals, yet felt that it was a 
 practice liable to abuse, and needing to be guarded by 
 certain restrictions ; the medical profession, as a whole, had 
 a clear conscience, and courted investigation ; and therefore 
 
88 PHYSIOLOGICAL CKUELTY. 
 
 no opposition was made to the appointment of a Royal- 
 Commission to inquire into the matter. This Commission 
 was appointed in June 1875, and reported on January 8, 
 1876. It consisted of Viscount Card well, Baron Winmar- 
 leigh, the Right Honourable W. E. Forster, Sir John Burgess. 
 Karslake, Professor Huxley, Mr. Erichsen, and Mr. Hutton 
 (editor of the Spectator). After having examined a large; 
 number of medical and other witnesses, and received all the^ 
 evidence that was laid before them by the Societies for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Total Abolition 
 of Vivisection, the Commission arrived at the following, 
 conclusions : 
 
 The number of persons systematically engaged in the. 
 performance of experiments upon living animals did not 
 exceed 15 or 20. (Report, page viii.) A general senti- 
 ment of humanity on this subject appeared to pervade all 
 classes in this country, not excepting medical students,, 
 physiologists, and scientific men in general. (Ibid., p. x.) 
 The evidence of medical instructors was unanimous to th& 
 effect that students would not tolerate the performance of 
 cruel demonstrations before them.* It would require a 
 voluminous treatise to exhibit in a consecutive statement 
 the benefits that medicine and surgery have derived from 
 the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, the lacteal 
 and lymphatic system of vessels, and the compound function 
 of the spinal nerves, made by experiments on living animals. 
 (Ibid., p. xiii.) "It is not possible for ns to recommend 
 that the Indian Government should be prohibited from 
 pursuing its endeavours [by experiment] to discover an 
 antidote for snake-bites ; or that, without such an effort,, 
 your Majesty's Indian subjects should be left to perish in 
 large numbers annually from the effects of these poisons ; 
 nor can we say that new medicinal agents ought, in tha 
 * See Appendix A, "HIT 7 and 8. 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PEESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 8& 
 
 first instance, to be tried upon man, when the risk to 
 human life might have been prevented by a previous trial 
 on animals. We cannot recommend that criminals like 
 Palmer should be permitted to escape, or persons sus- 
 pected be deprived of the means of establishing their 
 innocence." {Ibid., p. xiv.) "We cannot recommend the 
 total prohibition of experiments of [the inoculatory] class." 
 (Ibid. p. XV.) 
 
 In short, to quote Lord Sherbrooke (then the Right Hon, 
 Robert Lowe), " the Commission entirely acquitted English 
 physiologists of the charge of cruelty. They pronounced 
 a well-merited eulogium on the humanity of the medical 
 profession in England. They pointed out that medical 
 students were extremely sensitive to the infliction of pain 
 upon animals, and that the feeling of the public at large 
 was penetrated by the same sentiment. They then pro- 
 ceeded to consider to what restrictions they should subject 
 the humane and excellent persons in whose favour they had 
 so decidedly reported. Their proceeding was very singular.. 
 They acquitted the accused, and sentenced them to be under 
 the surveillance of the police for life."* 
 
 When the Commission arrived at the practical part of 
 their report, they declared it to be impossible to abolish all 
 experiments on living animals, impossible to limit it to the 
 "immediate application of an expected discovery to some 
 prophylactic or therapeutic end," and undesirable to forbid 
 all such demonstrations to students. But they advised that 
 the latter should only be exhibited with anaesthetics (in which 
 they only repeated a resolution passed by the Physiological- 
 section of the British Association in 187l,t and approved 
 by the leading scientific and medical men of the day) ; and 
 their chief recommendation was that the whole matter of 
 
 * Contemporary Review, October, 1876. 
 + See Appendix A, H 9. 
 
90 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 making experiments upon living . animals should be placed 
 under the control of the Secretary of State, who should 
 have power to grant and withdraw licenses for their per- 
 formance. The holders of licenses should be bound by 
 conditions, the breach of which should render the license 
 liable to forfeiture ; and the general scope of these con- 
 ditions should be " to ensure that suffering should never be 
 inflicted in any case in which it could be avoided, and 
 should be reduced to a minimum where it could not be 
 altogether avoided. In the administration of the system 
 generally, the responsible minister would of course be 
 guided by the opinion of advisers of competent knowledge 
 and experience, selected by himself, whose names should 
 be made known to the profession and the public. The 
 appointment of an inspector or inspectors will be necessary, 
 (who) must be persons of such character and position as 
 to command the confidence of the public no less than that 
 of men of science. The holder of a license, when he receives 
 notice that the Secretary of State intends to withdraw it 
 during the period for which it has been granted, should 
 be at liberty to demand a public enquiry," and if successful, 
 misfht be allowed " the reasonable costs of his defence." 
 {Report, pp. xxii. and xxiii.)* 
 
 Mr, Hutton, who takes a prominent part in opposing 
 experiments on living animals, and who throughout 
 the inquiry acted as examining counsel for the " Anti- 
 Vivisectionists," appended to this report one of his own, in 
 which he urged that dogs and cats should be altogether 
 exempted from experiment of this kind. But as he 
 expressed no dissent from the principles of the joint report, 
 which he signed, it appears that — however strongly pre- 
 judiced an intelligent person may be on the anti-scientific 
 side of the question — he finds it impossible (when brought 
 
 * See Appendix F, IT 2. 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 91 
 
 face to face with the evidence) to deny the necessity of 
 such experiments to physiology, medicine, and surgery, or 
 to recommend its total abolition. 
 
 In the course of the same year (1876), an Act was passed 
 through Parliament, based upon the report of the Commis- 
 sion, but departing from it in some important particulars. 
 The following is a summary of its principal provisions. 
 
 § 2. A person shall not perform or take part in perform- 
 ing on a living animal any experiment calculated to give 
 pain, except subject to the restrictions imposed by this Act; 
 under a penalty not exceeding £50 for the first offence, and 
 for the second, or any subsequent offence, a penalty not 
 exceeding £100, or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 
 three months. § 3. A permissible experiment "must be 
 performed with a view to the advancement by new dis- 
 covery of physiological knowledge, or of knowledge which 
 will be useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating 
 suffering," by a person holding such a licence as is subse- 
 quently prescribed. The animal must during the whole 
 of the experiment be under some anaesthetic of sufiicient 
 power to prevent its feeling pain ; and if the pain is likely 
 to continue after the effect of the anaesthetic has ceased, or 
 if any serious injury has been inflicted upon the animal, it 
 must be killed before it recovers from the influence of the 
 anaesthetic. The experiment shall not be performed as an 
 illustration of lectures in medical schools, hospitals, colleges, 
 or elsewhere, or for the purpose of attaining manual skill. 
 The following exceptions are made : Experiments may be 
 performed as illustrations to lectures, if anaesthetics are 
 used, and if a certificate, as subsequently described, be given 
 that the proposed experiments are absolutely necessary for 
 the due instruction of the persons to whom such lectures 
 are delivered — with a view to their acquiring physiological 
 knowledge, or knowledge which will be useful to them for 
 
92 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 saving or prolonging life, or alleviating suffering; anaes- 
 thetics — in experiments for purposes of discovery — may be 
 dispensed with under a certificate that their use would 
 frustrate the purposes of the experiment ; the animal need 
 not be killed before recovery from the anaesthetic, if it is 
 certified that its death would frustrate the object of the 
 experiment, provided it be killed as soon as such object 
 has been attained ;* and experiments may be performed in 
 order to test a previous discovery alleged to have been 
 made for the advancement of physiological knowledge, &c., 
 under certificate that such testing is absolutely necessary 
 for the advancement of such knowledge. § 4. Curare is not 
 recognized as an anaesthetic. § 5. Painful experiments are 
 not to be performed upon horses, asses, or mules — or upon 
 dogs or cats without anaesthetics — except with a special 
 certificate that no other animal is suitable and available for 
 the experiment. § 6. All exhibitions of experiments to the 
 general public are illegal, and subject any one taking any 
 part in promoting them to a penalty. § 7. All experiments 
 performed for the purpose of instruction shall be carried out 
 in a registered place ; and the Secretary of State, when 
 granting the license for any experiment, may insfert in the 
 license a provision that it shall be performed in a registered 
 place. § 8. The Secretary of State may grant this license to 
 " any person whom he may think qualified," " for such time 
 as he may think fit "; and it may be revoked by him on his 
 beinof satisfied that such license ought to be revoked. There 
 may be annexed to such license any conditions which the 
 Secretary of State may think expedient for the purpose of 
 better carrying into effect the objects of this Act, but not 
 
 * If the object of the experiment were to study a mode of treatment 
 for some disease, or the best method of performing some operation, — 
 the animal would (according to this section) have to be killed as soon 
 as it "was obviously recovering. 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 93 
 
 inconsistent with the provisions thereof. § 9. He may 
 ■direct any person performing experiments under this Act, 
 from time to time, to make such reports to him of the result 
 of such experiments, in such form and with such details as 
 he may require. § 10. All registered places shall be visited 
 by inspectors appointed by him. § 11. Any application 
 for a license under this Act, and all the certificates above 
 referred to, must be signed by one or more of the presidents 
 of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the 
 Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in 
 London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, the Royal Colleges of 
 Physicians in the same cities, the General Medical Council, 
 and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow 
 (and in the case of veterinary experiments, by the president 
 of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, or of the 
 Royal Veterinary College, London) ; and also by a professor 
 of physiology, medicine, anatomy, medical jurisprudence, 
 materia medica, or surgery, in a university in Great Britain 
 or Ireland, or in University College, London, or in a 
 chartered college in Great Britain or Ireland, unless the 
 applicant be himself such a professor. If he be one of the 
 presidents named, however, he will still require the signature 
 of another president. A certificate may be given by the per- 
 sons specified for any time or any series of experiments they 
 may think fit. A copy of any certificate under this section 
 shall be forwarded to the Secretary of State, but shall not 
 be available for a week afterwards ; and the Secretary of 
 State may at any time disallow or suspend it. § 12. The 
 powers conferred by this Act of granting a license or giving 
 a certificate may be exercised by an order in writing under 
 the hand of any judge (as specified), when he is satisfied 
 that it is essential for the purposes of justice in a criminal 
 case to make such experiment. §§ IS to 19 specify the 
 manner, &c., of legal proceedmgs. § 20. In the application 
 
94 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 of this Act to Ireland, the term " Secretary of State " shall 
 be construed to mean the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant for the time being. § 21. A prosecution under this 
 Act against a licensed person shall not be instituted except 
 with the assent in writing of the Secretary of State. § 22. 
 This Act shall not apply to invertebrate animals. 
 
 The persons in the Act who correspond to the "com- 
 petent advisers," by whom the Commissioners advised that 
 the Secretary of State should be guided, are evidently the 
 eminent men who are empowered to recommend the issue 
 of licenses and to grant certificates ; and it would certainly 
 seem to be the intention of the Act that they should be the 
 judges of the matter, and that the Secretary should be ruled 
 by their opinion. But if so, it is very faultily expressed, 
 as it actually leaves him at liberty entirely to disregard 
 their advice. Also, there is no provision made for appeal 
 on the part of a licensee who may consider himself 
 aggrieved by the withdrawal of his license. In these two 
 respects, the legislation now in force is much more unfavour- 
 able to experimental physiologists than that recommended 
 by the Royal Commissioners. 
 
 When we come to investigate what is theoretically per- 
 mitted by this remarkable Act, we find that the principle 
 which I have laid down in Chapters III. and IV. is (after all) 
 tacitly conceded in clause 3 ; for it is there enacted that 
 (upon the recommendation of certain specified persons, and 
 with the consent of the Secretary of State) an experiment 
 may be performed, and performed without ansesthetics — 
 provided that it be for the advancement or testing of phy- 
 siological knowledge, or of knowledge which will be useful 
 for saving or prolonging life, or alleviating sufiering, and 
 that anaesthetics are inadmissible in the case. Now here is 
 the very point. Physiologists do not wish to perform 
 experiments for any other object except the advance of 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 95 
 
 physiological and medical knowledge ; they are perfectly 
 ready and willing to use anaesthetics whenever possible ; 
 they can, therefore, have no objection to this clause, as a 
 matter of principle. But it is a very important practical 
 question: Wlio is to be the judge of what experiments 
 will promote such knowledge ? The Commissioners say 
 the Secretary of State, guided hy co^mpetent advisers. In 
 practice, it is the Secretary of State of his own know- 
 ledge and wisdom. 
 
 The result of placing an uncontrolled discretion in the 
 hands of one man is that the effect of the law in question 
 depends almost entirely upon the manner in which it is 
 administered. In fact, it is plain that — for the regulating- 
 of experiments — the State is the Home Secretary. He 
 could, if he chose, as a matter of course, grant every license, 
 and disallow no certificate — thus leaving the real power to 
 the heads of the medical and surgical authorities nomi- 
 nated in the Act ; or he could refuse every application, and 
 practically carry out the views of the extremest anti- 
 vivisectionists. No one can interfere with him, and he is 
 responsible to no one. The law means as much or as little 
 as he chooses to make it mean ; but this it always means 
 with no uncertainty — that a layman selected for his political^ 
 views, and his qualifications for revising~sentences, keeping 
 Local Boards in order, attending to every one's grievances, 
 and generally doing the odd jobs of the nation — is appointed 
 Dictator over the Medical Profession. He, in the last resort, 
 ^is the supreme judge as to whether a certainTexperiment 
 will or will not promote physiological knowledge, or whether 
 it will do so in a degree sufficient to justify the infliction of 
 pain. 
 
 A man ignorant of medicine — or even whose medical 
 knowledge has not been duly tested and certified — is 
 punished if he prescribes physic, and attempts to cure 
 
•96 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 other men ; but the same ignorance — if he only be Home 
 Secretary — need not prevent his stopping the researches of 
 other men, when they are seeking fresh modes of cure. It 
 is no new experience in the world — that knowledge is 
 needed to do good, but none to hinder it ; still, it seems 
 strange to find the fact embodied as a principle of an 
 English law. The chief fault, therefore, of the Act of 1876 
 is that it lays in the hands of a single and irresponsible 
 Qnan a 20ower reqniinng shilled knoivledge in its use, tuith- 
 oiit making any 'provision that he shall he qualified to 
 exercise it. Let us now inquire in what manner it has been 
 exercised. 
 
 The actual mode of proceeding under the Act is this. If 
 a medical man is engaged in any inquiry requiring him to 
 make an experiment upon a living animal, for which it is 
 likely to be any the worse afterwards (say, to be blind or 
 deaf, or to have some kind of disease), and to keep it alive 
 to watch the effect — he finds that it is first necessary to 
 purchase a printed form of application for license, from 
 Messrs. Churchill and Co., New Burlington-street. Having 
 filled this up duly, he must get the signatures before- 
 mentioned, and then send it in to the Home Secretary. 
 After waiting about three weeks, he may get his license, or 
 he may not. If he gets it, he must then go about getting his 
 certificate, have it also signed, and forward it. According 
 to the Act, if he received no answer to the contrary within 
 a week, he would be at liberty to act upon it ; but a nega- 
 tive answer is always sent at once, that the Home Secretary 
 may be on the safe side, and he then takes his time to 
 think over the matter. Perhaps in about another three 
 weeks, the applicant may receive the permission which the 
 Secretary of State's " competent advisers" have already 
 long since granted to him ; but if he has had inoculatory 
 matter or disease-germs waiting all the time, he has 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 97 
 
 probably ceased to concern himself greatly about the 
 result. 
 
 Although very few applications for a license have been 
 ultimately refused, yet such applications have been re- 
 fused at first, and certificates disallowed ; and they 
 have only subsequently been granted or allowed after 
 long delay, and by the help of strong pressure upon the 
 Home Office. Some certificates have been absolutely dis- 
 allowed, and in several cases experiments have been pre- 
 vented by intimations that application would be useless. 
 Up to December, 1881, seven certificates had been dis- 
 allowed ; a delay, which defeated the object of the applica- 
 tion, and amounted to practical refusal, took place in six 
 cases ; and in five the applicant was deterred from making 
 a formal request.* In this manner, the Medical Dictator has 
 prevented researches into antidotes to snake poisons, the 
 multiplication of septic organisms,-]- the physiology of the 
 brain, the functions of the spleen, the method of renal 
 secretion, aseptic dressing of wounds, the actions of certain 
 poisons, intestinal secretion and movements, ligatures on 
 arteries, and other matters. To such a simple practical 
 issue has the matter been brought, that men are left to die 
 of poison, wounds, and disease, for want of the knowledge 
 that can only be obtained at the expense of animals. - And 
 the course adopted by the Home Secretary is the more 
 striking, because one of these very classes of experiments 
 (that on snake bites) is instanced by the Royal Com- 
 missioners as an argument against the entire prohibition of 
 what is called Vivisection. Thus the very investigation 
 whose importance was considered by them to be a raison 
 
 * Memorandum of tlie Physiological Society, 1881. 
 
 t The microscopic vegetable growths which give rise to putrefaction 
 in all its forms, and therefore to the inflammation of wounds, and 
 many diseases. 
 
 H 
 
98 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY, 
 
 d'etre for experiment on living animals — has been simply 
 prohibited by the executive authority. In a controversy 
 where strong language has so much abounded, it is best to 
 restrain indignation, yet it is difficult to write coolly of this 
 deliberate shortening of the hand stretched out to save life. 
 Just as Dr. Brunton has been forbidden to seek for antidotes 
 to snake-bites, so has Professor Fraser been checked in his 
 attempts to study the nature of the poison used by the 
 natives of Borneo upon their arrows, in hopes of providing 
 some safeguard for the English colonists now moving in 
 that direction; while Professor Lister has had to leave 
 England in order to carry on his researches. And besides 
 the list of stifled investigations already given, how many 
 more are left unattempted because of the difficulties thrown 
 in the way ? And in the face of all this knowledge already 
 refused, and help and healing shut away from suffering 
 men, we are threatened in the name of religion and 
 humanity with a still further curtailing of the working 
 powers of physiology ! One spoke long ago in the name 
 of religion and humanity as no other can claim to speak 
 after Him ; but what He said must sound out of tune to 
 our modern "Zoophilists." For, as has been quoted by 
 Prof. Yeo,* His estimate was : " Ye are of more value than 
 many sparrows ;"t and it was in conclusive certainty that 
 he asked : " Is not a man better than a sheep ?"| 
 
 If the whole state of the law about cruelty to animals is 
 anomalous, and that part of it which controls scientific 
 experiment was unjustly framed, and is harshly admi- 
 nistered, what is now to be recommended ? We know of 
 one simple and sweeping proposal, that of the Bill intro- 
 
 * Fortnightly Review, March, 1882, p. 366. 
 
 t St. Luke, xii., 7. 
 
 X St. Matthew, xii., 12. 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 99 
 
 duced into the House of Commons in February, 1882, by- 
 Mr. Reid, Sir Eardley Wilmot, Mr. Samuel Morley, and Mr. 
 Firth, and known as " The Vivisection Abolition Bill." If 
 that Bill should become law, it will not be lawful to subject 
 any animal to vivisection, that is to say, " to perform on any 
 live animal, with or without the use of anaesthetics, any 
 experiment or demonstration for any medical, physiological, 
 or scientific purpose." (Clause 2.) It is only fair to say 
 that in general the supporters of this measure propose, 
 when they have abolished hurting animals for the sake of 
 knowledge, to consider if they cannot attempt to abolish 
 hurting them for the sake of amusement. As the British 
 public is keenly alive to the benefits of sport, but not so 
 sensitive to those of science, the second task would probably 
 be harder than the first. But it is to be hoped that the 
 same public has still enough common sense left to render 
 even the destruction of experimental physiology no easy 
 work. 
 
 On the other hand, the defenders of Medical Research 
 ask for no such sweeping measure on their side. They have 
 not demanded the repeal of the Act 39 and 40 Vict. ch. 77, 
 whose short and insulting title is " The Cruelty to Animals 
 Act, 1876." They would be content if it were administered 
 in a spirit which takes for granted more humanity in 
 experimenters, less omniscience in Home Secretaries, and 
 more trustworthiness in their advisers — than the present 
 system implies. The Royal Commissioners — we know — 
 presumed that the Dictator would be guided by " com- 
 petent advisers ;" and the Act provided them for him, in 
 the persons of the heads of the medical and surgical pro- 
 fessions, who have the power of certifying that a certain 
 person is a suitable one to hold a license, that a certain 
 experiment is necessary for instruction, camiot be performed 
 without anfesthetics, requires the keeping alive of the 
 
 h2 
 
100 PHYSIOLOGICAL CEUELTY. 
 
 animal after it is concluded, or is necessary for testing at 
 previous discovery. It is surely absurd that an unqualified 
 person should have the power of going behind the opinions 
 of these high authorities, and contradicting them upon their 
 own ground. On the contrary, the Home Secretary's pro- 
 fessional advisers ought to be, like the Queen's, responsible 
 for all technical points ; and licenses ought to be granted 
 and certificates allowed, as a matter of course, to properly 
 recommended applicants. In cases of abuse, he will always 
 have the power of withdrawing the license, — a power which 
 ought to be exercised — not autocratically, but (as advised 
 by the Royal Commissioners) after a formal investigation. 
 In fact, the Act is at present worked on the principle that 
 medical men are not to be trusted, their leaders' certificates 
 not to be depended upon, and that cruelty would be the 
 rule, if it were not made impossible. But the profession 
 was tried for cruelty before the Royal Commission, and 
 was acquitted. It would only be fair, therefore, to act on 
 the basis of that acquittal, and admit that abuse of their 
 very restricted liberty is to be looked for as the exception 
 and not the rule. Therefore let the determination of who 
 is to be licensed, and for what, rest with those who under- 
 stand the subject-matter of the decision. They are the 
 best judges of the value of what is proposed to be done, 
 and the sense of responsibility to the nation, and the public 
 opinion of their own profession, will be amply sufficient 
 safeguards against too great laxity. Probably the members 
 of the " anti-vivisectionist" societies do not believe that 
 there is any such professional public opinion ; but there is, 
 and it is an effectual, though quiet check on the few who 
 need it. But if any influence from outside could injure 
 it, it tuould be the constant ignoring and denying of its 
 existence. It is not generally found an incentive to honesty 
 
LEGISLATION : PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE. 101 
 
 to tell a man, " You would be a thief if you coukl, and 
 itherefore I shall keep all my goods under lock and key 
 when you are about, and have my eye on you when you 
 •don't expect it." Weak honesty grows strong when leant 
 upon ; but even strong humanity, insulted and disbelievetl 
 in, may hear itself called callousness until it ceases to care 
 for the charge. 
 
 Again, it is an absurdity that an array of certificates 
 .should be necessary for inoculating, or injecting under the 
 ,skin. Such operations are almost painless, and their results 
 £ive particularly valuable ; so that any person who holds a 
 license ought to be allowed to perform them without any 
 further ado. Of all classes of experiments, they need the 
 least safeguarding. 
 
 It is a purely annoying thing that a teacher holding an 
 office the duties of which require that he should take out a 
 license, should be obliged to renew it every year. No harm 
 could follow from its being granted for the term of his 
 incumbency, as it could always be withdrawn if abused. 
 The Act imposes no restriction as to tlxe length of time for 
 which licenses shall stand good ; but the Home Secretaries 
 liave hitherto made a practice of only granting them for 
 one year. 
 
 These practical suggestions are merely tlie conclusions 
 which must follow from considering the actual value of 
 physiological experiments, the manner in which they are 
 dealt with by the law as it is administered, and the prospects 
 of obtaining any modification in such administration. If 
 the whole subject were to be considered de novo, the field 
 cleared of all existing legislation, and a new law passed 
 _grounded on reason and principle, I should put forward 
 very different proposals. Then I should urge the equal 
 vclaim of all sentient creatures to be protected from human 
 
102 PHYSIOLOGICAL CKUELTY. 
 
 cruelty, and saved from needless suffering, while admitting 
 the superior claim of men to their use for his own ad- 
 vantage. And I should propose that it be a legal offence to 
 illuse, cruelly treat, or torture, any creature whatever- 
 This broad principle being laid down, special provision 
 should be made for the various cases in which it was 
 necessary or allowable to inflict pain upon animals (among 
 which scientific experiment would be one), and the needful 
 conditions for each should be specified. But the day of 
 such rational and consistent law-making as this, seems 
 very far away. 
 
 Note. — While these pages have been passing through the press, the 
 " Vivisection Abolition Bill" referred to on page 99, has again been 
 presented to Parliament. The second reading was moved by Mr, 
 Reid, on April 4, supported by Mr. George Russell, and opposed by 
 Mr. Cartwright, Dr. Playfair, and Sir William Harcourt. The dis- 
 cussion had not closed when the hour for the suspension of the debate 
 arrived, and consequently no division was taken. This is much to be 
 regretted, as there could be little doubt of the result. It would 
 have shown that the common sense of the British Parliament now sees 
 that zoophilism has had more than its fair share of influence, and that 
 it is now the turn of philanthropy. Sir W. Harcourt took this 
 opportunity of mentioning that it was now his practice only to allow 
 certificates upon the recommendation of the "Association for the 
 Advancement of Medicine by Research," a body consisting of the most 
 eminent medical men in the kingdom. 
 
CONCLUSION. 103 
 
 CHAPTEE, IX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Summary of previous argument — Supposed demoralization of experi- 
 menters — Where the real danger lies — Conclusion. 
 
 Let us now brino- together the conclusions to whicli we 
 have been led by this inquiry, which we may accept as 
 proved, and use as grounds of action. We shall see that 
 we have gathered no scanty harvest of facts and rea- 
 sonings. 
 
 Pain is caused by the excessive stimulation of a nerve ; it 
 can only be recognized by consciousness, and is felt keenly 
 in a rough proportion to the mental (which is part of 
 the nervous) development of the individual. The lower 
 animals suffer absolutely much less than man, in varying 
 degrees. 
 
 The infliction of pain without justification — or with in- 
 sufficient justification — is cruelty. Sufficient justification 
 consists in the attainment by such infliction of a good 
 which more than counterbalances the evil of the pain 
 given. Long life, activity, and health, are benefits which 
 counterbalance pain even to the same individual ; when the 
 benefits accrue to an individual of a higher class, and the 
 pain falls upon one of a lower, it is still more fully counter^ 
 balanced ; when the benefits are to many of the former, 
 
04 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 and the pain to a few of the latter, the advantage is still 
 further increased; and when (the other conditions con- 
 tinuing the same) the benefits are permanent, and the pain 
 transient, there can remain no doubt that the justification 
 is sufficient. Such is the case with all experiments which 
 advance physiological knowledge. The longer life, restored 
 health and activity, of an incalculable number of men and 
 women, extending over a considerable time for the indi- 
 vidual, and — for the race — over the whole period of its 
 existence, are gained by the endurance for a short time of 
 varying degrees of annoyance, distress, and pain, by a com- 
 paratively small number of the lower animals. There is, 
 therefore, no cruelty in the performance of such experi- 
 ments. If a physiologist makes an experiment which has 
 no beneficial result, the act has proved in itself a cm el one, 
 and is to be regretted; but he himself was not cruel in 
 performing it, if he merely committed an error of judgment, 
 and thought that it would prove useful. On the other hand, 
 if he has been indifferent to the pain caused, and careless 
 whether or not he gave more than was necessary — he has 
 been cruel, and there is no defence for his conduct. 
 
 There are other moral considerations besides cruelty in 
 this question. It is alleged that the practice of experi- 
 mentation tends to harden the heart of the operator, and so 
 demoralize him ; but if the act itself be not wrong, there 
 can be no demoralization in practising it. The mere wit- 
 nessing of pain habituates the nerves to resist agitation, but 
 does not necessarily make the heart indifferent to suffering,* 
 as is seen every day in the case of surgeons. There is no 
 
 * Professor Ludwig, of Leipsic, who was recently President of the 
 local P.O.A.S., treats his dogs with the greatest kindness : and when 
 he is obliged to fasten them down, arranges little pads and cushions so 
 that they may be as little uncomfortable as possible. He considers that 
 the being tied is generally what a dog dislikes most. 
 
CONCLUSION. 105 
 
 moral injustice in causing one creature to suffer for the 
 good of another ; for it is one of the most fundamental 
 of natural laws, and that out of which all the physical and 
 moral perfections of organic nature have sprung. The 
 absolute condition of the life of animals as the friends and 
 servants of man, instead of as his enemies — is that he 
 should be at liberty to apply this law to them for his own 
 benefit, instead of leaving the struggle for existence to 
 enforce it on them for that of their race. Among the 
 benefits which he seeks by its application, those gained for 
 him by physiology are some of the greatest. Consequently, 
 no moral consideration forbids him to seek them. 
 
 The making of physiological experiments upon animals is 
 usually — but incorrectly — called Vivisection. It forms 
 but a small part of the work actually done in physiological 
 laboratories in England. It is always performed (where 
 possible) under anaesthetics, and the number of cases in 
 which these are dispensed with is very small. There is 
 always a distinct object for every experiment. 
 
 All true medicine is founded upon an accurate knowledge 
 of the organs of the body, their working in health, and 
 their derangements in disease. This cannot be obtained 
 without experiment upon living bodies of a type generally 
 resembling the human. The greater part of our knowledge 
 of the most important functions of our system has been 
 gained in this manner, and rational treatment would be 
 impossible without it. 
 
 The practice of the healing art has been directly assisted 
 also by experiments which have perfected treatment, tested 
 new drugs, &c., and introduced methods of prevention as 
 well as of cure. 
 
 Since, therefore, experiment upon living animals (with a 
 sufficient object) is morally justifiable, and scientifically 
 necessary, we conclude that to check it is a blunder, and to 
 
106 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 prohibit it would be a crime. It is therefore to be desired 
 that no further steps should be taken towards abolition, 
 and that the present law should be administered in a 
 manner which would give greater liberty to physiologists 
 of recognized character, while maintaining the existing 
 safeguards against abuse of that liberty by persons of a 
 different type. 
 
 It may be well to recur to a point upon which much 
 stress is sometimes laid, but which has not occupied a 
 large space in our argument. This is the effect of the 
 practice of such experiment upon the mind of the operator. 
 There can scarcely be a more misleading expression than 
 that which describes experimental physiologists "as persons 
 whose business it is known to be to inflict on animals any 
 
 {- amount of suffering requisite for the special purpose of 
 benefiting men."* The business of a physiologist is to study 
 /. physiology. In the course of that study, he may find 
 himself obliged to give pain ; that is a disagreeable accident 
 of his profession, not its characteristic, still less its essence. 
 This book has been written to very little purpose, if the 
 reader has still to learn that the performance of painful 
 experiments forms but a small part of the work of the 
 investigator ; and why should his whole character take 
 its tone from one process occasionally necessary to his 
 researches ? A process, be it remembered, which we have 
 assumed to be fully justified by his reason and conscience. 
 There is no doubt that the profession of a physiologist 
 
 ^ has its moral dangers ; so has every other profession, or 
 position in life. Is there no possibility that a barrister 
 may weaken his love of truth and justice by doing his 
 
 ^ utmost for the success of his client, whether he be in the 
 right or in the wrong ? Are there no moral pitfalls in the 
 way of the attorney ? Is life in the army free from 
 
 * Mr. Hutton, in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1882, p. 34. 
 
CONCLUSION. 107 
 
 temptation, and is a commercial career the best school of 
 honour and honesty ? Is there no risk to the clergyman in 
 his daily familiarity with the highest aspirations and the 
 lowest vices ? In fact, every profession has its special 
 temptations, and there is no reason to suppose that phy- 
 siology has more than others. Possibly, some experimental 
 physiologists are rough and careless ; so are some surgeons 
 and dentists. Such men are probably coarse and cruel by 
 nature, and their work — having to do with suffering — 
 throws this fault into strong relief ; but there is no proof 
 that they became cruel in consequence of pursuing it. Even 
 granting — what is certainly probable — that the necessity 
 of inflicting pain may render some natures indifferent to 
 it, this is no more a reason for abolishing experimental 
 physiology than for abolishing surgery or dentistry. The 
 risk is not so great as is believed by those who only view 
 the matter from the outside, but at any rate it must b& 
 encountered. 
 
 It would be an endless task to go into all the work which 
 has been done by all experimenters, and apply the rules, 
 which we have laid down to each case. Without entering 
 upon any wholesale justification or condemnation of any 
 man or group of men, I have attempted to trace out what 
 experiment has been, need be, ought to be, and is in England, 
 which is all that practically concerns us. Wherever it has 
 been carried beyond the limits which reason and justice 
 have marked, it is emphatically to be repudiated by all 
 just and merciful men, but most strongly of all by those 
 who owe allegiance to the noble profession which is thus 
 misrepresented. It is one of the most disastrous effects of 
 the "anti-vivisection" agitation that it has rendered this 
 simple act a hard one, requiring a moral effort, instead of 
 springing spontaneously from a righteous indignation. In- 
 discriminate attack leads to indiscriminate defence. So 
 
108 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 long as war was waged only upon the abuses of experi- 
 ment, all those who recognized its uses were willing to join 
 in the effort ; but when experiment itself was attacked, and 
 all who practised it alike condemned as cruel, they were 
 all obliged to make common cause in its defence, regardless 
 of the differences which had been so conspicuous before. And 
 it is undeniable that the effect of such comradeship is not 
 good. The real danger of " demoralization" to physiologists 
 arises, then, not from practising their profession freely, but 
 from being hindered and calumniated in pursuing it ; and 
 those philanthropists who are so anxious for their moral 
 welfare would best consult it by letting them alone. 
 
 It is now clear that the total abolition of experiments 
 on living animals would be simply disastrous to the ad- 
 vance of physiology, medicine, and surgery, and thus would 
 greatly hinder the diminution of suffering — both human and 
 animal. On the other hand, the interests both of man and 
 beast would be furthered by a more enlightened and liberal 
 treatment of experimenters, at present kept under police 
 surveillance as members of " the dangerous classes." Cruelty 
 is intolerable, and cannot be tolerated. The resolutions 
 passed by the Physiological Section of the British Asso- 
 ciation in 1871, already referred to, are the authoritative 
 acceptance by English physiologists of the principle that 
 no avoidable pain should ever be inflicted upon animals. 
 And, indeed, any other course is simply immoral. 
 
 There is only too much suffering in the world already, 
 and the man who adds a needless grain to that terrible 
 mountain, is a murderer in posse. The use of anaesthetics 
 (where possible) follows as a matter of course. Painful 
 experiments should never be attempted by unskilled per- 
 sons ; the marvellous vibrations of sentient nerves were not 
 made to be clashed into discord by the hand of a blunderer. 
 
CONCLUSION. 109" 
 
 And even the skilled inquirer should call for that keen 
 response only with a sufficient and clear reason. 
 
 But, when all these limitations have been laid down, 
 experiment will still be seen to remain absolutely necessary 
 to certainty and security in medicine. The phenomena of 
 the human body can be only imperfectly studied while it is 
 living, and only the arrangement of its parts can be 
 perfectly studied when it is dead. Thus, deductions drawn 
 both from bedside observation and dissections, may remain 
 vague and inconclusive, while one series of experiments 
 upon a living animal would either confirm or disprove 
 them.* But at the touch of experiment theory crystallizes 
 into fact. It affords the only solid ground upon which 
 Medical Science can stand ; it alone gives Physiology a 
 right to be called a science at all. Only of what has been 
 tested by experience can we really say — we know ; and 
 every first experience is an experiment. 
 
 A striking example of the success and failure of the two 
 opposite methods of inquiry is furnished us by Sir Charles 
 Bell, the eminent physiologist, who lived and worked 
 about seventy years ago. At that time, no one thought of 
 interfering with the use of the lower animals for purposes 
 of investigation ; but the feeling against the dissection of 
 human bodies was very strong. In his anxiety to uphold the 
 study of human anatomy, he rather neglected and decried (by 
 comparison) experimental work ; he did in many cases what 
 the Zoophilists now tell us that physiologists ought to do 
 in all — endeavoured to prove his theories by anatomical de- 
 duction alone. What was the result ? He spent years of 
 his valuable life in trying to establish a natural system of 
 nerves ; it was for a time accepted, but has now proved to 
 be not only mistaken, but useless. For want of making- 
 experiments, he wasted priceless time and labour upon a 
 * Appendix C. , IT 2. 
 
110 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRUELTY. 
 
 false track. But, on the other hand, in his investigations 
 into the origin and functions of the motor and sensory 
 nerves, he did test his theories by experiments on living 
 animals ; and this portion of his work remains as one of 
 the keystones of Nervous Physiology, and alone renders his 
 name illustrious. These are his own words : " These expe- 
 riments satisfied me that the different roots and different 
 ^^ columns from whence these roots arose were devoted to 
 
 distinct offices, and that the notions drawn from Anatomy 
 were correct."* 
 
 Now that we have learnt something of what Physiology 
 owes to experiment, we can see more clearly what she 
 would be without it, — a vague and hazy pseudo-science, 
 working by guess, rashly trying by-paths in the dark, 
 or timidly standing still for fear of making a mistake, 
 J blundering about among human lives, taking up a theory 
 
 to-day and dropping it to-morrow, nebulous, inconsequent, 
 untrustworthy. We can hardly realize the picture, because 
 we have never seen her so. Hitherto she has advanced, 
 like other true sciences, hand-in-hand with experiment and 
 observation, — sometimes slowly, it is true, and sometimes 
 making mistakes ; but always advancing, and always 
 gaining increased power to cure sickness and soothe pain, 
 and also to lessen or prevent the sufferings of those very 
 classes of animals by whose means so much has been learnt. 
 / Is it Physiological Cruelty to help this advance, or to 
 check it ? 
 
 Nothing now remains to add, except to commend this 
 difficult subject to the dispassionate consideration of all 
 who can place Truth above Feeling, still more — above 
 Prejudice ; who can put aside the attraction of desire, and 
 the yet stronger attraction of abhorrence, in order to see, 
 
 * An Exposition of the Natural System of the Nerves of the Human 
 Body, <£-c. By diaries Bell, &c. Spottiswoode, 1824, p. 31. 
 
CONCLUSION. Ill 
 
 not what they wish to see, or what they dread to see, but 
 what is ; and whose real benevolence can heartily rejoice — 
 with no arriere pensee of disappointment — when a fascina- 
 "tiflg- horror, seen by the torchlight of excited imagination, 
 ^ades in the daylight of fact into one of the many dis- 
 agreeable — but not particularly appalling — duties of life. 
 Such persons will scarcely need to be once more reminded 
 that it is no true humanity which is willing to perpetuate a 
 great mass of obscure misery, out of sight and out of mind, 
 in order to spare itself the recollection of a few cases of 
 suffering, the details of which it exaggerates and dwells 
 upon with an ignorant and morbid sensationalism. Nor 
 will they be at any loss to answer the question : Where 
 and what is Physiological Cruelty ? 
 
 ( 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES ABOUT EXPERIMENT. 
 
 • It cannot be denied that our present legislation with regard to expe- 
 riment is in a much greater measure the result of an excited state of 
 popular feeling than of the evidence laid before the Royal Commission 
 and Parliament. It seems therefore desirable to show that this state 
 of feeling was at the time known by competent judges to be exag- 
 gerated ; and that many of the ideas about "Vivisection" on which 
 it was founded and by which it has been maintained are simply 
 fallacious. 
 
 ^ 1. In a letter addressed, by command of Her Most Gracious Majesty 
 the Queen, to the President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals, by Lieutenant-General Sir T. M. Biddulph, K.C.B., 
 the following sentence occurs, which shows that Her Majesty's kind 
 heart has been needlessly pained by the unfounded assertions that 
 have appeared in print: — "The Queen hears and reads with horror 
 of the sufferings which the brute creation often undergo from the 
 thoughtlessness of the ignorant, and she fears also sometimes from 
 experiments in the pursuit of science." 
 
 Should this little work ever be honoured by the perusal of Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty, it is earnestly hoped that it will have the effect of 
 dispelling her fears, and convincing her that no class of her subjects 
 are more anxious to prevent the sufferings of animals than those who 
 perform experiments upon them, and that her suggestion as to the use 
 of anaesthetics had been anticipated. 
 
 T 2. The Royal Commission appointed in 1875 " to inquire into the 
 practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific pur- 
 poses," recognized the errors brought about by hearsay evidence. On 
 
APPENDIX A. 113 
 
 page ix. the Report says : — "Much allowance must be made for the 
 misunderstanding and exaggeration to which rei)orts on such a subject 
 iire necessarily liable when not critically examined and not based upon 
 the evidence of eye-witnesses." 
 
 IT 3. The able Secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention 
 OF Cruelty to Animals, who has always been so earnest an opponent 
 of cruelty of all kinds, says in the work published under the auspices 
 of the Society ("Vivisection," page 11)— "Again, a random accusation 
 to the effect that Vivisection is Vivisection, and its practice attended 
 with as much pain whenever and wherever and by whomsoever con- 
 ducted, all difference in the methods used by operators notwithstanding, 
 and that English physiologists are equally cruel in their operations on 
 animals as foreign experimenters, has been made admittedly without 
 proof, and certainly against the common experience of persons 
 acquainted with the facts. Again, descriptions of experiments, of 
 implements of experiments, of conduct and conversations of experi- 
 menters in laboratories, have been published in papers in reference to 
 the present agitation in England, conveying impressions that such 
 matters relate to English vivisections. Exposures of cruelty are 
 valuable provided they do not mislead. It is not always convenient 
 to identify ; but, in a discussion on English practices, it is incumbent 
 on a writer to exonerate English physiologists when narrating particular 
 and definite circumstances in which he knows they are not blameable, 
 while certain foreign physiologists are, instead of leaving them under 
 the stigma of his terrible recital. Such omissions may serve a temporary 
 purpose, but when discovered, like actual misstatements, they lead to 
 unfavourable conclusions." 
 
 IF 4. Sir George Burrows, one of the most respected fathers of the 
 medical profession, who cannot be said to have any bias in favour of 
 vivisection, says, in his evidence before the Royal Commission : " I do 
 think, from the conversations I have had — not with scientific people, 
 but with humane people whose feelings are very acute, and who are 
 horrified at the idea of cruelty being practised on dumb animals — that 
 they have an idea that the practice of what is called vivisection is 
 carried out to a much greater extent than it really is ; and I believe 
 that many of those persons (who are persons of strong feelings, and 
 very humane in their nature) are under an impression that vivisection 
 means the dissection of living animals ; they think that these opera- 
 tions upon the living body are somewhat analogous to that of dissection 
 on the dead body. I am sure that there is a confusion in their minds on 
 the subject, and it ought to be made well known to the public that 
 really what is called vivisection very often is something so trifling that, 
 as your Lordship put it to me just now, you would never think of 
 
 I 
 
114 APPENDIX A. 
 
 employing an ancestlietic to perform it ; and also experiments that are 
 performed on animals very often do not imply any cutting at all ; nO' 
 instrument is used ; you have to administer a medicine or a poison to 
 see what the effects are. Now we know pretty well what the effects 
 of strychnine on an animal are ; but an experiment might be performed 
 to show the effects of strychnine on the nervous system or the muscular 
 system, and there is no cutting. So also an experiment might be 
 j)erformed to see the effect of inoculation ; you might inoculate an 
 animal ; if you inoculated a human being to prevent some particular' 
 disease, you would hardly call that vivisection." (Question 155.) 
 
 IT 5. One of the members of the Royal Commission seems to have' 
 shared the poj)ular view concerning the meaning of the word vivisection, 
 since in one question (No. 3592) he asked, ' ' Have you cut up any dogs 
 or cats by vivisection ? " 
 
 IT 6. Ideas almost incredibly wide of the truth seem to be present in 
 Lord Coleridge's mind concerning physiological experiments. He 
 says (Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1882): — "Suppose it capable of proof 
 that by putting to death with hideous torment 3,000 horses you could 
 find out the real nature of some feverish symptom, I should say without 
 the least hesitation that it would be unlawful to torture the 3,000' 
 horses." Such a thing never has been done, nor is it in the least 
 degree likely ever to be done ; but Lord Coleridge would hardly have 
 thought the case worth putting if he had known it to be absurd, and it 
 therefore fairly measures his acquaintance with the subject. 
 
 IT 7. In some people's minds the cruelty of wanton young men and boys 
 has been confounded with experiment for scientific purposes, and there 
 are some who actually believe that students of medicine cut up 
 live animals. Upon this point the following passages occur in the- 
 Memorandum published in 1882 by the Association for the Advance- 
 ment OF Medicine by Research, an association consisting of the- 
 leaders of the medical profession : — 
 
 " It has been imagined that students of medicine perform operations 
 upon living animals, in order to gain manual dexterity : such a practice 
 would be as useless as it would be reprehensible, and has never, we 
 believe, been thought of. For our veterinary surgeons it would be 
 quite unnecessary, and they have always reprobated the practice. 
 
 "It has also been supposed that students might, for amusement, 
 perform physiological experiments upon living animals. This would 
 be practically impossible, since not only are knowledge and skil 
 necessary, but a properly equipped laboratory and suitable appliances. 
 If, however, any ill-disposed person without scientific object or train- 
 ing should be guilty of cruelty most alien from the practice and the 
 
APPENDIX A. 115 
 
 training of the profession, there is no doubt that every member of it, 
 teacher, or student, would help to detect and punish such conduct. 
 The case has never arisen ; if it did, it could be efficiently dealt with 
 under the law known as ' Martin's Act.' " 
 
 IT 8. These statements are fully borne out by the Report of the 
 Royal Commission and the evidence elicited by them from the teachers. 
 Referring to this point, they say in their Report (p. xvii.) : " So far as 
 our evidence goes, such cases appear to have been exceptional and 
 abnormal." ..... 
 
 In his answers to questions 2034 and 2062 Dr. Pavy states : 
 " No class of students, if I know anything about medical stu- 
 dents, would tolerate the introduction of a living animal into the 
 theatre, and a vivisection performed on that animal, whilst the animal 
 was not under the influence of some anaesthetic. .... 
 At the commencement of my course, I am almost obliged to give a little 
 apology for saying that the course will be an experimental one. I see 
 upon the faces of the students sitting before me a feeling which leads me 
 to consider it necessary to make some explanation, and to tell them at 
 once that no experiment will be introduced which will wound the 
 feelings of the most sensitive amongst them." 
 
 The following statement is made by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson in his 
 answer to question 2613 : — " I have had a great deal to do with stu- 
 dents at different periods of my life, and have now a great deal to do 
 with them, and I must say that I have never met with any tendency 
 on the part of students to make experiments." 
 
 Dr. Purser, Professor of Physiology in Trinity College, Dublin, 
 says in reply to question 4884 : — "I think there is an impression, 
 abroad that medical students are very fond of performing experiments 
 on animals, and that performing experiments on living animals is a 
 very amusing occupation, and a thing which not only all students but 
 all doctors also are very anxious to do. Now my experience is quite 
 the reverse of that ; my experience is that as a rule students have no^ 
 taste whatsoever for such pursuits. The operations are extremely 
 disagreeable to perform, extremely difficult, and extremely expensive ; 
 and I think that all those reasons would make students not take to 
 them. Besides that, I think students would not care to perform 
 operations which they did not think themselves competent to perform, 
 and which they did not think that some good would come from ; and I 
 am sure that any student in our schools thinking of performing 
 experiments would come to the professor and take his advice and o-et 
 his assistance, and, if the professor thought it necessary, do it under 
 his supervision." And similar evidence is given by many other 
 teachers. 
 
 In answer to question 1550, the Secretary to the Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, says : — "With regard to London, 
 
 I 2 
 
116 APPENDIX A. 
 
 I have enquired at every scliool, and I have not found a single place 
 where experiments are actually performed before students. The 
 animal is operated on in the laboratory, and brought out thence in a 
 narcotized condition, and then it is examined by the students." 
 
 It has been urged that the mere witnessing of experiments must be 
 injurious to the medical student's character. No evidence in support 
 of the statement has been given, and it is not believed by the Royal 
 Commission, for on p. 10 of the Report we find the following : — 
 
 ' ' But the tendency to demoralization is connected, as the shadow 
 with the substance, with the Tightness or wrongness of the thing itself, 
 and the evidence we have quoted above seems to show conclusively 
 that at the medical schools where such demonstrations are exhibited 
 under anaesthetics, the sense of humanity in the students is not in fact 
 impaired." Report of Royal Commission, pagexviii. 
 
 "Dr. Rutherford told us, speaking of the students at Edinburgh, 
 that if an animal has been suffered to come out from ansesthesia, the 
 students at once resent it." 
 
 "Dr. McDonnell, speaking of the students in Dublin, says, that 
 unless he was able to give some good reason for doing away with the 
 anaesthetics, the students would not tolerate the occurrence ; the public 
 opinion of the students would be strongly against it." 
 
 After a careful consideration of the entire subject, the Royal Com- 
 missioner concluded : — "That the abuse of the practice by inhuman or 
 unskilful persons, — in short, the infliction upon animals of unnecessary 
 pain — is justly abhorrent to the moral sense of your Majesty's subjects 
 generally, not least so of the most distinguished physiologists, and the 
 most eminent surgeons and physicians." 
 
 IF 9. A most independent proof of the fact that scientific men are as 
 anxious as others to prevent the unnecessary infliction of pain for the 
 ends of science* is aflbrded by the following resolutions passed by the 
 Physiological Section of the British Association" so long ago as 
 1871, even before popular feeling was excited in the matter. 
 
 1. ' ' No experiment which can be performed under the influence of 
 an ansesthetic ought to be done without it. 
 
 2. "No painful experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose of 
 
 * The following quotation from a Manual of Physiological Experiment by a 
 well-known Continental physiologist, will serve to show that humane con- 
 sideration for animals is not confined to this country : " An experiment 
 involving vivisection should never be performed, especially for purposes of 
 demonstration, without previous consideration whether its object may not be 
 otherwise attained ;" and, as a second rule, " insensibility by chloroform or 
 other drugs should be produced whenever the nature of the experiment does 
 not render this absolutely impossible." — Cyon, Physiologische Methodik, p. 9. 
 
 [Note on page 7 of Memorandum of Association for the Advancement of 
 Medicine by Research.] 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 117 
 
 illustrating a law or fact already demonstrated : in other words, expe- 
 rimentation without the employment of anaesthetics is not a fitting 
 exhibition for teaching purposes. 
 
 3. "Whenever, for the investigation of new truth, it is necessary 
 to make a painful experiment, every efi"ort should be made to ensure 
 success, in order that the sufferings inflicted may not be wasted. For 
 this reason, no painful experiment ought to be performed by an 
 unskilled person, with insuflicient instruments and assistance, or in 
 places not suitable to the purpose. 
 
 5. " In the scientific preparation for veterinary practice, operations 
 ought not to be performed upon living animals for the mere purpose of 
 obtaining greater operative dexterity." 
 
 1 10. In a memorandum drawn up by sixteen of the leading Teachers 
 OF Physiology in England, Scotland, and Ireland, before the passing of 
 the Act in 1875, the following protest occurs :— 
 
 "We repeat the statement which most of us have made before the 
 Commission, that withm our personal knowledge, the abuses in con- 
 nection with scientific investigation against which in this Bill it is pro- 
 posed to legislate, do not exist, and never have existed in this, 
 country." 
 
 •TT 11. Another favourite fallacy is that the practice of performing ex- 
 periments upon living animals brutalizes the operators, and renders them 
 callous to the sufierings that they inflict ; but of this there is no evidence, 
 and the well-known characters of some famous experimenters are proof 
 to the contrary. 
 
 Haller, the father of experimental physiology, was equally renowned 
 for his piety, gentleness, and humanity. Harvey, Sir Charles BeU^ 
 and many others, express deep regret at being obliged to operate upon 
 living animals. So far from becoming hardened in the course of their 
 work, the tendency among physiologists seems to be in the opposite 
 direction, towards increased sensitiveness and sympathy. Sir William 
 Fergusson, speaking to the Royal Commission of Mr. Syme, said 
 (Question 1028) : "He lived to express an abhorrence of such operations, 
 at all events if they were not useful ;" and also remarks : "I would 
 not perform some of the operations at this present time that I per- 
 formed myself in earlier days." Many physiologists have renounced 
 the practice on account of the pain it caused them. With the improved 
 methods, and the abundant anoesthetics of the present day, this 
 deterrent cause is not as strong as it was ; but the fact remains that 
 long practice was far from hardening the nerves even of noted operators. 
 And it must be observed that the capital which has been (often un- 
 truly) made out of the repentance of vivisectors is inconsistent with 
 the argument that the practice is brutalizing. 
 
118 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson well says : ' ' There have been perhaps few 
 circumstances brought to light in the recent discussion on the subject 
 of vivisection more humiliating than the ease with which a certain 
 section of the public can conceive it possible that the performance of 
 painful experiments may have in it an element of attractiveness to the 
 operator. It might have been expected that those who for the first 
 time learned that such things were occasionally done would, judging 
 from their own sentiments, have at once felt it to be impossible that 
 any should undertake them, excepting under motives of compelling 
 duty strong enough to overcome a natural repugnance of the most 
 potent kind. What we have witnessed has been, however, somewhat 
 different ; and the revelation that there are amongst us many who 
 believe that there must be something intrinsically pleasant in the 
 infliction of suffering is by no means one of an encouraging character." 
 — Fortnightly Review, September, 1876, note on p. 311. 
 
 IT 12. The ' ' International Association for Total Suppression of Vivi- 
 section," has lately re-published the Memorandum of the "Association 
 for the Advancement of Medicine by Eesearch," with criticisms and 
 answers — or what are intended as such. Most of these relate to 
 matters already treated of in the present book, and do not call for any 
 additional remark. One point, however, must be noticed, as it seems 
 to be considered a strong argument. The "Memorandum" says: 
 " It is true that there are special difficulties in the study of the natural 
 laws of living bodies." The comment on this is : " This is true, but 
 it has nothii:tg to do with Vivisection. The latter is the study of 
 artificially -induced conditions in living bodies — a distinct and wholly 
 superfluous field of observation" (page 4). Therefore, we are to under- 
 stand that if a man falls into a well containing carbonic oxide gas, his 
 symptoms are the result of a natural law ; but if a dog is put into a 
 receiver full of the same gas, his symptoms being the result of "arti- 
 ficially-induced conditions" constitute a " distinct field of observation," 
 and no conclusion can be drawn from the one for the other ! ' ' Na- 
 ture is made better by no mean, but Nature makes that mean," and 
 so also with those means by which she is made worse. A condition of 
 any kind can only be induced by the use of existing natural influences ; 
 and when they have been brought into action, that action is just as 
 natural, and just as subject to law, as if the circumstances had arisen 
 spontaneously. 
 
APPENDIX B. 119 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 AMOUNT OF SUFFERING INFLICTED. 
 
 The following quotations from the published statements of persons 
 wlio must be accepted as the best judges on the subject, show clearly 
 that, since the introduction of anae-sthetics, the amount of pain actually 
 inflicted in experiments upon living animals is insignificant. They 
 relate, of course, to England alone. 
 
 IF 1. Mr. Chahles Darwest, in his evidence given before the Royal 
 Commission, says (Question 4670) : — "From all I can learn, the ex- 
 ceptions are extremely few in which an animal cannot be experimented 
 on in a state of entire insensibility." 
 
 Mr. Darwin's known impartiality and strict accuracy give additional 
 weight to his judgment. 
 
 Sir Thomas Watson said (Question 19): — "I believe that most 
 ■of the experiments may be conducted with very little expense of pain 
 to the animal." 
 
 The Report itself states that: — "By the use of ansesthetics in 
 humane and skiKul hands, the pain wliich would otherwise be inflicted 
 may, in the great majority of instances, be altogether prevented, and 
 in the remaining cases greatly mitigated." 
 
 •[[ 2. That anaesthetics are actually employed in the cases where tlieir 
 use is possible appears from the following extract from the evidence 
 of Mr. Colam, Secretary to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals : — 
 
 "1543. In the cases in which it would have been possible, so far as 
 time or the object was concerned, do you consider that ansesthetics 
 have been used always ? 
 
120 APPENDIX B. 
 
 *' I believe that generally the English physiologists have used 
 anaesthetics where they think they can do so with safety to the 
 experiment. 
 
 " 1544. Then may the Commission take your belief to be that there 
 is a desire on the part of the scientific men in this country so far to get 
 rid of the infliction of pain as is compatible with the scientific object 
 which they have in view ? 
 
 " I should say so generally, but in some cases there appeared to be 
 some heedlessness with regard to the sufiering of the animal : for 
 instance, in some of Brown-Sequard's experiments, when animals were= 
 kept for weeks in suflfering.* 
 
 "1545. May I take it to be your view that the general tendency 
 of the English scientific world is not at variance with humanity 1 
 
 " I believe it is very different indeed from the practice of foreign 
 physiologists. 
 
 " 1546. So that you would treat cases of wilful cruelty, if they exist 
 at all in this country, as exceptional cases, rather than as fairly 
 chargeable upon any want of proper sentiment on the part of the 
 profession ? 
 
 " Undoubtedly with regard to wanton cruelty. I do not know that 
 I know of a single case of wanton cruelty, by which 1 mean sufiering, 
 caused without any object, except to gratify a cruel mind. 
 
 1547. Then you give the scientific men of this country credit for 
 using anaesthetics, and dealing tenderly with animals so far as is com- 
 patible with the objects which they have in view ? 
 
 " Yes, I think so, speaking generally. As regards tenderness I have 
 no evidence to prove that they are- tender to animals. 
 
 1548. That the cases where that is, not so are exceptional cases^ 
 and not cases fairly chargeable to the profession generally 1 
 
 "Itliinkso." 
 
 IT 3. The following extract from the Memorandum published by the- 
 Association pok. the Advancement of Medicine by Research further 
 illustrates the feeling of the profession on this point : — "But speaking 
 of this country, and of modern times, it may safely be said that no« 
 charge of wanton, needless, or excessive sacrifice of animals can be, or 
 indeed has been, seriously alleged against the small number of ex- 
 perimental physiologists and pathologists at work in the three king- 
 doms. Science has herself provided the means by which pain is. 
 reduced to a minimum. The beneficent discovery of anaesthetics is 
 one cause of the great difference between the sufferings inflicted by 
 Harvey, Boyle, Hales, Haller, Hunter, Magendie, and Bell, and the 
 generally painless experiments of a modern laboratory." (p. 5 et seq.) 
 
 * M. Brown-Sequard is a distinguished French physiologist. 
 
APPENDIX B. 121 
 
 IT 4 The most conclusive evidence is that laid before Parliament by 
 the Home Office in the form of the following Reports : — 
 
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 32, Harley-street, W., 30 January, 1879. 
 
 Sib, — In accordance with the instructions contained in Mr. Liddell's. 
 letter of the 19th December, 1878, I have the honour to submit the 
 following Report upon — 
 
 I. The Total Number of Experiments performed during the Year 
 1878, under the Act 39 & 40 Vict. c. 77. 
 TI. The Number of Experiments, with the Names of those who do 
 
 not object to the Publication of their Names. 
 III. I have endeavoui'ed, as far as is possible, to determine the 
 number of Experiments in which there is reason to believe 
 that Pain or Suffering of an appreciable kind was inflicted. 
 
 Report. 
 
 1. The total number of licenses in force during any part of the year 
 1878, was 45 ; but as, of these, it would seem that 18 were not acted 
 upon, the number of liceiisees who need be specified is reduced to 27, 
 a list of whom is subjoined ; together with a list of those licensees who- 
 do not appear to have performed any experiments. 
 
 2. The total number of experiments performed under these 27 
 licenses and the certificates, according to the returns I have received 
 from each licensee, was about 481. 
 
 3. Of these, 317 were performed under the restrictions of the license 
 alone ; 87 under certificates specified in Column 2 ; 30 under certificates 
 in Column 3 ; and 47 under certificates in Column 1 ; five of the 
 licensees also held certificates in form specified in Column 4, one of 
 whom held two such certificates ; the experiments (about 18 in number) 
 imder these certificates are included in the number of those placed 
 under the head of certificates in Column 2. 
 
 4. As regards the painful or painless nature of the experiments, it is 
 necessary to refer only to those which were performed under certifi- 
 cates in Columns 2 and 3, the former of which allows the use of 
 anaesthetics to be dispensed with where their administration would 
 render the experiment valueless ; and the other permitting the animal 
 to survive the state of anaesthesia in cases where otherwise the object of 
 the experiment would be frustrated. 
 
 5. With respect to the experiments under certificates in Column 2,. 
 it would appear from the descriptions of them with which I have been 
 
122 APPENDIX B. 
 
 furnished, and also in part from what I have myself witnessed, that in 
 the majority of cases the only actually i^ainful part of the proceeding 
 was done under ansesthesia, an anaesthetic being administered when- 
 ever it was admissible. 
 
 Upon full consideration of all these experiments, and the mode in 
 which they were performed, I am of opinion that the extreme number 
 of cases in which an amount of suffering worth notice was inflicted 
 could not have exceeded 40. I would state, however, that in 24 of these 
 cases the animals did not suffer from the actual experiments, but, as in 
 the experiments instituted for the investigation of certain epizootic 
 diseases, from the after consequences only. In 16 cases alone, so far as 
 -I am able to judge, and these were confined to two sets of exj)eriments, 
 is there reason to believe that any considerable amount of suffering 
 was directly inflicted. 
 
 6. As regards the experiments under certificates in Column 3, it is 
 less easy to form a correct estimate of the actual amount of pain that 
 inay have been caused. Taking, however, all the circumstances 
 connected with them into consideration, I believe that the amount of 
 suffering, where any at all was inflicted, must have been very slight, 
 in the majority of cases not being greater probably than that which 
 necessarily attends the i5resence and the healing of a wound of the 
 integument. 
 
 7. In the remaining experiments, inasmuch as they were all per- 
 formed either whilst the animal was in a state of insensibility from the 
 previous exhibition of an aneesthetic, or were experiments regarding 
 the action of agents in themselves having narcotic or anassthetic 
 properties, there is no reason to suppose, from any particulars that 
 have come to my knowledge, that any appreciable pain was inflicted. 
 As a matter of fact, moreover, I would beg to observe that of the 
 -experiments performed under the license alone, at least 200 appear 
 scarcely to come within the scope of the Act at all, and might probably 
 have been performed independently of it, as not being calculated to 
 give pain ; but as they were performed under the license, they are 
 included in this Return. 
 
 8. The number of experiments or demonstrations of physiological 
 facts, performed under certificates in Column 1, is 47. This number 
 distributed amongst 11 Physiological Schools, gives an average of less 
 than five for the instruction of each class, although the discretion of 
 the teachers is unlimited as to the number of such demonstrations they 
 .may consider necessary. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 The Right Honourable the Secretary of State. Geo. Busk. 
 
APPENDIX B. 123 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 Claremont House, Dublin, 19 March, 1879. 
 
 SiK, — In compliance with the instructions contained in your letter 
 of the 8th instant, I beg to submit, for the consideration of his Grace 
 the Lord Lieutenant, the following Report upon — 
 
 I. The Total Number of Experiments performed in Ireland during 
 
 the year 1878, under the Act 39 & 40 Vict. c. 77. 
 
 II. The number of Experimenters, and the Names of those who do 
 
 not object to their Publication. 
 
 Report. 
 
 1. The total number of licenses in force during any part of the year 
 1878 was 10 ; in five instances the license was not acted upon ; the 
 number of experimenters was consequently reduced to five. 
 
 2. The total number of experiments under the five licenses amounted 
 to 24. 
 
 3. Of the 24 experiments performed, four were under the restrictions 
 of the license alone, and the remaining 20 under Certificate C, 
 Column 1. 
 
 4. From the returns received from the several experimenters it 
 would appear that in no case has pain been inflicted, and that some of 
 the experiments might have been legally performed without the license 
 under the Act. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 W. M. Burke. 
 To the Right Hon. the Chief Secretary, 
 Dublin Castle. 
 
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 32, Harley-street, W., February, 1880. 
 
 Sir, — In accordance with your instructions, I have the honour to 
 submit the following Report upon — 
 
 I. The names of all persons who held Licenses and Certificates 
 under the Act 39 and 40 Vict. c. 77, during any part of tlie 
 Year 1879, together with the Registered Places at which the 
 Experiments were performed. 
 
 II. The Total Number of Experiments performed under the Pro- 
 visions of the Act during the same period, and 
 
 III. The Number of Experiments in which there is reason to believe 
 
 that any appreciable sufiering was caused. 
 
124 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Keport. 
 
 1. The names of the licensees are given in the two subjoined Tables^ 
 in one of which are entered the names of those who performed any 
 experiments ; and, on the second, the names of those who performed 
 none. 
 
 2. The total number of experiments performed under the licenses, 
 and certificates was about 270. Of these, 126 were performed under 
 the restrictions of the license alone ; 61 under certificates in Column 1 ; 
 35 under those in Column 2 ; and 24 under those in Column 3. No 
 experiments were performed under any other certificate. 
 
 3. The number of experiments in which there is reason to believe 
 that any material sufi'ering was caused appears from the statements I 
 have received from the operators themselves, and from my own con- 
 sideration of the nature and probable eff'ect, as regards the production 
 of pain, of the experiments under the certificates in Columns 2 and 3, 
 to have been about 25. 
 
 Of these, 15 were cases in which disease followed the inoculation of 
 infectious matter, but in which no painful operation was performed ; 
 and 10 were experiments upon as many frogs, in which an incision of 
 the skin was required for the introduction beneath it of a medicinal 
 substance. 
 
 In none of the other experiments under these certificates, as I am 
 assured by the experimenters, was any appreciable suflering inflicted. 
 
 4. As in all other exjoeriments, except those done under the above 
 certificates, the whole proceeding is conducted whilst the animal is in 
 an unconscious condition, no pain is inflicted if the provisions of the- 
 Act are duly observed, and this there is no reason to suppose was not 
 in all cases carefully attended to. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Geo. Busk. 
 The Right Honourable the Secretary of State. 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 16, Harcourt-street, Dublin, 22 May, 1880. 
 
 Sir, — I have the honour to submit the Report desired by you, on 
 the experiments performed on living animals in Ireland, during the 
 year 1879, under the Act 39 and 40 Vict. c. 77. 
 
 Report. 
 
 It will be perceived, on reference to the accompanying Tables, that 
 the total number of persons holding licenses under the Act in Ireland, 
 during any part of the year 1879, was eight ; and that only in one 
 
APPENDIX B. 125 
 
 instance was a Certificate granted, viz., one allowing experiments on 
 living animals, in illustration of lectures, the use of anassthetics being 
 obligatory. 
 
 Under the Licenses 15 experiments were performed, and under the 
 Certificate 8, being a total of 23, all of which were free from pain. 
 
 I believe the provisions of the Act have in all cases been scrupulously 
 observed, that no abuses in its working have taken place, and that all 
 the experiments and observations made during the year have been of 
 a class eminently useful to science, and calculated to lead to ends most 
 beneficial to humanity. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Wm. Thorniey Stoker. 
 To the Right Hon. the Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland. 
 
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 32, Harley-street, 18 February, 1881. 
 
 SiK, — In accordance with my instructions, I have to submit the 
 following Report upon — - 
 
 I. The Names of all Persons who held Licenses and Certificates 
 under the Act 39 and 40 Vict. c. 77, during any part of 
 the Year 1880, together with the Registered Places at which 
 the experiments were performed. 
 II. The Total Number of Experiments performed under the Pro- 
 visions of the Act for the same period, and 
 III. The number of Experiments in which there is reason to believe 
 that any appreciable suffering was caused. 
 
 Report. 
 
 1. The names of the licensees are given in the subjoined Tables, in 
 one of which are entered the names of those who performed any expe- 
 riments ; and, in the second, the names of those who performed none. 
 
 2. The total number of experiments performed under the licenses 
 and certificates was about 311. Of these, 174 were performed under 
 the restrictions of the license alone ; 60 under the Certificates in 
 Column 1 ; 79 under those in Column 2 ; 35 under those in Column 3 ; 
 and 42 under the certificate in Column 5 ; but these latter are enume- 
 rated with those done under the license, having been performed under 
 the same restrictions. 
 
 3. The only experiments in which there is the least reason to believe 
 that any appreciable sufi"ering would be caused, are among those 
 enumerated under certificates in Columns 2 and 3. 
 
126 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Under the former head the total number of experiments was 79, of 
 ■which, however, C9 consisted in simple inoculation (no more painful 
 than ordinary vaccination),* which in 38 cases was followed by no ill 
 effect whatever. But in about 30 instances, viz. , 19 guinea-pigs and 
 10 or 12 mice, disease appears to have ensued, which, during the brief 
 period the animals survived, may have caused slight suffering. 
 
 In the remaining 10 experiments under this certificate, either no 
 operation of any kind involving pain was performed, or one consisting 
 merely in the passage of a needle through a fold of the skin in rabbits, 
 and attended with no more pain than would be thus caused. 
 
 4. In the 35 experiments performed under certificates in Column 3, 
 18 also consisted in simple inoculation or the hypodermic injection of 
 morbid secretions, with the view of tracing the development of morbific 
 germs in the blood ; and no painful effect from the proceeding appears 
 to have been produced during the two or three days during which the 
 animals were kept alive. 
 
 In the remaining 17 cases in which incisions through the integument 
 were required, as those which constituted the only painful part of the 
 proceedings were made under ansesthesia, and the animals afterwards 
 suffered nothing beyond confinement until the wounds healed, or until 
 killed, no appreciable suffering can be said to have been inflicted. 
 
 5. As all the other experiments, either under the license alone, or 
 under the certificates in Column 1, were performed on animals pre- 
 viously rendered insensible, these experiments were necessarily pain- 
 less, as there is no reason to doubt that the provisions of the Act with 
 respect to the administration of anaesthetics, were in all cases faithfully 
 
 carried out. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Geo. Busk. 
 The Right Honourable the Secretary of State. 
 
 *ir 5. Commenting on these reports, Pkof. Gerald Yeo says :— "From 
 the figures in these reports, I have calculated that about twenty-four 
 of every hundred of the experiments might have given pain. But of 
 
 * With reference to these 69 experiments, it should be stated that they 
 consisted of two series, directed to two important objects. 
 
 One set of experiments, 29 in number, and undertaken at the instance of the 
 Royal Agricultural Society, were devoted to the investigation of the nature 
 and prophylactic treatment of the disease termed "Anthrax," or "Splenic 
 fever" of cattle and sheep. 
 
 The other series (40 in number) were undertaken at the direct request of the 
 Medical Department of the Local Government Board, and were directed to 
 the elucidation of an obscure and fatal disease, affecting mpre especially 
 persons engaged in wool sorting, and now found to be identical in nature with 
 
 The results of these inquiries have been most important, and cannot fail to 
 prove highly beneficial, both to man and domestic animals. 
 
APPENDIX B. 127 
 
 those twenty-four, foiir-fiftlis are like vaccination or the hypodermic 
 injection of morphia, the pain of which is of no great moment. In 
 about one-seventh of the cases, the animal only suflfered from the 
 healing of a wound, having been completely imder chloroform when 
 the incision was made ; and in about one-twentieth of the twenty -four, 
 pain equal to that accompanying an ordinary surgical operation on 
 the human body is inflicted. In other words, we learn from the 
 reports that in one hundred vivisections we should find the following 
 numbers, arranged to show the amount of pain inflicted : — 
 
 Absolutely painless 75 
 
 As painful as vaccination ... ... 20 
 
 ,, ,, the healing of a wound ... ... ... 4 
 
 ,, ,, a surgical operation ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 100 
 
 Pain forms then but a rare incident in the work of a practical 
 physiologist in England ; and when it is necessary that any be inflicted, 
 every precaution is used to reduce it to a minimum." — Fortnightly 
 Bevieiv, March, 1882. 
 
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 Sir, — I have the honour to submit the following Report, em- 
 bracing — 
 
 I. The Names of all Persons who held Licenses and Certificates 
 
 under the Act 39 & 40 Vict. c. 77, during any part of the year 
 
 1881, with a statement of the Registered Places for Avhich the 
 
 Licenses were valid. 
 
 II. The Total Number of Experiments 'performed under the Act 
 
 for the same period, and — 
 III. The Number of Experiments in which there was any reason to- 
 believe that appreciable Sufi"ering was caused. 
 
 Report. 
 
 1. The names of the 38 persons who held licenses are given in the- 
 subjoined Tables, in one of which are entered the names of those 
 licensees who performed any experiments ; and in the other, the 
 names of those who performed none. 
 
 2. The total number of experiments performed during the year 
 under the licenses and various certificates was about 270. Of these, 
 59 were performed under the restrictions of the license alone ; 90 
 under certificates in Column 1 ; 29 under certificates in Column 2 ; 
 92 under those in Column 3 ; and 1 under the certificate in Column 4. 
 
 3. The only experiments in which it is likely that any appreciable 
 
128 APPENDIX B. 
 
 ■suflfering would be caused, are amongst those performed under the 
 ■certificates in Columns 2, 3, and 4. 
 
 (a). In all the experiments under the first and third of these 
 heads the only operation consisted either in simple inoculation 
 with a morbid virus, or in its introduction by hypodermic injec- 
 tion ; the proceeding in either case being no more painful than 
 the prick of a lancet or needle. 
 
 (b). Of the experiments under the second head, 68 also con- 
 sisted in simple inoculation with a morbid virus, or the introduc- 
 tion by hypodermic injection of various substances of a poisonous 
 or medicinal character. 
 
 (c). In most of the inoculation experiments no eff'ect was appa- 
 rently produced, whilst in those in which the inoculation took 
 effect, either death speedily ensued or the animal was killed after 
 a very brief interval. 
 This was the result in about 20 or 25 cases, amongst which are in- 
 cluded eight (seven mice and one frog), caused by poison in the prose- 
 cution of a recent criminal investigation. 
 
 4. In the other experiments of different kinds performed under the 
 certificates in Column 3, the only pain caused would be that attending 
 the healing of the wound and the necessary confinement, or in some 
 cases produced by the action of drugs administered. The number of 
 cases in which trifling suffering of this kind was caused might be 10 
 or 12. 
 
 5. As in the experiments performed under the license alone, or 
 under certificates in Column 1, the animals are placed and kept in a 
 state of anaesthesia, no pain need be inflicted ; and I have every 
 reason to be assured as regards the due administration of anaesthetics 
 that the provisions of the Act are fully carried out. 
 
 Of this I have on several occasions had an opportunity of satisfy- 
 ing myself from personal observation in my visits to the registered 
 places. 
 
 It may, therefore, be confidently stated that during the past year 
 no case has arisen in which it was found necessary to inflict pain, 
 except of the most trivial nature, in the prosecution of scientific 
 inquiry. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 Sir, 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 Geo. Busk. 
 The Right Honourable the Secretary of State. 
 
 The Report for the year 1882 has not yet been published, but there 
 is no reason to suppose that it differs in its character from those of the 
 four preceding years. 
 
APPENDIX C. 129 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 NECESSITY OF EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH, FOR THE WELFARE OF MAN 
 AND OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 The Evidence proving not only the utility but the absolute necessity 
 of making experiments on living animals is so voluminous that the 
 only difficulty is in selection. Out of a great mass of material, it may 
 suffice to give the following extracts, beginning with the Report of the 
 Royal Commissioners, whose conclusions, drawn from the mass of 
 evidence laid before them, must necessarily carry great weight. 
 
 Section I. — Utility to Man. 
 
 T 1. "It would require a voluminous treatise to exhibit in a con- 
 secutive statement the benefits that medicine and surgery have derived 
 from these discoveries. Let us take for our example the discovery of 
 the circulation of the blood, and the various improvements in the 
 treatment of diseases, and in the safe method of performing silrgical 
 operations on the human subject, that have resulted from it. In 
 medicine it is obvious that a knowledge of the nature of — and of the 
 proper treatment to apply in — the large and important class of diseases 
 of the heart and blood-vessels, could not have been acquired without a 
 knowledge of the mechanism of the circulation. In surgery this dis- 
 covery has exercised a still more direct influence ; and the narrative 
 of the improvements in practice directly referable to it would lead us 
 by gradual and successive stages from the time when, after an amputa- 
 tion, red-hot irons were applied to staunch the bleeding vessels, to the 
 employment of the carbolised ligature of the i)rcsent day. If Harvey's 
 experiments, and those upon the lacteal system, were to be performed 
 now, the animals would first be rendered insensible to pain ; and even 
 in the case of Sir Charles Bell's experiments, Avhere sensation was tlio 
 immediate subject of the investigation, by far the most severe part 
 
 K 
 
130 APPENDIX C. 
 
 would also be performed while the animal was in a state of complete 
 anaesthesia." — Boyal Commission Report, page xiii. 
 
 " The production of disease in animals has been already, and is 
 likely to become still more, the source of knowledge prophylactic as 
 well as therapeutic, tending in the most important degree to the pre- 
 vention as well as to the mitigation and the cure of disease in the 
 human family." — lb., page xiv. 
 
 "Important knowledge has also been acquired in respect of tuber- 
 culosis, that fatal malady which causes the loss of one-tenth of the 
 whole number of the human family who die in the United Kingdom. 
 This knowledge may be expected to receive fresh development, and to 
 lead, if not to the suggestion of any cure, at least to the avoidance of 
 many of the causes which now occasion the production of the malady 
 in the human subject. For other instances of a like nature, we must 
 refer to the evidence. The deduction we draw from them is that, 
 whether we look to the possibility of cure or to the probability of 
 prevention, we cannot recommend the total prohibition of experiments; 
 of this class. It consists in subjecting a comparatively very small 
 number of animals to diseases not generally involving severe pain — and 
 from the observation of these diseases results are likely to be derived, 
 tending to the mitigation, or possibly even the removal of some of the 
 severest scourges which afflict the human race." — lb., page xv. 
 
 H 2. Professok Wm. Sharpey quotes the following sentence from 
 Haller, in his evidence : — " But it is not sufficient to make the dissectionsj 
 of the dead bodies of animals. It is necessary to incise them in the living 
 state. There is no action in the dead body ; all movement must be 
 studied in the living animal, and the whole of physiology turns on the 
 motions, external and internal, of the living body. Hence no progress 
 can be made in investigating the circulation of the blood and its more 
 recondite movements, or the respiration, or the growth of the body 
 and the bones, the course of the chyle, or the motion of the intestines, 
 without the sacrifice of living animals. A single experiment will 
 sometimes refute the laborious speculation of years. Hsec crudelitas 
 ad veram physiologiam plus contulit, quam omnes fere alise artes 
 quarum conspirante opera nostra scientia convaluit." — (Question 591.) 
 
 ^ 3. In giving evidence before the Royal Commission, Mk. Darwin 
 says : " The first thing that I would say is, that I am fully convinced 
 that physiology can progress only by the aid of experiments on living 
 animals. I cannot think of any one step which has been made in 
 physiology without that aid." — (Question 4668.) 
 
 The following extracts from other sources will show the practical 
 unanimity of professional opinion upon this point. 
 
APPENDIX C. 131 
 
 "11 4. At the Sixth General Meeting of the Internatioi^al Medical 
 Congress, held in London in 1881, when 3181 medical men were 
 gathered from all parts of the world, the following Resolution was 
 passed unanimously : — "That this Congress records its conviction that 
 experiments on living animals have proved of the utmost service to 
 medicine in the past, and are indispensable to its future progress. 
 That, accordingly, while strongly deprecating the infliction of unne- 
 cessary pain, it is of opinion, alike in the interests of man and of 
 animals, that it is not desirable to restrict competent persons in the 
 performance of such experiments." — Transactions of the International 
 Medical Congress, 1881, vol. I., page 101. 
 
 IT 5. In addressing the Section of State Medicine, Mr. John Simon 
 said : — " Let me now briefly refer to the fact that during the last quarter 
 of a century all practical medicine (curative as well as preventive) has. 
 been undergoing a process of transfiguration under the influence of 
 laboratory experiments on living things. The progress which has beert 
 made from conditions of vagueness to conditions of exactitude has, ira 
 many respects, been greater in these twenty-five years than in the 
 twenty-five centuries which preceded them ; and with this increase of 
 insight, due almost entirely to scientific experiment, the practical 
 resources of our art, for present and future good to the world, have 
 had, or will have, commensurate increase. Especially in those parts 
 of pathology which make the foundation of preventive medicine, 
 scientific experiment in these years has been opening larger and larger 
 vistas of hope ; and more and more clearly, as year succeeds year, we 
 see that the time in which we are is fuller of practical promise than 
 any of the ages which have preceded it. It is solely by means of 
 experiment that we can hope so to learn the causes of disease as to 
 become possessed of resources for preventing disease." — British 
 Medical Journal, August 6, 1881, pages 220 and 221. 
 
 IF 6. In his opening address to the Section of Materia Medica and 
 Pharmacology, Professor Fraser said : — "It is clearly appreciated by- 
 all who are actively interested in the progress of pharmacology, that it- 
 is essentially an experimental method. This method, indeed, is as old 
 as science itself ; and although it has been the instrument by which all 
 true progress in medicine has been achieved, during a long period in 
 the history of medicine it had been distorted by the importation of 
 metaphysical phantasies, and dominated by the contending theories of 
 the schools. From data of the most insufl3.cient description theories 
 were evolved of wide application ; and in no department of medical 
 knowledge was this more strikingly manifested than in pharmacology 
 and therapeutics. 
 
 ' ' I have already defined pharmacology as the science of the action of 
 
 K 2 
 
132 APPENDIX C. 
 
 remedies, and pointed out that, like every other science, it must be 
 founded upon experiment ; which from the nature of its problems 
 must be performed upon living beings." — British Medical Journal, 
 Auglust 6, 1881. 
 
 TF 7. At the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association 
 held at Ryde in August, 1881, the following resolution was passed (with 
 one dissenting voice) : — " That this Association desires to express its 
 deep sense of the importance of vivisection to the advancement of 
 Medical Science, and the belief that the further prohibition of it would 
 be attended with serious injury to the community, by preventing in- 
 vestigations which are calculated to provide the better knowledge and 
 treatment of disease in animals as well as in man." — British Medical 
 Journal, August 20, 1881, p. 332. 
 
 IT 8. In addressing the meeting on the subject of the above resolu- 
 tion, Professoe, Humphry said: — "It was our duty who know the 
 real importance of vivisection to the advancement of our profession 
 and the welfare of the community, it was our duty in the interest less 
 indeed of our profession than of the general welfare of the public, that 
 we should speak out and state what we think distinctly. The first 
 argument raised against vivisection is — What good has it done ? To 
 one who surveys the progress of medical science from its beginning, 
 this question seems scarcely to be possible for persons to ask. Why, 
 the truth is, that almost every advance in the knowledge of the 
 Avorkings of the human body has been made through vivisection. Our 
 knowledge of the movement of the blood, our knowledge of the mode 
 of action of the heart, and the other processes by which the circulation 
 of the blood is effected, of the functions of the nervous system, of the 
 functions of the brain, of the functions of the spinal cord, of every 
 nerve which passes from the brain and spinal cord, of the influence of 
 those nerves over every organ and structure of the body, over the 
 heart, over the lungs, over the stomach, over the pulse, over the 
 kidneys, over the bladder, over the skin, over the muscles, is almost 
 entirely due to vivisection. What has been the influence of this upon 
 medical treatment ? Almost all real and great advance in medical 
 treatment has been due to better medical knowledge, and that better 
 medical knowledge is greatly due to the advancement of physiology. 
 Take away the knowledge which we have received through vivisection, 
 and conceive what a chaos would be our knowledge of the human body, 
 arid our ideas of the treatment of the diseases of the human body. 
 You can scarcely conceive to what we should be reduced. Every man 
 in . the whole history of medicine, every man who has made real 
 advances in the knowledge of the workings of the human body, has 
 done it through vivisection. From Galen to Vesalius, to Harvey, to 
 
APPENDIX C. 133 
 
 Hunter, to Hope, and Brodie, — for this, the most practical of modern 
 surgeons, was a vivisector ; every one of these men, and they are 
 few among the many, has made his greatest discoveries through 
 vivisection." 
 
 IF 9. The medical profession in America is equally unanimous on 
 this point, as is shown by the following resolution, passed by the 
 Medical Society of the State of New York : 
 
 ' ' That it is the unanimous opinion of the members of this society 
 that the unrestricted performance, by qualified medical men, of 
 scientific experiments upon animals is essential to the maintenance 
 and progress of the science and art of medicine." 
 
 IF 10. Sir James Paget writes : — " Speaking generally, it is certain 
 that there are few portions of useful medical knowledge to which expe- 
 riments on animals have not contributed. The knowledge may be now 
 familiar, so that the sources from which parts of it were derived may be 
 forgotten ; or what was first found by experiments may now have other 
 evidences ; or, experiments may only have made sure that which, Avith- 
 out them, was believed ; but the whole history of medicine would show 
 that whatever useful or accurate knowledge we possess we owe some 
 parts of it to experiments on animals. 
 
 "A clear instance of its utility may be found in the tying of arteries, 
 whether for the cure of aneurism or for the stopping of bleeding. 
 
 "Before Hunter's time, that is, about a hundred years ago, it is 
 certain that 95 out of 100 persons who had aneurism of the principal 
 artery of a lower limb, died of it. A few more may have been saved by 
 amputation above the knee, but at that time about half the patients who 
 submitted to that operation, died. At the present time, it is as certain 
 that of a hundred persons with the same disease less than ten die. 
 
 "In the same time there has been a great diminution in the deaths 
 from bleeding after large operations : I remember when such bleeding 
 might be called common ; it is now very rare. 
 
 ' ' By these improvements in surgery some hundreds of lives are 
 annually saved in this kingdom ; lives of which it may be deemed 
 certain that, less than a century ago, ninety per cent would have been 
 lost. Looking back over the improvements of practical medicine and 
 surgery during my own observation of them in nearly fifty years, I 
 see great numbers of means effectual for the saving of lives and for the 
 detection, prevention, or quicker remedy of diseases and physical 
 disabilities, all obtained by means of knowledge to the acquirement or 
 safe use of which experiments on animals have contributed." — 
 Nineteenth Century, Dec, 1881, pages 925 and 927. 
 
 IT 11. Sir Wm. Gull says : " Until Dr. Marshall Hall's vivisections, 
 at the beginning of this reign, nothing was really known of the con- 
 
134 APPENDIX C. 
 
 vulsive state ; but his experiments made it clear that a convulsion is a 
 mechanical nerve process, the beginning of which may be some trifling 
 and removeable irritation, which propagates itself along nervous lines 
 to their centres, to issue again in various directions to the muscles and 
 other parts, much after the manner of the electrical force telegraphed 
 to a central office, and thence outward in diflferent lines." — Nineteenth 
 Century, March, 1882, page 465. 
 
 TT 12. Bacon, in Ms " De Augmentis," Book IV., Chap. I., speaks of 
 vivisection thus : " Of that other defect in anatomy (that it has not 
 been practised on live bodies) what need to speak ? For it is a thing 
 hateful and inhuman, and has been justly reproved by Celsus. But yet 
 it is no less true (as was anciently noted) that many of the more subtle 
 passages, pores, and perforations appear not in anatomical dissections, 
 because they are closed and latent in dead bodies, though they be 
 open and conspicuous in live ones. Wherefore, that utility may be 
 considered as well as humanity, the anatomy of the living subject is 
 not to be relinquished altogether, nor referred (as it was by Celsus) to 
 the casual practices of surgery ; since it may be well discharged by 
 the dissections of beasts alive, which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude 
 of their parts to human, may, if judiciously performed and inter- 
 preted sufficiently, satisfy this enquiry." — (Ogle's Harveian Oration, 
 1880, mte, page 140.) 
 
 Section II.— Utility to Animaxs. 
 
 *![ 1. With regard to the benefits which the lower animals gain from 
 experiments, we are given much information by Mr. Fleming, 
 P.R.V.C, who says : "It may be as well to state that every advance 
 made in physiology, pharmacology, and other branches of medicine, 
 benefits animals as well as man." 
 
 "The benefits which these experiments on living animals have 
 yielded are already great ; while prospectively the same method pro- 
 mises to change half the art of medicine, from a curative system, with 
 all its difficulties and uncertainties, to a preventive or protective one, 
 applicable no less to animals than to mankind. How much pain and 
 sickness will the world then be spared ! How much loss, embarrass- 
 ment to commerce, and danger to human and animal life will then be 
 averted ! " 
 
 " The contagious and infectious disorders are those which have ever 
 been most destructive and intractable. Some of these are special to 
 the human race, others to one or more species of animals, while some 
 again are widely transmissible from species to species. Many of these 
 afiiecting the lower creatures can be conveyed to man, as rabies, 
 glanders, anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, and probably tuberculosis 
 and diphtheria. There are also the parasitic diseases of animals. 
 
APPENDIX C. 135 
 
 several of which may be transmitted to ourselves, as trichinosis, and 
 those due to various kinds of worms and vegetable parasites." 
 
 . . ' ' The agents in the transmission of contagious diseases — proved 
 in some cases, and probably present in all — are minute organisms, which 
 need almost the highest magnifying power of the microscope in order 
 to examine them. They are endowed with most marvellous powers 
 of multiplication, which enable them to act with deadly energy in a 
 very short space of time. Their discovery as lethal agencies was only, 
 oould only be, determined by means of experiments on living animals." 
 
 . . ' ' Inoculation had to be made to test the potency of the culti- 
 vated germs, and to ascertain to what extent their diminished energy 
 was compatible with the existence of the inoculated creature, and "with its 
 immunity from the original disease. Experiments and control experi- 
 ments, very numerous no doubt, were absolutely essential in order to 
 .arrive at conclusions, and the result has been the greatest discovery 
 ■of this century." 
 
 . . "The two diseases of the lower animals in which the experi- 
 mental method has hitherto led to the most complete results are 
 anthrax and chicken-cholera." 
 
 " The value of this new method cannot be exaggerated, even if it 
 were applicable to anthrax alone By means of this dis- 
 covery, made tlirough experiments on living animals in the laboratory, 
 this scourge, hitherto irrestrainable and incurable, is now completely 
 under the control of man all over the world." 
 
 ' ' Rabies and hydrophobia (if we may employ the two designations 
 for one disease) are only too familiar to the public by the terror they 
 inspire. 
 
 " Much of the knowledge we possess with regard to rabies, particu- 
 larly as to its symptoms and latency, has been derived from inoculation 
 experiments on animals." 
 
 ' ' By experiments in pathology, disease and mortality have been 
 vastly diminished, and continued experiments in the same direction 
 will cause further diminution. If mankind benefits, so do animals." 
 
 ' ' The pain of inoculation is usually no greater than that caused by 
 the prick of a pin." — Nineteenth Century, March, 1882, page 470, 
 et seq. 
 
136 APPENDIX D. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL DISCOVEKIES DUE TO EXPERIMENT ON 
 LIVING ANIMALS. 
 
 There is no foundation for the doubts wliicli have been cast by a 
 few writers on the actual dependence on vivisection of the great dis- 
 coveries of the circulation of the blood and lymph ; but as such doubts 
 have been published to the world, and as the matter is of such great 
 importance, it seems worth while to devote some space to making it 
 perfectly clear, except to wilful misunderstanding. 
 
 IF 1. — Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood. 
 
 Persons have been found to dispute the fact that experiments upon 
 living animals played any important part in Harvey's great discovery, 
 or even that he made any discovery at all. On the first point, Har- 
 vey's own evidence must be decisive. In addition to the passage 
 quoted in the text (pp. 56, 57), I now give an almost word-for-word 
 translation of two others, which distinctly show Harvey's method. 
 He first collected his facts, making large use of experiments both upon 
 dead and living animals ; and having learnt from the latter the con- 
 tractile action of the heart, the quantity of blood which it expelled, 
 and the arrangement for its transmission, he then reasoned upon these 
 data, and deduced from them his great discovery of the circulation of 
 the blood. But the facts on which it rested were all drawn from 
 experiment. 
 
 "Op the Motion of the Heart and Blood. 
 
 Chapter II. — Wliat the hearts 'motion is, from the dissection of living 
 
 animals. 
 
 First, therefore, in the hearts of all heretofore living animals, when 
 the breast is opened and the capsule which immediately envelops the 
 
APPENDIX D. 137 
 
 heart is dissected, one can observe that the heart is sometimes moved, 
 at others is at rest, and that there is a time in which it is moved, and 
 in which it is devoid of motion. These things [are] more manifest in 
 the liearts of the colder animals, as toads, serpents, frogs, crabs, and 
 snails, shell-fish, prawns, and all small fish. All things become even 
 more manifest in the hearts of the warmer animals, as the dog, the 
 pig, if previously you shall have attentively observed how the heart 
 commences to be moved with force, and to be moved more languidly, 
 and as it were to fade away ; for then you will be able distinctly 
 and clearly to trace the pauses of the motion itself, becoming slower 
 and fewer and further between, and one can look into and determine 
 more easily both what the motion is, and in what way it takes place. 
 In repose, the heart remains as in death, loose, flaccid, nerveless, and 
 as it were prostrate. 
 
 "Chapter YIII. — Of the amount of the blood passing through the heart 
 from the veins into the arteries, and of the circidar motion of the 
 blood. 
 
 Up to this, of the transfusion of the blood from the veins into the 
 arteries, and of the ways by which it passes, and how from the beating 
 of the heart it is transmitted and dispensed ; about which things there 
 are some who before, either induced by the authority of Galenus or 
 Columbus or the reasons of others, say that they agree with me. Now 
 indeed when I shall speak of the amount and propulsion of the passing 
 blood which remain (subjects very worthy of consideration), they will 
 appear to be so novel and unheard of that not only shall I fear some 
 harm to myself from the envy of some, but I shall dread lest I shall 
 make all men enemies. So much does habit, or learning [teaching] 
 once drunk in, and deep-rooted like a second nature, sway all men, 
 and a venerable respect for antiquity compels most men to consider 
 things new as naught. However, now the die is cast, my hope [is] in 
 the love of truth, and in the fairness of learned minds. Afterwards 
 indeed, as well from the dissection of living things for the sake of 
 experiment, and the opening of arteries, by various research, as well 
 from the symmetry and magnitude of the ventricles of the heart and 
 of the vessels coming into and going from [it] which nature (doing 
 nothing without a purpose) has not made proportioned in vain to these 
 vessels, as well from the precise and careful workmanship of the valves 
 and fibres, and the rest of the heart's construction, as from many 
 other things, I often and seriously would consider with myself, and the 
 longer I would revolve it in my mind how great forsooth might be the 
 amount of the transmitted blood, and how in a short time it is trans- 
 mitted ; nor however could I think that it could be supplied from the 
 juice of food absoi-bed, but that we would have the veins empty and en- 
 tirely exhausted, but the arteries burst by the too great influx of blood. 
 
138 APPENDIX D. 
 
 unless the blood somehow should return again from the arteries into 
 the veins, and come back to the right ventricle of the heart. I began 
 to consider with myself whether it had a certain circular motion, which 
 I afterwards found te be true, that the blood is pushed forward and 
 propelled from the heart, through the arteries, into all parts of the 
 body, by the pulse of the left ventricle of the heart, thence into the 
 lungs through the arterious vein from the right ; and again by the 
 veins into the hollow vein, and thence return to the right auricle, and 
 from the lungs by the artery called veinous to the left ventricle — as is 
 before mentioned." 
 
 Words can be no plainer — statements cannot be more positive — than 
 these. If Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood at all, he 
 discovered it by reflection upon facts supplied to him by vivisection. 
 
 But did he discover it at all ? It is asserted that he was anticipated 
 by Servetus, Columbus (Realdus), and Cesalpinus. Both Servetus 
 and Columbus had a very clear conception of the pulmonary circula- 
 tion j i.e., the flow of blood from the right ventricle of the heart to 
 the lungs, and its return into the left auricle' by the pulmonary artery; 
 but they had no knowledge of the circulation through the rest of the 
 sj'stem, and I have not even seen any distinct assertion that they had. 
 The real dispute is as to the amount of knowledge possessed by 
 Cesalpinus of Arezzo, for whom some Italians claim the honour 
 which the rest of the medical world awards to Harvey. 
 
 Cesalpinus's chief treatise (" Questionum Peripateticarum, libri 
 quinque") was published in the year 1571. In the year 1598, Harvey 
 became a student at Padua, and probably learnt whatever was then 
 known upon the subject from his anatomical teacher Fabricius, a man 
 of high reijutation. What he had to teach was "that the purpose of 
 the valves in the veins was not to favour the passage of blood to 
 the heart, but to prevent over-distension of the veins by the blood in 
 its passage through the venous trunks to their branches, and also to 
 retard the current of blood, so that time might be given for each part 
 to take up its proper nutriment ; and he states that valves are not 
 required in the arteries, because, on account of the thickness and 
 strength of their coats, they are not liable to be over-distended. 
 Neither are valves required to retard the stream of blood, because in 
 the arteries there is a perpetual flux and reflux of blood."* This was 
 the best explanation that could be given by the first anatomist of Italy, 
 more than thirty years after Cesalpinus was supposed to have dis- 
 covered the circulation of the blood. 
 
 Let us now glance at some of Cesalpinus's own statements on the 
 
 * Dr. George Johnson, in his Harveian Oration, delivered^ June 24, 1882, to 
 which I am indebted for most of the information contained in this note. The 
 passage referred to will be found in the work of Fabricius "De Venarum 
 ^stiolis," p. 2, published in 1603, , 
 
APPENDIX D. 139 
 
 subject of the motion of 'the blood, bearing in mind that in his time, 
 the puhnonary circulation was fairly well known, while the prevalent 
 idea was that in the veins and arteries of the rest of the body the blood 
 moved backwards and forwards, the fluid in the former being of a 
 nutritive nature, that in the latter what was called auctive — or ener- 
 gizing. He says : " The vena cava and the aorta, after entering all 
 the viscera except the heart, pass beyond them, or if any come to an 
 end, they are resolved into capillamenta, and do not pour their blood 
 into a cavity, for nowhere except in the heart is the blood contained in 
 a cavity out of a vein."* From this passage two things are evident : 
 firstly, that he considered the vena cava as conveying (instead of col- 
 lecting) blood, equally with the aorta ; secondly, that his capillamenta 
 are not our capillaries (which moreover he could not have discovered 
 without the microscope), because they were not vessels at all, but the 
 supposed hair-like terminations alike of veins and arteries. 
 
 Again, Cesalpinus agrees with Aristotle that the main function of 
 the brain is to cool the blood collected within it. ' ' For this purpose, 
 not a few and large, but many small veins from the aorta and the cava 
 are distributed to the brain, which is supplied with blood, not gross and 
 thick, but thin and pure."t Here we have the vena cava again con- 
 ducting blood. 
 
 "A nerve," he says, J "is nothing more than the extremities of the 
 aorta." But, " if the spirits are conveyed through the nerves for the 
 purposes of sensation, it does not follow that the sentient part is of a 
 sanguineous valve, for the nerves do not convey blood. "§ Conse- 
 quently no blood at all passes out at the extremities of the arteries ! 
 
 ' ' But the vena cava distributes branches throughout the whole body, 
 in order that, together with the arteries, they may nourish every 
 part. "II "As rivulets draw water from a fountain, so do the veins 
 and arteries draw blood /rom the heart. "*![ " The fountain of blood 
 in the heart being distributed into four vessels — viz., the vena cava, 
 the aorta, the pulmonary vein, and artery — irrigates the whole body 
 like the four rivers proceeding out of Paradise." ** 
 
 Is it necessary any further to multiply quotations, in order to 
 show that Cesalpinus was ignorant of the facts that the blood in 
 the arteries and in the veins flows in opposite directions, that it is 
 transmitted from one to the other through minute vessels, and that 
 the veins bring blood to the heart, instead of carrying it away from 
 that organ ? The only apparent evidence of any force to show that he 
 really was acquainted with the systemic circulation consists in a kind 
 of cento from his writings, composed by Dr. Del Vita, in which sen- 
 tences from difi"erent parts of his difi"erent works are strung together, 
 
 * QucEst. Per. lib. v. p. 116 A. § Qucvst. Per. p. 130. F. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 120 A. II Ars Medica, p. 488, ed. 1670. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 120, E. F. IT Quwst. Per. p. 116, A. 
 
 "** Ars Medica, p. 1. 
 
140 APPENDIX D. 
 
 so as to form a distinct description of what the above extracts have 
 proved him to be ignorant of. Eighteen distinct passages are used in 
 this fashion, to compose about nine short printed lines. Upon this 
 plan, any doctrine might be proved out of any book, and so discreditable 
 a device only shows the weakness of the cause it was intended to 
 support. 
 
 IT 2. — Discovery op the Lacteals. 
 
 The discovery of the lacteals by Asellius has also been disputed, on 
 the ground that the old anatomists of Alexandria had made a vague 
 allusion to some such vessels. These vessels were certainly not gene- 
 rally recognized, or at all understood, until Asellius called attention to 
 them. He describes his discovery in the following words : 
 
 ' ' Having thrown back the intestines and the stomach towards the 
 pelvis, all at once I saw a number of very fine white cords scattered 
 over the whole mesentery, and spreading over the intestines by means 
 of an infinite number of delicate rootlets. At first, thinking them to 
 be nerves, I did not pause. But I soon remarked that the nerves of 
 the intestines were quite distinct from these white threads, and ran 
 a different course. Being struck with the novelty of this fact, I 
 remained a moment silent, thinking to myself of the controversies, no 
 less full of asperity than words, which were kept up by anatomists on 
 the subject of mesenteric veins and their functions. When I came to 
 myself, in order to satisfy myself by an experiment, I pierced one of 
 the largest cords with a sharp scalpel. I hit the right point, and at 
 once observed a white liquid like milk escaping from the severed 
 vessel. At this sight I could not restrain my joy, and, with Archi- 
 medes, crying ' Eureka !' invited those present to enjoy the spectacle, 
 which was so wonderful and unique that it struck them all with 
 astonishment."- — Daremberg : " Histoire de la Me'decine." 
 
 But Asellius did not know the true destination of the vessels he dis- 
 covered ; he thought they carried nutriment to the liver. His failure 
 to demonstrate this theory made some anatomists altogether doubt the 
 existence of the vessels. 
 
 In commenting upon this point, a writer in an antivivisectionist 
 journal, says : . . . . "Vivisection had accidentally blundered upon 
 an important discovery. Vivisection promptly recovered from its 
 accident, and triumphantly proved the discovery a blunder. And so 
 the ' discoverer' Aselli died — in his ignorance of the true bearing of his 
 discovery. And twenty years later the anatomist Pecquet blew the 
 theories of the vivisectionists to the winds, and freed science for ever 
 from one more set of the ' errors' which experimental physiology had 
 done its best to perpetuate." — "Physiological Fallacies, II. The 
 Lacteals." — Zoophilist. June 1, 1881, p. 37. 
 
 The extraordinary incorrectness of these assertions cannot be better 
 
APPENDIX D. 141 
 
 sliown than by giving the exact words of Jean Pecquet, as quoted by 
 Daremberg, in his " Histoire de la Me'decine" : 
 
 ' ' I had removed the heart of a dog and placed it on the table, and 
 was thinking of nothing but counting the systoles and diastoles which 
 the last eflbrts of its spirits produced, when I perceived a white sub- 
 stance like milk flowing from the ascending vena cava into the peri- 
 cardium, at the place where the right auricle of tlie heart had been. 
 I examined the white substance, and not being able to find an abscess 
 which might, as I thought, have produced it, I opened the veins above 
 and below the heart, and I found that this substance (which had no 
 other taste, smell, colour, or consistence than milk or chyle such as I 
 had seen pressed out of the lacteal veins) came from the subclavian 
 branches, and a little beyond the jugular I found the opening where the 
 liquid entered into the vein. I thought the mesentery might have sent 
 this milk to this part by channels hitherto unknown, and that it was 
 advisable not to neglect the knowledge a divine Providence had given 
 me of a fact so useful to the practice of medicine. I placed my hand 
 on the mesentery of the animal, which was still pretty warm, and 
 whose lacteals were not yet exhausted. I had scarcely pressed when I 
 could see the milk flow from the two sources I had already remarked 
 
 in the subclavian I continued the search for these vessels in a 
 
 number of dogs, which I opened for this purpose. I found them all 
 along the dorsal vertebrae lying on the spine below the aorta. They 
 swelled below a ligature, and on relaxing the same I recognized the 
 milk carried to the holes I had observed in the subclavian veins." 
 
 Pecquet's contributions to the subject are therefore all based upon 
 vivisections. 
 
142 APPENDIX E. 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 TEE MEDICAL MINOKITY. 
 
 The expression of an opinion by a regularly qualified medical man 
 against the practice of experiment on living animals is so rare and un- 
 authoritative as to be conspicuous by its insignificance. It is a question 
 on which the profession is practically united, and cannot be relegated to 
 the decision of ignorance as one upon which " doctors disagree." 
 
 In Appendix C. some evidence has been given of the singular una- 
 nimity of their judgment on the point. A very few dissentients, how- 
 ever, constitute a minority ; and it may now be useful to make an 
 attempt to estimate their number, and the value of their opinion. 
 
 IT 1. — Evidence given before the Royal Commission. 
 
 Forty-seven skilled witnesses were examined before the Eoyal 
 Commission in 1875. These were selected, either on account of their 
 general eminence in medicine and surgery, or on account of their being 
 working physiologists, or because they had been communicated with by 
 some of the anti-vivisection societies. If persons of repute existed in 
 the ranks of the medical profession willing to give adverse evidence, 
 we may fairly suppose that they were called for on that occasion. 
 
 In reply to the question : "Are experiments necessary for original 
 research?" — we find the following majority answering, "Yes." 
 
 Sir Thomas Watson, Bart., M.D., F.R.S., Physician in Ordinary to 
 the Queen. 
 
 Sir George Burrows, Bart., M.D., F.E.S., President of the Eoyal 
 College of Physicians. 
 
 Sir James Paget, Bart., F.Tl.S., President of the Royal Medical and 
 Chirurgical Society. 
 
 Professor William Sharpey, M.D., F.R.S., LL.D. 
 
 George W. Humphry, F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy in the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge. 
 
 Henry W. Acland, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Medicine in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
APPENDIX E. 143 
 
 Sir William Fergusson, Bart., F.R.S., Sergeant-Surgeon to the 
 Queen. 
 
 Alfred S. Taylor, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Medical Jurisprudence 
 at Guy's Hospital. 
 
 George RoUeston, M.D., Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at 
 Oxford. 
 
 John Simon, C.B., F.R.S., Medical Officer of the Privy Council. 
 
 Arthur de Noe Walker, M.D. 
 
 Lawson Cape, M.D. 
 
 Rev. S. Haughton, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Physic, Dublin 
 University, 
 
 A. H. Garrod, Prosector to the Zoological Society of London. 
 
 F. W. Pavy, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology, Guy's 
 Hospital. 
 
 P. H. Pye-Smith, M.D., Lecturer on Physiology, Guy's Hospital. 
 
 J. Burdon Sanderson, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology, Uni- 
 versity College. 
 
 M. Foster, M.D., F.R.S., Prelector of Physiology, Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 John Anthony, M.D. 
 
 William Rutherford, M.D., Professor of Physiology, Edinburgh 
 University. 
 
 William Turner, M.B., Professor of Anatomy, Edinburgh University. 
 
 J. Crichton Browne, M.D. 
 
 David Ferrier, M.D., Professor of Forensic Medicine, King's 
 College. 
 
 George Hoggan, M.B. 
 
 G. Klein, M.D., Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of the Brown 
 Institute. 
 
 E. A. Schafer, M.R.C.S., Assistant Professor of Physiology, Uni- 
 versity College. 
 
 J. G. McKendrick, M.D., Professor of Physiology at Edinburgh. 
 
 J. Lister, M.B., F.R.S., Professor of Clinical Surgery, Edinburgh 
 University. 
 
 E. McDonnell, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy and Phy- 
 siology. 
 
 T. Hayden, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Catholic 
 University of Ireland. 
 
 J. Cleland, M.D., Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Gal way. 
 
 Charles Darwin, F.R.S., &c. 
 
 Francis Sibson, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 J. M. Purser, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Dublin University. 
 
 Wickham Legg, M.D., Professor of Anatomy, St. Bartholomew's 
 Hospital. 
 
 A. Gamgee, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology, Owen's College, 
 Manchester. 
 
144 APPENDIX E. 
 
 G. J. Allman, M.D., Professor of Natural History, Edinburgh 
 University. 
 
 Sir William W. Gull, Bart., Physician Extraordinary to the Queen. 
 
 W. B. Carpenter, C.B., M.D. , Registrar of the London University. 
 
 T. Lauder Brunton, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Materia Medica at 
 St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 
 
 A. J. Sinclair, M.D., Examiner at the Edinburgh College of Phy- 
 sicians. 
 
 P. D. Handyside, M.D., F.Pv.S.E., Professor of Anatomy, &c., at 
 the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's. 
 
 Wm. Williams, Principal of the Edinburgh New Veterinary College. 
 
 Edward Crisp, M.D. 
 
 George Henry Lewes, Esq. 
 
 And the following minority answered "No" : 
 
 George Macilwain, M.R.C.S., 1818 (retired from practice). 
 Wm. Benj. Archibald Scott, M.D. Edim. (late Surgeon Super- 
 intendent of the New Zealand and United States Emigration Service.) 
 
 IT 2. — Subsequent Literatuke. 
 
 A third exception to the unanimity of medical men is furnished 
 by the author of a pamphlet which has lately been widely circulated 
 by an Anti-Vivisectionist Society.* It proceeds from the pen of a 
 medical practitioner ; but it contradicts not only the avowed opinion 
 of that profession, but also some of the best-established facts in phy- 
 siological science. 
 
 The author was not one of the witnesses who appeared before the 
 Royal Commission ; and the evidence which the commissioners did 
 not think it worth while to invite, or the anti-vivisectionist societies 
 to invoke, need hardly occupy our attention, if it were not that this 
 pamphlet has been largely read, and has obtained a considerable amount 
 of credence among people who are unable to detect its blunders and 
 misstatements. I shall therefore examine in detail some of its state- 
 ments. 
 
 o. — Preliminary Inquiries. 
 
 The author repudiates the possibility of coming to any just conclu- 
 sion by reviewing the general improvements in medical practice which 
 have followed closely in the steps of physiological discovery ; and on 
 the matter of improvement in the performance of surgical observa- 
 tions, he says : "It will not do, as has been the case in many of the 
 arguments, to draw such a picture as that of an amputation in the 
 17th century and one performed last year, and say that the change is 
 
 * "On the uselessness of Vivisection upon Animals as a Method of Scientific 
 Hesearch." By Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., &c. 
 
APPENDIX E. 145 
 
 due to vivisection. Wc might just as well point to the prisons of the 
 Inquisition, and then to one of our convict establishments, and claim 
 all the credit of the change for the fact that our judges wear wigs." I 
 venture to maintain that it will do very well, because experiments upon 
 animals have been one of the chief causes of the acknowledged change, 
 whereas a Spanish prison never has been changed into an English one, 
 so that the somewhat silly remark about judges' wigs cannot even be 
 squeezed into a parallel. A catechism follows, to the greater part of 
 which completely satisfactory answers have been given in the text. 
 ' ' The real questions are : What advances in detail are due to vivisec- 
 tion ?" This point has already been fully discussed, see pp. 51 to 83. 
 " Could these advances have been made without vivisection ?" All that 
 we know is — ^that for many centuries they were not. "If vivisection 
 tvas necessary for elementary and primitive research, is it any longer 
 necessary, seeing that we have such splendid and rapidly developing 
 methods in hundreds of other directions ?" " Hundreds" is an absurd 
 exaggeration ; but, setting that aside, so long as millions die prema- 
 turely every year, or suflFer from preventable sicknesses, all methods of 
 research are necessary, until we know all that is to be [learnt of the 
 nature of disease, and the means of its prevention and cure. " Have we 
 made complete and exhaustive use of all other available methods, not 
 open to objection ?" Have we burnt out the last of our pine-torches 
 before turning on the electric light ? No, — I do not think we have, 
 and I do not think we shall wait to do so either. The value of other 
 modes of research is doubled and trebled when combined with experi- 
 ments on living animals. Time presses ; Death does not wait ; life is 
 short and precious, — the duty of the profession of healers is to do all 
 in their power to lengthen and improve it. "And, finally, are the 
 advances based upon vivisection of animals capable of being adapted 
 conclusively for mankind, for whose benefit they are professedly 
 made?" This question is difficult to answer, only because it is 'very 
 difficult to understand. If the results of vivisection are "advances," 
 they must be for the benefit of mankind, and must be capable of being 
 adopted for mankind, and adapted to it, — except in so far as they are 
 intended for the benefit of the animal creation itself ; but what the 
 author is aiming at in the phrase " adapted conclusively for mankind" 
 is more than I can " conclusively" explain. If, however, he means 
 to inquire whether conclusions drawn from experiments upon animals 
 can be applied to human beings, the question has been answered in 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 j8. — The Evidence of Drs. Acland and Lauder Brunton before 
 THE Royal Commission. 
 Instead of general results the writer prefers "specific instances" 
 and says " they must be analysed historically with great care." 
 
 L 
 
146 APPENDIX E. 
 
 His historical analysis opens with the consideration of " the alleged 
 discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey," which "our 
 insular pride" has claimed for him. . . . He then states " That he 
 (Harvey) made any solid contribution to the facts of the case by vivi- 
 section is conclusively disproved, and this was practically admitted 
 before the Royal Commission by such good authorities as Dr. Acland 
 and Dr. Lauder Brunton." Where or by whom the conclusive dis- 
 proof is given is not divulged ; with great care therefore I turn to the 
 proceedings of the Royal Commission, to seek for the admission of the 
 highly respectable authorities named. And I find that neither of these 
 gentlemen says one word on the subject, or even indirectly refers to it. 
 I do not like to conclude that this is a deliberate mis-statement ; but, 
 after careful perusal of the pamphlet, I believe it to be a fair sample 
 •of the "great care" expended by the author on his historical analysis. 
 
 7. — Carbolic Acid. 
 
 He next proceeds categorically to contradict some of the evidence 
 of the leaders of modern medicine and surgery, as to the advances due 
 to experiment, and actually prints the following astounding sentence : 
 ^ • I have shown in my published writings that carbolic acid has done far 
 more harm than good. " At a time when the immeasurable value of 
 the aseptic method of treating wounds is daily making itself more and 
 more widely felt, when all the medical world rings with the fame of 
 its discoverer, and when the use of carbolic acid has changed the whole 
 routine of surgical practice ; — it is strange to hear this solitary voice 
 uplifted to say, plaintively : ' ' Perhaps it would have been better if wc 
 had never heard of it." Perhaps it would have been better also, if we 
 had never heard of ligatures, or chloroform, or any other of such 
 medical delusions ; but perhaps it would have been even better still — 
 for the author's reputation — if we had never heard of the " published 
 writings." 
 
 5. — Similarity or Dissimilarity of Humajst and Animal Physiology 
 AND Pathology. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to deal with statements in this pamphlet, 
 because they are only capable of being contradicted ; and a writer 
 desirovis of observing the usual courtesies of discussion is perplexed 
 to decide whether it is least offensive to suppose that the author knows 
 the real facts, or does not know them. When, for instance, he states 
 that he has seen the leg of a dog amputated at the hip-joint, and that 
 "not a single vessel bled," — it is only possible to ask: "Was it a 
 living dog ? Who else saw it ?" When he goes on to assert that 
 * ' our arteries act in ways altogether difterent from those seen in the 
 lower animals," he says what could only be believed for a moment by 
 people totally ignorant of physiology, and what proves that he is 
 
APPENDIX E. 147 
 
 entirely careless as to whether better-informed persons suppose him to 
 be so or not. It does not, however, require even the smallest inde- 
 pendent knowledge of the subject to detect the fallacies in such 
 reasoning as that which follows. "Their (the lower animals') patho- 
 logy and physiology are absolutely different (from ours), as may be 
 seen in 'the frequency of apoplexy and aneurism with us, and the 
 almost complete immunity from them of all the lower animals, even in 
 extreme old age. Hunter tried his best to induce aneurism in the 
 lower animals, and failed. Injuries to arteries in the lower animals are 
 repaired with the utmost certainty and readiness, but in man it is alto- 
 gether different." That is to say, because animals enjoy better health, 
 nnd have sounder tissues than most men possess under our highly 
 artificial conditions of life, therefore they are differently constituted ! 
 One might as well say that the physiology of a robust ploughboy was 
 radically different from that of a confirmed valetudinarian, because he 
 vrould laugh at a blow, a scratch, or a draught, from which the other 
 Avould suffer for months. Hunter tried in vain to induce aneurism 
 in a healthy dog : granted, and so he might have tried in vain to induce 
 it in a healthy man. With some persons wounds and injuries of all 
 sorts heal rapidly and easily, with others (of a defective constitution) 
 there is great difficulty in inducing them to heal at all. Can we there- 
 fore conclude that ' ' their pathology and physlolofjy are absolutely 
 different" ? 
 
 e. — Ligatures. 
 
 The next remarkable statement that we meet with is a denial that 
 experiment has added anything to our present knowledge of the best 
 methods of tying blood-vessels, and the author sneers at the use of 
 catgut, now universal in the instructed medical world. The fact calls 
 for no further remark. He novf says that he has himself made expe- 
 riments upon living animals, concerning the tying and torsion of 
 arteries, and found them to be futile, and uncertain and untrustworthy 
 in their results. This is fully credible, and also requires no comment. 
 The experimenters named in the text have, however, been more for- 
 tunate. Want of acquaintance with what had been done by others may 
 jjcrhaps account for this regrettable waste of the investigator's time, and 
 of his subjects' sufferings ; since he informs us that his experiments 
 were directed to "getting quit" of the ligature altogether, in conse- 
 quence of ' ' the fact that after a vessel was tied, one end of the liga- 
 ture Avas cut off, and the other left hanging out of the wound," of 
 course causing much inconvenience. " The amazing thing," he adds, 
 " is that with all the experiments made upon animals, nobody ever 
 thought of cutting the ligature quite short, and closing the wound 
 over it." It seems a more amazing thing that a person who comes 
 forward to speak with authority on the subject, as an original investi- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 APPENDIX E.. 
 
 gator, should not have known that Sir William Lawrence (as well as 
 many others) had thought of it and done it years before. He writes 
 thus : "The method I have adopted consists in tying the vessels with 
 fine silk ligature, and cutting off the ends as close to the knot as is 
 consistent with security. Thus the foreign matter is reduced to an 
 insignificant quantity."* On account of the abscesses and other evil 
 results which followed this practice, it was relinquished. It can now, 
 however, be done with safety, using aseptic catgut, — a method that the 
 author classes among ' ' novelties, which speedily die out when applied 
 to human beings. " The aseptic system is certainly new, but the use 
 of animal ligatures is neither a novelty nor likely to die out. It was 
 introduced in 1814 by Professor Physick, of Pennsylvania, and im- 
 proved by Dr. Jamieson, who states as the result of his observations 
 and experiments upon sheep, dogs, and other animals — that a capsule 
 will surround the ligature, or the vessel will be surrounded by an 
 abundance of lymph, and the ligature destroyed, t Can the writer of 
 the pamphlet be ignorant of these facts in the history of surgery, and 
 of this fact in its present condition — that any surgeon who discards the 
 use of catgut for deep ligatures would be held by the majority of his 
 profession to be a barbarous practitioner ? 
 
 Strangely does the evidence on the subject given by Sir James Paget 
 — one of the greatest living authorities on surgical pathology — before 
 the Royal Commission (Ques. 295) compare with what precedes : 
 ' ' The whole process of the recovery of an artery after ligature, and 
 the means essential to its recovery, and the exact knowledge of all 
 the process by which the artery is closed, could not have been ascer- 
 tained without experiments upon animals, because it is as essential 
 to know the whole process of the recovery as it is to know the par- 
 ticular manner in which the operation is to be performed. You might 
 refer to a number of operations that were done for the ligature of 
 arteries (some of which were done by Hunter himself and some by 
 those who followed him) which failed, and the patients' lives were 
 lost, simply because at that time surgeons had not ascertained the 
 whole nature of the process for the repair of the injury done by the 
 operation." 
 
 7]. — SuBCUTAJfEOUS TENOTOMY. 
 
 On this point, the author remarks that he cannot find any record 
 of Hunter's vivisectional experiments upon the surgery of tendons, 
 " beyond the allusions to them by Drewry, Ottley, and Palmer in his 
 life of Hunter." Had he extended his researches to the Hunterian 
 
 * Medico-Chir. Trans., vol. vi. — Delpech, of Montpelier, was in the habit of 
 using this method in 1813-1814. See Gnthrie on Gunshot Wounds, pp. 93 
 and 94. 
 
 t Medical Recorder, No. xxxvii., January, 1827. 
 
APPENDIX E. 140 
 
 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (one would have thought not 
 an unlikely place to begin them), he would have found in Section IX. 
 in Sjiecial Pathology, No. 594, a specimen which is thus described in 
 the catalogue : "A longitudinal section of the tendo Achillis and of 
 l^art of the os calcls of an ass. The tendon was divided transversely, 
 and — it is believed — by subcutaneous section. Its divided extremities 
 have retracted to a considerable distance from each other, but are 
 united by a firm and compact substance, pale though vascular, and 
 presenting no appearance of a fibrous texture. A similar substance is 
 ditl'used among the immediately adjacent tissues. — Hunterian." 
 
 The following note is appended. "In the life of John Hunter by 
 Sir Everard Home, appended to Hunter's ' Treatise on the Blood, 
 Inflammation, and Gun-shot Wounds,' it is stated that he ruptured his 
 own tendo Achillis, which turned his attention to the mode of union of 
 broken tendons. ' He divided the tendo Achillis of several dogs, by 
 introducing a couching-needle through the skin at some distance from 
 it, and with the edge cut through the tendon ; in this way the orifice 
 healed up, and made it similar to a broken tendon. The dogs were 
 killed at different periods, to show the progress of union, which was 
 exactly similar to that of a fractured bone when there is no wound in 
 the skin.' These experiments were performed in 1767, five years 
 before Home began to work under Hunter ; but there is little doubt 
 that this specimen is also the result of a subcutaneous section." 
 
 No. 595 is — "The tendo Achillis of a deer, which was divided trans- 
 versely, and, it is believed, by subcutaneous section. Its interior is 
 shown by a longitudinal incision. The divided extremities are not so 
 far apart as those in the preceding specimen ; and the substance uniting 
 them, which is of rather less diameter than the tendon, is harder, 
 paler, and obscurely fibrous, like the tissue of a firm and well-formed 
 cicatrix. — Hunterian. " 
 
 No. 590 is — " The other section of the same tendon." 
 The fact that these experiments failed to attract notice has nothing 
 to do with their purpose or merit : it only causes regret that they were 
 not followed up by others of a similar nature. As it is, our author 
 consents to attribute the commencement of scientific tenotomy to the 
 work of Stromeyer, and thinks that by so doing he denies the experi- 
 ments upon living animals any share in its credit. He does not seem 
 to be aware that Stromeyer's results rested upon a basis of vivisection ; 
 since he only copied what veterinary surgeons (as the results of many 
 experiments) had long been in the habit of doing upon horses. In a 
 foot-note upon p. 71 of his Operativen Orthojjoedik, Stromeyer himself 
 says : "From experiments on the reproduction of tendons instituted 
 by Herr Giinther, Vice-Director of the Veterinary College here (Mag- 
 deburg), on horses, it has been further shown that — even after consider- 
 able loss of substance, e.f/., removal of one inch in length of the tendon 
 — the same (reproduction) so thoroughly takes place that in the inter- 
 
150 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 veiling texture the silver-sliining fibrillar substance re-appears. These 
 experiments were moreover made with considerable exposure of the 
 tendon, and the reproduction followed by means of a process of sup- 
 puration and granulation. Since, however, reproduction is much 
 stronger in a horse than in man, the conclusions drawn from these 
 experiments must be applied with great care." Further on (p. 90), 
 the following note occurs : ' ' Herr Giinther has for many years per- 
 formed tenotomy in cases of ' Stelzfuss" in horses, in the same manner 
 as the Achilles tendon is now cut, with the smallest possible skin- 
 wound. The result is constant and brilliant, and the animals become 
 capable of doing the heaviest work. Former experiments, which both 
 he and other veterinary surgeons made with tenotomy in an open 
 wound, gave veiy unequal and generally unfavourable results. So 
 that, in the case of the horse also, the certainty of results depends 
 upon the tenotomy being subcutaneous." 
 
 Stromeyer hesitated at first to act upon the results of these vivi- 
 sectional experiments, because he feared that human tendons were 
 different from equine ! Some fifty years ago, he had reached the 
 point of knowledge of comparative physiology where the writer of this 
 pamphlet now stands ; but happily for his science, he passed beyond 
 it, and learnt that the lower animals are, after all, the same " flesh 
 and blood" as ourselves. 
 
 I. — TEAXSFrsioN OF Blood. 
 
 On this point the author remarks : "We hear a great deal of cases 
 in which patients have survived after transfusion, but we hear little 
 or nothing of its failures." The following table of the result of 21G 
 cases (see Lancet, August 5th, 1882, page 174) answers this re- 
 mark, especially when it is remembered that the cases in which 
 transfusion failed must have been lost, whether it was attempted or 
 not, and the lives saved must be counted altogether to the credit of this 
 operation. 
 
 Cases. 
 
 Post-partum Hsemorrhage 
 General Hsemorrhage ... 
 Intestinal Hsemorrhage... 
 Carbonic Oxide Poisoning 
 
 Number of 
 
 Cases 
 Treated. 
 
 Number 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Cured. 
 
 Cured. 
 
 108 
 
 G3 
 
 58 
 
 75 
 
 38 
 
 50 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 55 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 40 
 
 Mr. Tait is mistaken in stating that Andre Libavius performed 
 transfusion in 1594 ; he describes the process of transfusing arterial 
 blood from one person into the veins of another, but says that the 
 physician who performs the operation must be out of his senses 
 
APPENDIX E. 151 
 
 ("purum sanse meiitia"), and in need of hellebore. ("Appendix: 
 necessaria syntagmatis arcanjerum chymicarum." Frankfurt, 1815.) 
 Only the numerous experiments performed upon animals have satisfied 
 the medical profession of the value of so startling an operation, and of 
 the best methods of performing it. The latter may be found summed 
 up in the report on this subject presented to the Obstetrical Society of 
 London, in November, 1879, by Mr. E. A. Schiifer, F.R.S. 
 
 Enough evidence has now been adduced to show that this publication 
 is equally untrustworthy as to matters of fact and matters of phy- 
 siology, and appears to be intended only for readers who are unac- 
 quainted with the first principles of that science. 
 
152 APPENDIX F. 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 Legislation. 
 
 Setting aside tlie question discussed in the text — whetlier the passing 
 of any special statute was called for by the evidence given to the 
 Royal Commission in 1875, or not, irrefragable arguments can be 
 adduced to prove : — a. That the Act 39 and 40 Vic. c. 77, is far more 
 stringent than any legislature recommended by the Commission ; 
 h. That the Act has been administered with a rigour never contem- 
 l^lated by Parliament, or expected by the profession of medicine ; 
 c. That the progress of physiology has been retarded in this country 
 by the operation of the statute. 
 
 IT 1. — Object of Legislation recommended by the Royal 
 Commission. 
 
 The Royal Commission recommended that a legislative control should 
 be established, for two reasons : 1. To prevent abuse accompanying 
 the great increase in physiological inquiry which they expected. 
 2. To afford an antidote to the unjust suspicions and abhorrence that 
 had sprung up in the public mind. The report says (p. svii.) : 
 
 " Looking at the circumstance that a great increase is to be expected 
 in physiological inquiry, it appears to us most important that some 
 legislative control should be established to prevent abuse extending in 
 this direction. It is, moreover, much to be regretted that a feeling of 
 suspicion, and even of abhorrence, should have been permitted to grow 
 up among a large and very estimable portion of the public against those 
 who are devoted to the improvement of medicine and to the advance- 
 ment of science. Publicity is the antidote of suspicion, and we look 
 
APPENDIX F, 153 
 
 to tlie reasonable superintendence of constituted authority as afford- 
 ing the means of reconciling in the public mind the sentiment of 
 humanity with the desire for scientific knowledge." 
 
 That the expected increase in physiological inquiry has not taken 
 place appears from the parliamentary reports given in Appendix B. 
 That the antidote has had no remedial efficacy appears from the 
 expressions made use of by the very persons in deference to whose 
 opinion the statute was passed. At a meeting of an antivivisection 
 society at Lord Coleridge's house, Cardinal Manning said : 
 
 ' ' The history of the existing Act has shown that it is futile to 
 attempt to separate the use of vivisection (if lawful use it have) from 
 abuse." . . . "And believing, as I do, that it cannot be controlled, 
 that we have endeavoured to control it, that we have had a most 
 elaborate commission and report, that commission and report laid down 
 the number of conditions under which this practice must be admitted; 
 legislation was founded on that report, and I believe not only has 
 that legislation been ineJffectual, but that we have been entirely hood- 
 winked, and the law has not been carried into effect." 
 
 On the same occasion Lord Coleridge said : 
 
 ' ' After considerable reflection on the matter, having read much that 
 I would rather not have read, and having thought on the matter so 
 much as I had the power, I have come to the conclusion that control 
 it you cannot." — Zoophilist, July 1, 1881, pp. 54-57. 
 
 1" 2. Scope of Legislation Recommeistded by the Royai. 
 Commission. 
 
 The Commission had no intention of hampering in their inves- 
 tigations men of recognized character who were working at physiology. 
 Their object was to establish a check upon the unskilful, the inhu- 
 man, and the inexperienced. They say (Report, page xvii): " Those 
 who are least favourable to legislative interference assume, as we have 
 seen, that interference would be directed against the skilful, the 
 humane, and the experienced. But it is not for them that law is 
 made, but for persons of the opposite character." .... 
 
 "From this prepossession (against interference) many of those 
 whose position and character entitle them to the greatest weight are 
 wholly free ; and it has always yielded to the consideration that if 
 there be a proved necessity for legislative interference to prevent 
 abuse, such interference will be right, provided that the teaching of 
 physiology and the prosecution of research by competent persons be 
 not interfered with." — Royal Commission Report, p. xv. 
 
 Fortunately, the class of experimenters against whom the Com- 
 
 •(( 
 
154 APPENDIX F. 
 
 mission wislied to direct the law does not and cannot exist in this 
 country. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the law has been passed, and put into force 
 against competent persons, so that the prosecution of research has 
 been materially impeded and interfered with. Here is what the 
 physiologists themselves say on the subject after five years' experience 
 of the Act : — 
 
 " Both licenses have been refused, and certificates have frequently 
 been disallowed, and have only subsequently been granted or allowed, 
 after long delay and by the help of strong pressure upon the Home 
 Office. Moreover, some certificates have been absolutely refused, and 
 in several cases experiments have been prevented owing to intimations 
 that licenses or certificates would certainly not be granted if applied 
 for. 
 
 The numbers are as follows : — 
 
 Refusal to allow certificates, Seven cases. 
 Injurious delay, amounting to practical refusal. Six cases. 
 Deterred from application, Five cases." 
 Memorandum adopted by the Physiolojical Society, 8th December, 
 1881. 
 
 So far as the doctors themselves are concerned, the fact that they 
 consented to the passing of a law which they must have known to be 
 superfluous, and might have known to be injurious, cannot but 
 diminish our sympathy for their personal loss and annoyance ; although 
 it is fair to remember that they were deceived by the substitution of 
 the expression "invertebrate" for "cold-blooded" animals in the 
 final clause of the Act ; the then Home Secretary failing to appreciate 
 the enormous practical difference which the change would make in the 
 operation of the Act. But the check put to the progress of medicine 
 is a public loss, and it is not even compensated for by the successful 
 exorcism of the phantom against which this legislation was aimed ; so 
 that the expectations under which the medical profession supported 
 the Bill have been in every respect disappointed. 
 
 As to the nature of the investigations intended to be affected, the 
 Commissioners say : 
 
 " It has been proposed to enact that the object in view shall be 
 some immediate application of an expected discovery to some prophy- 
 lactic or therapeutic end, and that any experiment made for the mere 
 advancement of science shall be rendered unlawful. But this proposal 
 cannot be sustained by reflection upon the actual course of human 
 affairs. Knowledge goes before the application of knowledge, and 
 the application of a discovery is seldom foreseen when the discovery 
 is made. The first origin of a great discovery is often, like the germ. 
 
APPENDIX F. 155 
 
 of the natural life in an animal or a vegetable, so small as to be scarcely 
 perceptible, and yet it may contain in it the seeds of the grandest 
 results." — Report, page xviii. 
 
 In spite of this clear expression of opinion on the part of the very 
 best authorities, we find when the Act is passed that this is the very 
 first restriction imposed : — 
 
 Clause 3. " The following restrictions are imposed by this Act with 
 respect to the performance on any living animal of an experiment cal- 
 culated to give pain ; that is to say, 
 
 (1.) The experiment must be performed with a view to the advance- 
 ment by new discovery of physiological knowledge or of know- 
 ledge which will be useful for saving or prolonging life or alle- 
 viating suffering." 
 
 Again, the Commissioners report : 
 
 . . . . ' ' In the case of professional education, as at one of the 
 medical schools, it cannot, we think, be denied that there is much 
 force in the argument that teaching without demonstration, can scarcely 
 be considered teaching." — Report, page xviii. 
 
 And the Act retorts : 
 
 Clauses, par. 5. — "The exjieriment shall not be performed as an 
 illustration of lectures in medical schools, hospitals, colleges, or else- 
 where." 
 
 IT 3. — Matstner IjS" which the Act is Administerei). 
 
 One of the recommendations of the Commissioners is as follows : 
 ' ' It may be found desirable that one of the conditions to be attached 
 to a license should be that the experiments should be performed in 
 some particular place ; but this is a detail which may vary with cir- 
 cumstances, and we think it ought not to be stereotyped by statute." 
 — Report, p. XX. 
 
 Yet the following clause of the Act is administered, by general 
 order, in the most rigorous manner possible : 
 
 " 7. The Secretary of State may insert, as a condition of granting 
 any license, a provision in such license that the place in which any 
 experiment is to be performed by the licensee is to be registered in 
 such a manner as the Secretary of State may from time to time by 
 any general or special order direct ; provided that every place for the 
 performance of experiments for the purjjose of instruction under this 
 Act shall be approved by the Secretary of State, and shall be regis- 
 tered in such a manner as he may from time to time by any general 
 or special order direct." 
 
 Again, the Commissioners say : 
 
 " We think that the holder of a license, when he shall receive 
 
156 APPENDIX F. 
 
 notice tliat the Secretary of State intends to -witlidraw it during the 
 period for which it has been granted, should be at liberty to demand a 
 public inquiry." — Beport, p. xxi. 
 
 No such liberty is granted by the Act of 1875. 
 
 Sir William Fergusson, who has been much quoted against the value 
 of experiment, said in his evidence (Q. 1054) : 
 
 ' ' No, I certainly would not go that length of restraining rational 
 men from doing that which they thought right ; but I would enjoin 
 great caution." 
 
 And yet we find that the men who are actually harassed by restraint 
 are the professors and teachers of physiology, men in whom our great 
 teaching establishments have complete confidence, and who have thus 
 been obliged to meet solemnly to consider what could be done which, 
 "without defeating the purpose of the Act to prevent wanton cruelty 
 to animals, would render its operation less injurious to physiological 
 and pathological science," and to consult " as to the steps most desir- 
 able to bring about these changes." — Memorandum of the Physiological 
 Society, 1881. 
 
 Printed at the Bedford Peeks, 21 and 22, Bedfordbiirj-, W.C. 
 
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