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AUTHOR: 
 
 SNOW, HERBERT 
 LUMLEY 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 ON THE UTTER FUTLITY 
 OF VIVISECTION AS... 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1908 
 
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 Horbort.L 1847-1930. 
 On the utter futility of vivisection as a means 
 of promotin{3 medical science, with suggested lines 
 for future renearch v/ithout employing experimonta- * 
 tion on (sentient) anim£ils, by Herbert Snow... I 
 London, International medical anti-vivisection as- 
 sociation (British section), 1908. 
 
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 i 
 
 On the Utter Futility 
 of Vivisection 
 
 « 
 
 as a means of promoting 
 Medical Science, 
 
 WITH 
 
 Suggested lines for Future Research without 
 Employing Experimentation on (Sentient) Animals. 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT SNOW, M.D. (Lond.), etc. 
 
 Consulting Surgeon, National Anti-Vivisection Haspital, 
 
 Chairman, British Section of the International Medical Anti- Vivisection Association, 
 
 Late Senior Surgeon (29 years Surgeon), Cancer Hospital. 
 
 '^<^ 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 International Medical Anti- Vivisection Association 
 
 (BRITISH SECTION), 
 
 224, Lauderdale Mansions, Maida Vale, London, W. 
 
 1908. 
 
 Price 2d. 
 
International Medical Anti-Vivisection Association. 
 
 rJI 
 
 1! 
 
 ©bjectSt 
 
 i._To unite the numerous medical men and women in different 
 countries, who disapprove of experiments on living animals, into one 
 organisation, which, by united work and the influence of its opinions, 
 can become a powerful agent for the suppression of such experiments. 
 
 2.— To protest against the claims of advocates of vivisection, that the 
 practice is indispensable for the advancement of physiological science 
 and of medicine. 
 
 3. — To spread knowledge of the intellectual errors in vivisection as 
 a method of physiological enquiry and of the uselessness of animal 
 experimentation for the purpose of serving the art of healing, and of 
 prolonging and saving human life, and also to expose the contradictions, 
 mistakes, and failures in the various branches of vivisectional research 
 and results, and to bring the names and work of notable scientific 
 opponents of vivisection before the public, and to effect this by being 
 instrumental in the production and distribution of literature on these 
 subjects, and the organisation of lectures. 
 
 4. — To encourage biological research not connected with vivisection, 
 and all scientific pursuits which are free from the taint of animal ex- 
 perimentation of a painful and violating kind and likely to lead to new 
 discoveries, helpful in the alleviation of suffering and extermination of 
 disease, or conducive to a higher and more sympathetic understanding 
 of the laws that govern the manifestations of life. 
 
 5. — To endeavour to raise funds, which would enable the Association 
 in the future to offer prizes and institute scholarships for research work, 
 manifestly independent of such animal experimentation and in accordance 
 with true «cientific progress and the aims of the Association, thereby 
 offering to students of physiology and of medicine special facility for 
 taking up scientific investigation far in advance of the crude methods 
 of the vivisectional laboratory. 
 
 6.-^ The Association shall first and foremost work within its own 
 sphere of activity as indicated above, and, whilst inviting the co-opera- 
 tion of other anti-vivisection societies, will not, from the nature of its 
 organisation, interfere with the work or tactics of such societies, and it 
 will seek at all times to advocate its ideas in an openminded, fair, and 
 temperate manner. 
 
 f 
 
 I. 
 
 Introductohy. 
 
 And for this goddess, .Science, hard and stern, 
 We shall not let her priests torment and burn ; 
 We fought the priests before, and not in vain, 
 And as we fought before, so shall we fight again. 
 
 Le2vis Morris, 
 
 More than thirty years ago that most renowned High 
 Priest of Vivisection, Claude Bernard, made the fol- 
 lowing significant statement : — 
 
 '' Sans doute nos mains sont vides aujourd'hui ; mais notre bouche 
 peut etre pleine de legitimes promesses pour I'avenir." 
 
 Le^ms sur le Diabete, p. 43, Paris, 1877. 
 
 So after all the lapse of time — after all the suffering 
 that has since ensued, after the vast hecatombs of 
 slaughter which the intervening years have witnessed, 
 and which annually wax larger^ — do matters stand 
 exactly to-day. Promises still abound. Of fulfilment 
 there is none. 
 
 True it is that on every side we find pretences, blatant 
 enough, of success ; and such a thing as failure is rarely 
 admitted, — never, unless the confession becomes inevi- 
 table. Even then, however, plausible explanation or 
 excuse is rarely wanting. And usually it is of such a 
 sort as materially to confuse the uninitiated, and to 
 augment popular faith in Vivisection, as the font of all 
 present or future medical good. 
 
 * It is believed that over 100,000 dogs are now sacrificed every 
 year in Germany alone, to say nothing of other animals or other 
 countries. In 1871 there were only 478 Vivisection experiments in 
 England and Wales; in 1905 there were 37,935 ; in 1906, 46,073 ; 
 in 1907, 73,374, — an increase of 27,301 upon the previous year. 
 Without anaesthetics, are returned 35,429 in 1905 ; 43,287 in 1906 : 
 70,794 in 1907. 
 
International Medical Anti-Vivisection Association. 
 
 ©bjectSt 
 
 I. — To unite the numerous medical men and women in different 
 countries, who disapprove of experiments on living animals, into one 
 organisation, which, by united work and the influence of its opinions, 
 can become a powerful agent for the suppression of such experiments. 
 
 2. —To protest against the claims of advocates of vivisection, that the 
 practice is indispensable for the advancement of physiological science 
 and of medicine. 
 
 3. — To spread knowledge of the intellectual errors in vivisection as 
 a method of physiological enquiry and of the uselessness of animal 
 experimentation for the purpose of serving the art of healing, and of 
 prolonging and saving human life, and also to expose the contradictions, 
 mistakes, and failures in the various branches of vivisectional research 
 and results, and to bring the names and work of notable scientific 
 opponents of vivisection before the public, and to effect this by being 
 instrumental in the production and distribution of literature on these 
 subjects, and the organisation of lectures. 
 
 4. — To encourage biological research not connected with vivisection, 
 and all scientific pursuits which are free from the taint of animal ex- 
 perimentation of a painful and violating kind and likely to lead to new 
 discoveries, helpful in the alleviation of suffering and extermination of 
 disease, or conducive to a higher and more sympathetic understanding 
 of the laws that govern the manifestations of life. 
 
 5. — To endeavour to raise funds, which would enable the Association 
 in the future to offer prizes and institute scholarships for research work, 
 manifestly independent of such animal experimentation and in accordance 
 with true «cientific progress and the aims of the Association, thereby 
 offering to students of physiology and of medicine special facility for 
 taking up scientific investigation far in advance of the crude methods 
 of the vivisectional laboratory. 
 
 6. — The Association shall first and foremost work within its own 
 sphere of activity as indicated above, and, whilst inviting the co-opera- 
 tion of other anti-vivisection societies, will not, from the nature of its 
 organisation, interfere with the work or tactics of such societies, and it 
 will seek at all times to advocate its ideas in an openminded, fair, and 
 temperate manner. 
 
 
 L 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 And for this goddess, Science, hard and stern, 
 We shall not let her priests torment and burn ; 
 We fought the priests before, and not in vain, 
 And as we fought before, so shall we fight again. 
 
 Lewis Mmris, 
 
 More than thirty years ago that most renowned High 
 Priest of Vivisection, Claude Bernard, made the fol- 
 lowing significant statement : — 
 
 '* Sans doute nos mains sont vides aujourd'hui ; mais notre bouche 
 peut etre pleine de legitimes promesses pour Tavenir." 
 
 Legons sur U Diahete, p. 43, Paris, 1877. 
 
 So after all the lapse of time — after all the suffering 
 that has since ensued, after the vast hecatombs of 
 slaughter which the intervening years have witnessed, 
 and which annually wax larger^ — do matters stand 
 exactly to-day. Promises still abound. Of fulfilment 
 there is none. 
 
 True it is that on every side we find pretences, blatant 
 enough, of success ; and such a thing as failure is rarely 
 admitted, — never, unless the confession becomes inevi- 
 table. Even then, however, plausible explanation or 
 excuse is rarely wanting. And usually it is of such a 
 sort as materially to confuse the uninitiated, and to 
 augment popular faith in Vivisection, as the font of all 
 present or future medical good. 
 
 * It is believed that over 100,000 dogs are now sacrificed every 
 year in Germany alone, to say nothing of other animals or other 
 countries. In 1871 there were only 478 Vivisection experiments in 
 England and Wales; in 1905 there were 37,935 ; in 1906, 46,073 ; 
 in 1907, 73,374, — an increase of 27,301 upon the previous year. 
 Without anaesthetics, are returned 35,429 in 1905 ; 43,287 in 1906 : 
 70,794 in 1907. 
 
 t 
 
Again even the minute modicum of success — and 
 fractional indeed that is when we have occasion to 
 estimate the blood and pain it has caused — invariably 
 proves on judicial examination to have been no more 
 than illusory. On looking below the surface, we are 
 usually unable to find as the outcome of some loudly 
 vaunted "medical improvement'' or "physiological 
 discovery," a single fact of abstract scientific validity 
 — much less of practical utility towards the Art of 
 Healing. Everything vanishes into thin air at the 
 magic touch of a rational and prudent scepticism. 
 Witness the experiences of the Toronto doctors with 
 the much vaunted Diphtheria-Antitoxin (Appendix 
 to Third Report of Evidence before the Royal Com- 
 mission on Vivisection, p. 232j ; or Dr. KJein's criti- 
 cisms on Pasteur's " discovery " at the time. 
 
 But withal there is no lack of promises. So many 
 mice are now sacrificed by the hundred thousand — the 
 Imperial Cancer Eesearch Fund alone admits having 
 disposed of more than that number, and numerous 
 foreign or other laboratories are working hard on similar 
 lines — that the long sought desideratum, a non-operative 
 cure for cancer must inevitably be discovered ere long. 
 Such the expenditure of scientific ardour, of energy, of 
 talent, of money zealously lavished by millionaires — 
 that no reasonable person (outside the ranks of anti- 
 vivisection heretics) can entertain a doubt on the point. 
 
 Still less is it open to question that the foul fiend 
 TUBERCULOSIS, — the decimator of our crowded cities, 
 the ever-present " Dweller on the Threshold " of 
 Civilization — will also speedily be slain. Note always 
 the future tense. Some twenty years ago an "infallible" 
 cure was proclaimed by a famous vivisector, and the 
 medical world eagerly rushed to Berlin to learn the 
 method at the Master's feet. But this remedy " heralded 
 as a miracle " proved far worse than the disease, and 
 achieved no more lasting result than the complete 
 stultification of the Faculty. Untaught by the bitter 
 
 lesson, "medical science "even now dwells regretfully 
 on Tuberculin in various guises, rings changes on 
 the theme in the shape of sundry " modifications," is 
 reluctant to discard it altogether. "^ 
 
 More recently a Koyal Commission, replete with the 
 highest Vivisection ability the medical schools can shew, 
 has attacked the subject. It has untold wealth at its 
 command, uses two separate farms, to say nothing of 
 laboratories, for its living-animal experiments. It 
 has occupied five years in a Eesearch which is only 
 "preliminary"; and the extent of its labours may be 
 inferred from the fact that the list of live creatures 
 dealt with comprises cattle, goats, pigs, guinea-pigs, 
 dogs, rabbits, and monkeys with the chimpanzee. An 
 interim Report shews that the nett results of all this 
 waste of valuable force are practically nil. No discovery 
 is announced. Not a single controversial point can be 
 regarded as settled. Even the apparent disproof of 
 Professor Koch's assertion that Bovine Tuberculosis is 
 distinct from Human, and is incommunicable to man, 
 only holds good till that eminent savant has had time 
 to formulate a reply. We are no better able to grapple 
 with Consumption than we were before. Nay rather 
 the signs indicate that we are being sent on a wrong 
 tack altogether. 
 
 This giant pair of diseases, Cancer and Consumption, 
 are the twin scourges of modern civilization ; and we see 
 what Vivisection has so far done towards slaying them. 
 
 * The two most phenomenal fiasooes witnessed by the present 
 medical generation have been the furore about Koch's Tuberculin in 
 1891, and the conclusions of the Hyderabad Chloroform Commission 
 in 1889. Both sprang from Vivisection. Sir Lauder Brunton's 
 telegram announcing the latter may aptly be reproduced (Lancet, 
 Dec. 5th, 1889): "490 dogs, horses, monkeys, goats, cats, and 
 rabbits used. 120 with manometer. All records photographed. 
 Numerous observations on every individual animal. Results most 
 instructive. Danger from chloroform is asphyxia or overdose ; none 
 whatever heart direct." 
 
or even abating their ravages. But many more, hardly- 
 less formidable, abound ; and we are continually told 
 that these are about to fall, under the thrust of the 
 same doughty lance. Unfortunately they have not 
 done so, as yet, although particularly strenuous eflforts 
 are being made to prove that one at any rate — diph- 
 theria — is actually laying down its arms. 
 
 But it has not received the coup-de-grace ; and very 
 strangely, has contrived to destroy a larger number of 
 victims in the British Isles almost every single year 
 since the introduction of the anti-toxin which was to 
 have annihilated it, — than it ever did before. So also 
 with the PLAGUE, which in spite of the invention of 
 more than one serum-cure, contrived to kill in 1905, 
 more than a million of our Indian fellow-subjects. The 
 epidemics formerly, before the inoculations began, died 
 out in 7 or 8 months. The last one, dating from the 
 beginning of serum-therapy, has continued 11 years. 
 
 So again with typhoid fever, tetanus, dysentery, 
 and many more :~not forgetting hydrophobia, which 
 luckily has not yet been endowed with an inoculation- 
 factory here. So far as we have yet gone, the facts 
 indubitably prove that the introduction and wide- 
 spread use of an Anti-toxin or Serum to prevent or to 
 cure any disease, is the sure index of^ an immediate 
 increase in the statistics of mortality from that 
 
 disease. 
 
 But in spite of the unlimited depths of human credu- 
 lity in medical matters, promises do not completely 
 suffice to preserve implicit belief in Vivisection as a 
 genuine aid to the Science and Art of Medicine. Con- 
 sequently another prop has to be invoked— that for 
 which I have previously ventured to coin the word 
 *' Octopism.'' As every one knows, the Octopus, when 
 unduly pressed by its foes, contrives to emit a dusky 
 cloud — of ink ; under cover of which it can escape. So 
 every portion of the very wide field now covered, or 
 supposed to be covered, by living-animal Research, is 
 
 densely enshrouded by a thick fog of fallacy and 
 obscurity, through which no unaided eye can penetrate. 
 
 It is always in the highest degree difiicult to discern 
 what is actually being achieved in any particular depart- 
 ment of Vivisection ; to judge whether anything valid 
 or of practical utility is being done; to ascertain 
 whether the huge husk of debatable matter really 
 holds any solid kernel of fact — present or even potential. 
 
 Overwhelmed by a continuous stream of unscrupulous 
 assertion and vociferous self-laudation, the public mind 
 cannot do this at all. It either surrenders its judgment 
 altogether, or else, if compelled by natural instincts to 
 doubt, it prefers to take refuge in non-technical argu- 
 ments, based on Morality. Only expert scrutiny, 
 combined with close and incessant study, can hope to 
 grapple with the evergrowing cloud of falsehoods and 
 fallacies, which the term '^Octopism'' is designed to 
 cover ; to sift out the wheat (if indeed any such there 
 be) from the chafi"; to analyse the pretensions of the 
 Vivisection system. 
 
 Sundry examples of this *' Octopism" will be detailed 
 in the following pages. But the juggle between Pre- 
 vention and Cure which is perpetually going on, in 
 connection with Serum-therapy, afibrds the most salient 
 example. That all-prevailing craze necessarily involves 
 the maximum of doubtful and unverified premises; 
 with the ne plus ultra of false and unwarranted ratio- 
 cination from those premises. Pasteur counts as the 
 Father of "Octopism"; and the Ai'ch-Perverter of 
 modern Medicine — to which profession however, he 
 fortunately did not belong. 
 
 The history of the great Pasteur Bubble, which can 
 only be noticed very cursorily in the pages following, is 
 particularly instructive. Founded on error, and per- 
 petuated by "bluflf," that science-gilded sham, the 
 Institut Pasteur has long survived its founder, and 
 thrives amazingly, to the present day. Likewise it has 
 
given birth to sundry similar vivisection-nurseries in 
 other countries. 
 
 Anti-toxins brought forward as prophylactic, speedily 
 develope, as a rule, into curative remediee. They really 
 do not prevent, neither do they cure. Only the skilful 
 manner in which, under the false mask of " Science," 
 they are commercially ** pushed" by wealthy and 
 powerful interests admirably conceals this. The assump- 
 tion of those virtues is always based upon statistics 
 specially prone to fallacious interpretation ; besides 
 being possibly liable to falsification by unscrupulous 
 persons. In sanitary matters, almost all arithmetical 
 data are very unsafe guides, and must never be taken 
 to warrant more than the broadest generalisation. 
 Those here in question are particularly unreliable. 
 
 ^ When epidemic waves of any infectious disorder vary 
 widely in virulence ; when individuals difier enormously 
 in susceptibility to it, and when that disorder demands 
 an uncertain period of time for its development after 
 exposure to contagion, there can never be more than 
 probability that a given remedy has acted as a prophy- 
 lactic. The fact is not capable of proof by arithmetical 
 data. It is prima facie obvious that such must always 
 be jealously scrutinised before receiving credence at all. 
 
 On the second attribute, the possession of curative 
 properties, it must be noted that the manifold Sera in 
 use are never pure. Every one contains a small quantity 
 of Iodine, Carbolic Acid, or some similarly potent 
 microbicide. At every hypodermic injection a minute 
 dose of this chemical is introduced into the blood. It 
 is well known that a very small quantity of almost any 
 drug thus employed is equivalent in potency to a much 
 larger, merely swallowed.* 
 
 The percentage of cures with which even the most 
 
 Even as I write, an Italian professor, Baccelli, exploits this 
 tact as the basis of a novel mode of treatment. Vide New York 
 Herald, Paris edition, Jan. 10th, 1908. 
 
 successful of the Anti- toxins are credited by their 
 advocates, falls far below the figure which might have 
 been anticipated, were the claim really valid. Such as 
 it is however — and disregarding for the moment all 
 possible sources of fallacy — no practical man can 
 reasonably doubt that whatever the efficacy of these 
 nostrums, it should be attributed to the chemical agent 
 they always contain ; and not to any supposititious 
 " opsonic" influence, which has never been demon- 
 strated ; or even rendered probable to any judicial 
 enquirer. 
 
 One of the principal elements of that "Octopism" 
 which constitutes the foundation of the whole Vivisection 
 system, is the introduction of spurious diagnostic rules, 
 based on unscientific Bacteriology. Such for example 
 is the Bacteriological test for Diphtheria ; substituted 
 for the genuine clinical diagnosis previously current. 
 It depends solely on the microscopic recognition of a 
 microbe. That micro-organism has never been shewn 
 to be the cause of the disease in question ; not even its 
 invariable concomitant. The discoverers of the Diph- 
 theria-bacillus could not find it in one case out of every 
 four undoubted examples of the malady. The Tubercle- 
 bacillus often cannot be detected in early cases of 
 consumption ; or in lesions, such as Lupus, regarded 
 by pathologists as Tubercular. Neither has its influence 
 in causing consumption ever been proved. But such 
 considerations have no weight when Vivisection is in 
 question. We may leave them out of sight altogether. 
 
 So with every other branch of the Healing Art, or 
 department of medical activity associated therewith. 
 On examination, their pretensions to have been aided or 
 improved by experiment on the living animal are seen 
 to be absurdly hollow and baseless. They too rest on 
 " Octopism," and on that alone. 
 
 ** Octopism" is the negation of true Science, and con- 
 stitutes its opposite and antithesis in every essential 
 particular. Science implies truth, accuracy, precision ; 
 
"Octopism" stands for the admission of every possible 
 source of doubt confusion and error-so for conscious 
 or unconscious falsehood. According to eminent author- 
 ities bcien^e IS "simply common sense at its best" 
 (Muxley, The Crapish); is "organised common sense" 
 (bir Henry Eoscoe). It connotes therefore culture of 
 the judicial faculties in the highest degree. " Octopism " 
 i!!.TTi"'°'i-^' ^^^"^V^^^ to be given, implies abneg;. 
 k l^,fi -fi '??17 reasoning powers. At its best, it 
 IS but glonfed foUy_it may even be glorified fraud. 
 rJTl^ endeavour to pierce to the core of things, 
 regard Vivisection as not only an outrage on Moralit^ 
 ^\l^f^ ^^'^^^'^'r^ t« the progress of Science properly 
 
 RicW ^ *i .''' ^rf"""^*^^^^ impediment to the 
 Higher Evolution of the race. Held forth for men's 
 
 £w T r> '^'''*^''' "^ f ^ ^'^J"^'^* ^'^d aid to the 
 Jlealmg Art, it is no more than a colossal sham. As 
 
 suck mthout am questim of the cruelties it may 
 
 involve, It should be totally abolished ^ 
 
 Eestrictive legislation and government supervision 
 
 o tP; A?/^ fT«t"t'^^ "^T^^' ^' '^' adminltratlon 
 ot the Act of 1876 has conclusively shewn. Human 
 
 nature being what it is, there can be no middle course! 
 
 or half-way house. All legislative enactments on 
 
 Vivisection, are disregarded or evaded. The revered 
 
 Foundress of the Anti-Vivisection movement, the Tate 
 
 a^d"inX;/r/ ^''^^'' ^"^ '^ '^' niost' practlS 
 TnllP fe^^^ Of women, was compelled to adopt a 
 
 effort .^?^^ *^'^ l"^^''^ K ^" ^P^*^ °^ l««g ^d strenuous 
 nSw S' "^''1*^'° "^ compromise. ^She found that 
 abusrSlt ,7«"H P^r'^t cruelty and intolerable 
 
 h\Tcon!2n"^^ *''* '" ^"^^ ^^PP^'^^^ «^-g*l^-« 
 
 9 
 
 11. 
 
 Previous Lights, mainly of a Surgical Order, 
 ON THE Fallacies of Vivisection. 
 
 It is always essential, in entering upon a scientific 
 inquiry, first to consider carefully what previous in- 
 vestigators have done. Without that preliminary step 
 no new departure of value can take place. To the 
 neglect of this principle must chiefly, if not entirely, 
 be ascribed the present backwardness of Cancer Kesearch, 
 and the remarkable absence of progress in that depart- 
 ment. Every investigator seems to start de novo. 
 
 And moreover it is a useful axiom to remember that 
 a dwarf, perched on the shoulders of a giant, can always 
 see a little further than the giant. In this connection 
 we must begin by discussing the conclusions of a real 
 ^' Giant of Intellect,"— for the late Professor Lawson 
 Tait, from every point of view, was nothing less. He 
 was not only the pioneer of modern Abdominal Surgery, 
 and by far the most original and skilful operator of his 
 day. His was also a remarkably versatile and broad 
 Mind with wide interest in many other matters than 
 those which concerned his profession. It may be re- 
 garded without exaggeration, as one of the foremost in 
 the illustrious Victorian era— a typical embodiment of 
 " organised common sense/' 
 
 The publication in 189.9 of Lawson Tait's pamphlet. 
 The Uselessness of Vivisection as a Method of Scientific 
 Research, constituted an epoch in the crusade against 
 Vivisection which Miss Cobbe has the great glory 
 of having initiated. With his incomparable mental 
 grasp, he carefully analysed all the claims then put 
 forth, on behalf of living-animal experiments as pro- 
 moting the progress of Medicine and Surgery. In 
 every instance he arrived at the conclusion that they 
 were wholly invalid ; and that, so far from being an 
 
 i 
 
10 
 
 aid to medical science, the system really constitutes a 
 grave obstruction and hindrance ; that it never adds, 
 in the slightest degree, to our genuine knowledge. On 
 the other hand that it diverts able and intelligent men 
 from following those paths which might reasonably be 
 expected to enlarge and increase the domain of Science. 
 On his own special department, Lawson Tait's words 
 are peculiarly significant and weighty. 
 
 " I have had, as is well known, some share in this advance {i.e. that 
 of Abdominal Surgery) : and I say, without hesitation that I have 
 been led astray again and again by the published results of experi- 
 ments on animals, and I have had to discard them entirely." 
 
 On other surgical procedures he remarks : 
 
 *' Injuries to arteries in the lower animals are repaired with the 
 utmost certainty and readiness. But with man it is altogether 
 dififerent. I once saw the leg of a favourite dog amputated at the 
 hip-joint on account of disease and when the limb was removed, not 
 a single vessel bled. Without sedulous precaution, a human being 
 would perish of hoemorrhage under the same circumstances, within a 
 few seconds." 
 
 This observation alone suffices to shew the great gulf 
 which obtains between man and the lower animals, for 
 all Surgical scientific purpose. The two are wholly dis- 
 similar. No single argument founded on the results of 
 experiment among the latter can be reasonably applied 
 to the former. The fact has since been corroborated in 
 many other quarters, as before the Eoyal Commission. 
 
 In that of INTESTINAL SURGERY, I personally re- 
 member a Surgeon who had successfully effected 
 artificial junction (anastomosis) between difierent 
 portions of the intestine in various dogs, which be- 
 trayed no ill-consequence. He then proceeded to 
 perform a similar operation on patients in hospital, 
 and these promptly died. Sir Frederick Treves has 
 also recorded his experiences in the same direction. 
 Coming as they do, from a man who cannot be sus- 
 pected of the slightest sentimental leaning towards the 
 
 i 
 
 11 
 
 Anti- Vivisection cause, they acquire exceptional signi- 
 ficance and value. 
 
 "Manj years ago, I carried out on the Continent sundry operations 
 on the intestines of dogs, but such are the differences between the 
 human and the canine bowel that when I came to operate on man, I 
 found I was much hampered by my experience ; that I had every- 
 thmg to unlearn ; and that my experiments had done little but unfit 
 me to deal with the human intestines." — 
 
 British Medical Journal, Nov. 5th, 1895. 
 
 Besides the surgery of the abdomen, Lawson Tait also 
 specially discussed the following topics : Amputation at 
 the Hip joint, the Treatment of Head Injuries, Subcu- 
 taneous Tenotomy, Tapping the Chest for Dropsical 
 Eff*usion, Blood Transfusion, Hunters Treatment of 
 Aneurism, the Functions of the Periosteum and the 
 Detection of Poisons. Just previously strenuous claims 
 had been put forth that Vivisection had efi'ected material 
 progress— impossible of attainment in any other manner 
 — in all those. In every single instance his verdict 
 was —and he amply proved it by analysis— not only 
 that the living-animal experiments which had been in- 
 stituted were useless ; but often that they had been 
 seriously misleading. 
 
 In no case had they led to discovery or to beneficial 
 innovation. Such a boasted example of Vivisection- 
 benefits as John Hunter's Cure of Aneurism by liga- 
 turing the artery at a distance, proved on investigation 
 to have been obtained by observation in the hospital 
 and the dead-house. The fact was admitted by no less 
 celebrated a surgeon and no less pronounced an 
 advocate of Vivisection than the late Sir James Paget. 
 
 Since Lawson Tait's era, the two principal matters in 
 which a similar claim has been made are myxoedema ; 
 and the removal of tumours of the brain. 
 
 Myxoedema is that remarkable cretinoid condition 
 which afflicts people whose Thyroid Body has been ex- 
 cised or has become disorganised by disease. Although 
 Gull had previously noticed it, it was first fully recog- 
 
••ii:re'<*'w?ffcsaa«4*jw. 
 
 12 
 
 nised and adequately described (in this country) by the 
 late Dr. William Miller Ord, of St. Thomas' Hospital, as 
 the result of research on the lines above mentioned. Not 
 being a Vivisector, however, that able physician received 
 no title or other reward for probably the most striking 
 and original discovery of the generation.* 
 
 Then subsequently— also without aid from Vivisection 
 —Dr. W. Murray, of Newcastle, found that death is 
 averted and distressing symptoms held in abeyance, by 
 the continued administration of either sheep's Thyroids 
 m bulk, or of the juice expressed therefrom. This 
 treatment has held the field ever since. It cannot of 
 course, be styled a " cure." 
 
 The method has since assumed huge commercial 
 importance, involving a most lucrative trade in Thyroid 
 preparations. But it was no more than a common- 
 sense deduction from readily-observed facts. It was 
 not invented or discovered by means of any living- 
 animal experiment whatsoever. It needed nothing of 
 the kind for its support. 
 
 The removal from the body of a certain glandular 
 organ— or the morbid disorganisation of that organ- 
 were seen to produce a peculiar train of symptoms. 
 1 hese must be due either to secretion or to excretion by 
 the organ, could not possibly be ascribed to any other 
 cause. As the Thyroid Body is not provided with a 
 duct, the former almost certainly came first. 
 
 That the Thyroid Body secretes anything at aJl was a fact 
 previously unknown and unsuspected. Kocher independently des- 
 cribed myxoedenia in Germany, about the same time ; but the fact 
 does not lessen the credit due to Ord. 
 
 Hardly any medical innovation now receives the smallest attention, 
 unless associated with Vmsection-experiments. That may possibly 
 be the reason why the only Cancer-discovery in my time-that a 
 very prevalent kind ordinarily infects insidiously the marrow, and 
 
 nZtTJ ?'. ^''"f ''*^. ^'^''' g'^'°^ "«« t° unwarrantable 
 notions of constitutional ongin, ineradicability, Ac-has never 
 
 fSsSC::.'"" ''^ ^^'^''' ^'^•'"^'^ of considerable 
 
 l< ' 
 
 13 
 
 Common sense therefore naturally indicated treat- 
 was at once found to answer remarkably well. Numerous 
 Vivisection experiments also took place ; mainly in 
 connection with the second or more butcherly plan, 
 also deducible by ordinary reason, viz. replaceLnt of 
 
 ItinT'S "^^^l ^y '"^^r ^ 3rafi from anotd 
 hmng body. They proved admirably successful; 
 
 JLa^ T* YT ^'"'"^ necessary to perpetuate this 
 second mode of treatment. The living-lnimal experi- 
 naents served the mam object of all medical Vivisection, 
 they brought the first mode well into vogue. But 
 otherwise they do not appear to have revealed any new 
 tact, or to have elucidated any point which could not 
 as readily have been ascertained without them 
 
 Hitzig and Ferrier's researches on the Convolutions of 
 the Bram and their Functions excited intense interest 
 m physiological circles twenty-five years ago; and 
 were at first thought to have inaugu/ated a new era 
 m bram-surgery. It was subsequently ascertained 
 however that the deductions were faulty ; and that 
 many limitations and exceptions marred the practical 
 rules which would otherwise have been established. 
 Considerable disappointment soon arose. Other hieh 
 authorities announced their scepticism. 
 Charcot remarked ; — 
 
 "The only really decisive data touching the cerebral patholojrv of 
 Man are m my op.mon those developed ^.cording to thrprSles 
 of Uie Anatomico-clmical method. That method consists in ?v!^ 
 confronting the functional disorders, observed dt^Sf ^^th Z 
 lesions discovered, and carefully located, after death. ^To it I mav 
 
 Shis'-""' ""' '" ^"^'" ^°^^'^' ''^ ^^' "^ ^-^'^ 
 
 Brown-S^quard pointed out the danger of reliance 
 upon the results of living-animal expedient. FerriS 
 himself describes the surprise of Morgagni at finding 
 paralysis of the hmbs (Hemiplegia) on the same sSf 
 
14 
 
 as the Brain-lesion ; whereas according to all recognised 
 anatomical canons, it should have occurred on the 
 opposite. He also admits (Functions of the Brain, 
 Preface) that : 
 
 " No one who has attentively studied the results of the labours of 
 the numerous investigators in this field of research, can help being 
 struck by the want of harmony and even positive contradictions 
 among the conclusions which apparently the same experiments and 
 the same facts have led to in different hands." 
 
 Finally on the question of operative removal of 
 brain-tumours, it is notorious that Surgery has almost 
 absolutely failed ; that an operation is commonly fatal ; 
 that even when the patient recovers, cures {i.e, dis- 
 appearance of the distressing symptoms) are few and 
 far between. Of 162 cases recorded by Starr in the 
 New York Medical Record, Feb. 1st, 1896 ; in 35, the 
 operation was fatal, and in 48 the tumour could not be 
 found ; in 7, it was found but could not be excised ; 
 in 72, the patient survived the removal — but that 
 was all. Sir Victor Horsley, the most renowned Brain- 
 operator in the world, has eulogised to the Royal Com- 
 mission its successes; which he attributes to the 
 previous localisation experiments. But he omits to 
 adduce a solitary fact or figure in proof of that success, 
 thus painfully neglecting to grasp a golden opportunity 
 for convincing his own profession. 
 
 Attempts — based in some measure on certain partic- 
 ularly horrifying experiments at the Brown Institution 
 upon living dogs— to ascribe modern improvements 
 in the Surgery of the Kidney to Vivisection have also 
 been made. But since the Surgeon whose name is 
 most associated with progress in this department- 
 Mr. Henry Morris, President of the Royal College of 
 Surgeons— informed the Royal Commission that he 
 had never vivisected and was in no way indebted for 
 his skill to experiments upon living animals ; the claim 
 can hardly be persisted in. The surgical removal 
 
 15 
 
 of the kidney moreover dates from the Greeks, and was 
 known to Hippocrates as a feasible operation. 
 
 HI. 
 
 The Fundamental Difference in Organisation, 
 BETWEEN Man and the Lower Animals. 
 
 Between the structural and physiological organisation 
 of Human and other living creatures, — even of those 
 latter, such as the monkey, which are most closely 
 akin, — there is an extremely pronounced difference. 
 The details, in formation and function, are so numerous 
 and so profound, that all scientific inference from one 
 to the other, is wholly impossible. Even Professor 
 Starling, who of all English Vivisectors is perhaps the 
 most reckless in his advocacy of the system, has been 
 constrained to inform the Sitting Royal Commission 
 that living-animal experiments are of approximative 
 value only. '' The final experiment m.ust always take 
 place on Man!' 
 
 This naive confession from such a source w^U-nigh 
 suffices of itself to demolish the whole foundations of 
 the Vivisection-system. Of what avail are all the 
 horrible torments which the lower animals are con- 
 fessedly made to undergo (^vide La Fisiologia del 
 Dolore, by Mantegazza : Crile's notorious Experimental 
 Research into Surgical Shock: et iis similia) if 
 they point to nothing conclusive ? Or setting aside 
 those agonies, which English vivisectors now deny, 
 although proved to the Royal Commission of 1876 to 
 have been then perpetrated here, what does it all 
 amount to, but an absurd waste of force ? 
 
 The gulf between our organisation and that of these 
 creatures is most strikingly demonstrated by the different 
 effect on them of poisonous drugs. Five grains of 
 Opium or one grain of its principal alkaloid Morphia 
 will kill a man. A rabbit can take 30 grains of Opium, 
 
16 
 
 a pigeon 12 grains of Morphia with perfect impunity. 
 In man, those drugs contract the pupil of the eye to a 
 pin's point. In birds, the latter is not affected at all ; 
 in horses it becomes widely dilated ; in dogs it first 
 dilates, then contracts. 
 
 We enjoy lemonade in the hot weather. Citric Acid, 
 its basis, is a potent poison to cats and rabbits. Prussic 
 Acid kills us and also elephants; but has no efi'ect on 
 horses or hyaenas. Henbane, as the name indicates, 
 is fatal to hens. It has no influence on sheep, cows, 
 pigs. Eabbits eat belladonna, goats tobacco, sheep, 
 horses, and goats browse on conium, the hemlock of 
 Socrates. All are rank poisons to the human species. 
 One often sees thrushes and blackbirds eagerly eating 
 the berries of the Yew, or of the Cherry laurel with 
 other fruits fatal to us. Table Salt is deadly to 
 chickens. Many mammals love it, — the American 
 bison used to travel over the prairies many hundreds 
 of miles to the " Salt Licks." Men could hardly exist 
 without it, certainly not in a condition of health. 
 
 According to the Medical Press, 
 
 **The common hedgehog can eat without discomfort as much opium 
 as a Chinaman can smoke in a fortnight, and can wash the meal down 
 with as much prussic acid as would kill a regiment of soldiers. It is 
 capable of swallowing arsenic with as much relish as it eats cock- 
 roaches. Finally it is immune to snake venom." 
 
 Sir Lauder Brunton has pointed out that rabbits 
 cannot vomit, because of the anatomical position of the 
 stomach. Dogs, which lead such an active life and are 
 capable of so much exertion and muscular endurance, 
 —cannot therefore be suspected of having a weak 
 heart — are yet remarkably prone to die from cardiac 
 failure when exposed to chloroform-vapour. On the 
 other hand they recover quickly from intestinal opera- 
 tions and many injuries which would immediately kill 
 a human being. An eel with its head cut ofi* will 
 manifest every sign of sensibility ; so will a frog, whose 
 cerebral hemispheres have been completely destroyed. 
 
 * s 
 
 17 
 
 Excision of the Thyroid body is nearly always imme- 
 diately fatal to dogs, cats, foxes ; rabbits, sheep, calves, 
 and horses bear it well, and shew no ill symptom after- 
 wards ; in man (as already stated) it produces Myxoe- 
 dema, with death after a long interval. 
 
 These are but a few of similar discrepancies which 
 could be multiplied indefinitely. They serve however 
 sufiiciently to shew how fallacious it is to reason from 
 either natural or artificial biological phenomena in the 
 lower animal creation to the same in Man. They indicate 
 how far remote from the precise and logical deductions 
 which true Science would demand inferences from 
 such a source must almost necessarily be. And finally 
 they serve to cast material doubt upon benefits to the 
 Healing Art, likely to be derived from the novel 
 " synthetic remedies," tons of which are sent every week 
 to our shores by the German and other laboratories. 
 These are invariably now foisted upon a somewhat 
 credulous medical Faculty, on the faith of living animal 
 experiments. 
 
 Again the " Octopism" which cannot fail to attend 
 this line of research, is readily shewn by the contra- 
 dictions and absurdities into which successive investi- 
 gators constantly plunge. Thus many years ago Anstie 
 performed a series of very painful experiments upon 
 cats and dogs, and concluded that Podophyllin does 
 not increase the flow of bile. Rohrig did more, which 
 wholly negatived that conclusion. Then Rutherford 
 performed a 3rd series, vainly endeavouring to reconcile 
 the verdicts of the two former. The matter is not yet 
 decided. 
 
 Drs. Ringer and Murrell experimented with Arsenic 
 upon frogs (Journal of Physiology, I., p. 217). Dr. W. 
 Stzlarck of Berlin (Reichert's ^rcAiv, 1866), obtained 
 results diametrically opposite. The former gentleman 
 then endeavoured to extricate physiological medicine 
 from this difficulty by saying that the discrepancies in 
 question depended upon the season of the year at which 
 
"'"'"llilB"- 
 
 18 
 
 the frogs were experimented upon ! ! ! (Berdoe, Futility 
 of Experiments with Drugs on Animals, p. 13.) 
 
 These are only samples of many similar happenings. 
 Vimsection never finally settles anything. One in- 
 vestigator's conclusions hold good only till they are 
 overhauled by the next ; and his, until someone else 
 takes a hand. The wheel continues to revolve, until 
 eventually we arrive at those experiments on human 
 bemgs, to which research on the living animal inevitably 
 leads (iVeii; York Herald, January 1 0th, 1908, Paris 
 Edition.) That is the great social danger of the 
 Vivisection-System. Many instances of its occurrence 
 even in England have proved it to be far from a light 
 one. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Serum-Therapy— (a) Pasteurism. 
 
 Hardly anything tends better to demonstrate the 
 futihty of Vivisection-research as applied to the medical 
 Art than the now fashionable Serum-therapy. This, 
 not so much by reason of its many conspicuous failures,' 
 as of the manner in which Failure is hidden ; and of the 
 reckless assertions by which it is too frequently held 
 forth to an ignorant and admiring world, as success. 
 
 The corner-stone of the entire edifice of Serum- 
 therapy is the Institut Pasteur, There is not the 
 faintest reason to suppose that Pasteur's inoculations 
 for Eabies have ever prevented the development of 
 that dread disease in a single person who had actually 
 contracted it. They are proved beyond any possibility 
 of doubt to have conveyed Hydrophobia to sundry 
 individuals who would not and could not have been 
 attacked otherwise. Yet the great Pasteur Bubble has 
 persisted, under distinguished professional auspices, 
 from 1885 until now; and has emitted numerous 
 offshoots. Well says the pithy proverb : '' Populus 
 (TnedicusJ vult decipi et decipiatur." 
 
 t'' 
 
 19 
 
 And so people raised a statue— towards which there 
 were large subscriptions in England -to Pasteur. There 
 can be no more striking testimony to the tremendous 
 sway which scientific humbug, here denominated 
 Uctopism, has acquired over the minds of men • for 
 no so-called " Medical improvement'^ has from the'first 
 been so utterly void of foundation in assured fact 
 None has ever raised so dense an *'inky cloud'' of un- 
 warranted assertion and of unfounded illusion. No 
 vaunted ^* Scientific Discovery" could have more com- 
 pletely disregarded those tests of accuracy and of 
 veracity which Science always demands. No system 
 of treatment could have set more effectually at naught 
 the suggestions of ordinary prudence and common- 
 sense. 
 
 ^ Everything favoured the first blowing of the "bubble." 
 Since the decease of the author, everything has com- 
 bined to procure its expansion. At the time nothing 
 was known as to the number of persons, among tho^ 
 bitten by a mad dog, who subsequently developed 
 rabies ; although it had always been notorious that 
 many escaped wholly scatheless. 
 
 Then there was a lengthy period of '' Incubation." 
 After the bite, the malady did not shew itself for two 
 months at least, possibly not for a year. Even longer 
 intervals were claimed ; but all was hazy and obscure. 
 Pasteur had already acquired world-wide renown as a 
 Chemist. He had focussed men's attention on his dis- 
 coveries in that department of Science. 
 
 Pasteur's theory was that the spinal cords of artificially 
 infected rabbits contain the virus of rabies " in its pure 
 form,''— whatever that may mean.^ Also that they 
 
 * The words are quoted from Professor C. J. Martin's evidence 
 (Royal Commission on Vivisection, 11658). 
 
 As no one has the faintest idea what the " virus " is,— it has not 
 been isolated, and no microbic germ, in spite of the most persevering 
 search has ever been detected in hydrophobia— the absurdity of the 
 phrase is obvious. This point indicates the laxity with which words 
 
20 
 
 contain an immunising '* vaccine" as well as this virus. 
 That when dried, the virus gradually loses its potency ; 
 but the vaccine only does so in much smaUer degree. 
 So that ''the weaker cords (those dried for fourteen or 
 thirteen days) possess not enough poison to give the 
 disease, but enough vaccine to immunise the patient 
 against stronger cords (those dried for a shorter time) 
 which contained more 'vaccine' as well as more virus." 
 (Stephen Smith.) 
 
 This theory was never proved, although the treatment 
 was begun immediately after its promulgation. It was 
 founded on 50 dog-experiments, stated by Pasteur to 
 have been uniformly successful.^ Professor Von Frisch, 
 of Vienna, came to Paris to learn the method; then 
 went home and repeated the experiments. All failed. 
 
 For the treatment a dried cord (rabbit's) was mixed 
 with veal broth into a liquid form. This was injected 
 hypodermically . The first day, a cord dried for 1 4 days 
 was used ; the next, one only 1 3 days old, and so on, in 
 an ascending series, to a cord almost fresh. The time 
 occupied was about a fortnight. 
 
 On the publication of Von Frisch's report, M. Pasteur 
 had to admit that his experiments had been only partially 
 successful. Also he changed his method entirely. In- 
 stead of the " Slow," occuppng 1 4 days ; it was necessary 
 to inoculate every two hours, and using the w^hole 
 series of cords in 24 hours or even less, — the "fiapid" 
 treatment. 
 
 Von Frisch went over the ground again, on the new 
 system and " found it a complete failure.'* 
 
 Still the inoculations were attracting people from 
 every part of Europe; and at all hazards, must be 
 
 are commonly employed in so-called " medical science,'* and made 
 to depict wholly unknown things, in terms indicative of knowledge 
 and reality. 
 
 * " Sans avoir rencontr^ un seul insucc^/* 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 21 
 
 continued. From that time till his death, M. Pasteur s 
 ingenuity was largely employed in devising plausible 
 excuses for the numerous deaths which occurred in 
 patients who had been subjected to his treatment ; and 
 who, on grounds expressly stated by himself previously, 
 should have been immune. Thus Lord Doneraile was 
 inoculated on the 12th day after the bite (by a rabid 
 fox) ; and died of rabies five months afterwards. 
 
 M. Pasteur explained that an interval of 12 days was 
 far too long. Secondly that in deference to the wishes 
 of Lady Doneraile and of the previous medical attendant, 
 he had, against his own better judgment, adopted the 
 simple treatment only, instead of the modified which 
 was then recommended. (British Medical Journal, 
 Sept. 17th, 1887.) 
 
 Lady Doneraile {Cork Constitution, Oct. 16th, 1887), 
 flatly contradicts the latter statement. As to the former, 
 two years later, M. Pasteur in the New Review, Dec. 
 1889, speaks of having encouraged a lady to come to 
 him from Spain for treatment a year after the bite ; and 
 says " It is never too late to begin the treatment." 
 
 The paralytic form of rabies is very rare and ex- 
 ceptional in human beings ; though it is the prevalent 
 one in rabbits. Men suffer from the convulsive. In 1885, 
 7 out of 22 deaths among Pasteur's patients were from 
 paralytic hydrophobia. A pricking sensation at the 
 place of the bite is an ordinary symptom at the outset 
 of rabies. In numerous fatal cases after the Pasteur 
 treatment, this was felt, not there, but at the place of 
 the inoculations. Lastly, in the cases of N^e of Arras, 
 De Moens of Antwerp, Stobor of Lubline, and others : 
 the treatment was instituted shortly after bite by a dog 
 only suspected of being mad. The patient died of rabies, 
 "The dog remained healthy and lived for years."* 
 
 * A sad reversion of Goldsmith's tale : 
 
 " The man recovered of the bite ; 
 The dog it was that died." 
 
22 
 
 by th/LocuIatirns tottl^^^^^^^^ "^^^.^ ««"-^yed 
 wise have been attacked Tt dl '''"^'^ ""* «*^^^- 
 
 stat^slE ^(Sjft^^^^^^^ Stephen Smith of all the 
 Pasteurian era ^ the ^1,^ '^T *^'*^ ^° *^^^ P^^" 
 
 Hydrophobia ;aron™ pef etf 5 t^'^".-^^- 
 Now it is two Der fPnt T ^ j °^ *^°se bitten. 
 
 has no PastrSitut ■ the J^f "* ^"S'^"^' ^^^^^ 
 
 In many respects Pa"; -f.. ^-"^^ '' non-existent, 
 whole glob'lSv s ?^ lt£^^^^^^ tl^e 
 
 the corner-stone of the enttrvt- !^''''^^^' ^^'^«^e 
 
 glamour of its fictitious triurDhlrr'r"'^?^^- ^h^ 
 the minds of men ^"^^^P^s has effectuaUy dazzled 
 
 kind of the futility of^Stln?r ' 'T^^^^ '"^°- 
 which can be devLd. ' '^''^''^''''' *^^" any other measure 
 
 (6) Diphtheria-Antitoxin 
 
 of th': sr TIL' £W^™. r '^^ fi-*-bo- 
 
 Pasteur Institut? in 18 JT.nf'^""/^ ^^ ^«»^' «f the 
 in eonse,uencet/r " liS:^;^r^^^^^^ ^'^^^^'^^^ 
 
 DipX^l^gSratSsT e'r • °^*^P^^ " ^^-'^«- 
 varying virulence Tn?. ?u ^P''?^^"^ waves, of very 
 
 treatment ifi S,Hn! ^'^ "'v^'^""' ^^^t^^^r the 
 misleading. *''*'^' ^'^ peculiarly unreliable and 
 
 forf Emlitdnt'^^l^^^^^^^^^^ --be, there- 
 
 white peUicle which is sefnlfwf bacillus,»-in that 
 patients. In The wonted non t' *^T "^ diphtheritic 
 Vivisectionist, they IssumedT k"^!^'' ""^"°^^ «f the 
 of the disease alti'Sw^^^^^^^^^ *°, ^^ *^^ -'^- 
 it m 25 per cent, of ufdoS^^W i^ ^ '^*^^* 
 
 23 
 
 This causation has never been, even approximately, 
 proved. The '' specific " baciJlus was found by Bitter 
 in the mouths of 127 healthy children. It has 
 since been noticed in very numerous conditions wholly 
 unconnected with diphtheria, —e.^. in conjunctivitis, 
 nasal catarrh, ozcena, fibrinous rhinitis, stomatitis, 
 gangrene, noma, cancrum oris, tuberculous and em- 
 physematous Imigs, vaccine pustules, &c.— a tolerablv 
 wide field ! 
 
 The impartial observer will therefore find it almost 
 incredible that, in spite of all this, the medical world 
 should have permitted itself to regard the Klebs-Loffler 
 bacillus as the vera causa of diphtheria ; and so to 
 have enthusiastically embraced the treatment founded 
 on that view. 
 
 But the Faculty have gone much further. It is still 
 more incredible that, for the old common-sense method 
 of diagnosis (based upon such obvious and unmistake- 
 able signs as the white throat-peUicle, enlarged glands, 
 constitutional symptoms, &c.) they should actually have 
 consented to substitute as a test for Diphtheria, the 
 presence of this microbe in the throat-secretions, as 
 shewn, or thought to be shewn, by the microscope ! 
 
 Irrational and unscientific treatment could not go far 
 without adventitious or factitious support : neither has 
 here been lacking. Of the former kind is the fact that 
 the virulence of Diphtheria-epidemics has been shewn to 
 proceed, through a long series of years, upwards to a 
 maximum. After which, an equally gradual descent 
 occurs. And in many places,— Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, 
 Holland, German towns,— a special fall in the mortality 
 was observed just before the introduction of the Anti- 
 toxin. (Buning). 
 
 Of the factitious order are (a) The wholesale inclusion 
 of mild and doubtful cases, which necessarily results 
 from the adoption of the baciliary test aforesaid, com- 
 bined with the isolation zeal of up-to-date sanitary 
 authorities. I have personally noticed most trivial cases 
 
yc f*- * ' •' 'V 
 
 24 
 
 which would otherwise have been well within a few 
 hours swept compukorUy into the local isolation- 
 hospital ; there presumably to swell, by their speedy 
 recovery the triumphs of the Anti-toxin treatment. 
 
 {b) Keliance upon the misleading statistics of the 
 Metropolitan Asylums Board, which shew a decrease in 
 mortality through the six serum years (from 1894)— but 
 also an equally marked decrease through the six pre- 
 cedmg The former are wholly vitiated by the Bacterio- 
 logical test. '' 
 
 (c) A third must be added— professional zeal. When- 
 ever there exists strong medical bias in a certain direction 
 It IS nearly always ea^y to support it by statistics which 
 must not be too closely scrutinised. 
 
 Yet in spite of aU these, and of the current fashion- 
 wave which has overwhelmed medical judgment we 
 have to face the alarming fact that the moHaliiy in 
 England and Wales from Diphtheria has most alarm- 
 tngly increased since the introduction of Anti-toxin in 
 i onn 1*^" years previously, the deaths per milHon 
 were 200 only For the ten subsequent, they were 235. 
 in tne Uty ot London for the three years 1895-6-7 — 
 the mortality was three times as high as in any of the 
 17 years 1865-1881. (Hadwen.) ^ 
 
 Professor C J. Martin informs the sitting Eoyal 
 Commission (Q. 12011) tha^t " paralytic symptorm are 
 more common now than they were before the Serum 
 treatment Also there are often distressing rashes; and 
 other ill-eflfects. Drs. Nuttall and Smith in The Bac- 
 terwhgy of Diphtheria (Cambridge, 1908) speak of 
 Kxdney disease with dropsical sweUing as " quite reeu- 
 larly observed." Also of local abscess, pain in the 
 jainis fever and severe prostration Several fatal cases 
 nave been recorded (p. 619). 
 
 The Medical Officer of Health for Toronto (where a 
 sceptical spirit on this question has always prevailed) 
 m his report for 1904 says that in the last decade, the 
 mortahty from Diphtheria was 16 per cent, under Anti- 
 
 25 
 
 toxin treatment, against only 12-2 under ordinary ditto. 
 " In every year save one, the percentage of deaths in 
 Anti-toxin cases, has been higher than the ordinary 
 hospital rate." 
 
 Before quittbg the topic of Diphtheria, it is important 
 to note how the vogue of Serum-therapy has led the 
 medical Faculty astray from other modes of treatment 
 far more successful and reliable. 259 cases (in 5 series), 
 treated by cyanide of mercury, formalin, corrosive 
 sublimate, &c., without a single death, have been pub- 
 lished. These are irritant poisons. But I can personally 
 testify that full doses of a practically non-poisonous 
 drug, sulphurous acid, never failed to efiace the charac- 
 teristic white pellicle within 48 hours in any patient 
 not absolutely moribund. And I never saw a case of 
 paralysis after this treatment.* 
 
 It is suggestive to find that the highest triumph of 
 Serum-therapy (vide Prof Martin's Evidence, Eoyal 
 Commission on Vivisection, Q. 11895), relates to a 
 disease which can readily he subdued by other means 
 wholly devoid of the drawbacks which attend Anti-toxin, 
 — devoid indeed of any drawbacks whatever. 
 
 It is no less interesting to discover the tendency 
 academic professors have to substitute Serum-therapy 
 for the ordinary methods and rules of Hygiene We 
 le&d (ibid, 0.11739) that 
 
 "In Heubner's Clinic from 1895 onwards, prophylactic injections 
 were given every three weeks to all the patients ; and the outbreaks of 
 diphtheria, which had formerly regularly ocurred in the wards came 
 to an end."— (N.B. The italics are not in the Blue-Book.) ' 
 
 
 * The ordinaiy dose of sulphurous acid for adults was a drachm, 
 diluted with water and syrup. The mixture has an agreeable taste 
 which recommends it to children. In 20 years of practice, I never 
 knew the treatment fail but once. Then a patient, who had been 
 cured, again exposed herself to the foul odour which had brought 
 
 on the disease ; was seized by uncontrollable vomiting and died 
 
 without any return of the Diphtheria. I was lately much gratified 
 to find my experience confirmed by Dr. Stenson Hooker. 
 
 « 
 
26 
 
 (c) Other Anti-toxins. 
 Snake Venom. 
 
 Compared with the preceding, the claims of other 
 serum-treated maladies to prove special success by that 
 method are feeble ; and mostly of the '' Ugitimes pro- 
 messes'' order. Such are tetanus, dysentery, typhoid 
 fever, plague ; with snake-bite. 
 
 Of the TETANUS-ANTITOXIN Prof. C. J. Martin (ibid. 
 11740) admits that 
 
 "As a curative agent in practice, its value is far less than that of 
 the corresponding Anti-toxin of diphtheria, because the disease is 
 only discovered after serious lesion of the nervous system has been 
 produced, upon which unfortunately the A. can exert little influence/. 
 
 And again (11744) ^^t (the Tetanus-Antitoxin) is 
 not very hopeful under any circumstances." 
 
 Statistics quoted by the same eminent and candid 
 witness who, as Director of the Lister Institute, may be 
 held the official Protagonist of British Vivisection— 
 directly controvert each other. The normal death-rate 
 from Tetanus is stated to be 86 per cent. Koehler, of 
 96 cases treated with Anti-toxin, reports recovery in 
 30*4 per cent. On the other hand Steur from his 
 figures could " demonstrate no improvement " over cases 
 treated without Anti-toxin. 
 
 However '^ as a prophylactic the power is fully estab- 
 lished " (1 1 749) I The proposition is proved by reference 
 (Q. 11751) to 2700 horses. Fortunately no one has 
 yet attempted to demonstrate these preventive virtues 
 on the human subject."^ 
 
 The Anti-toxin of dysentery evokes the following : 
 
 '' No extensive data as to Man are yet available ; but so far as it 
 has been used the results have been of a very promising character "— 
 /bid.q. 11758 (N.B. No italics in Blue-Book.) 
 
 This refers both to cure and to prophylaxis. 
 
 ♦That is, to the best of my knowledge. But the statement is 
 liable to correction. H.S, 
 
 27 
 On the ANTi-'fYPHOiD SERUM (ibid. 11799) 
 
 '' The statistics concerning the campaign in South Africa which 
 have been collected together by the Army Medical Department 
 indicate a substantial diminution both of the incidence, and deaths 
 from typhoid fever among the inoculated." 
 
 On investigation it is difficult to discover any reason- 
 able grounds for this eulogistic statement. The S. African 
 figures quoted are mostly too smaU for any useful 
 purpose. But of the Ladysmith garrison, a case-mortality 
 of 20*3 percent among 1705 inoculated — against one 
 of 22*1 percent, among 10529 uninoculated — assuredly 
 fails to shew '* substantial diminution." 
 
 Another series of cases (ibid. 11794) shew a preponder- 
 ance in the opposite direction. Five deaths among 27 
 inoculated against 23 among 213 not so '* protected'' — a 
 mortality of about 1 in 5 in the former case, only 1 in 9 
 in the latter. 
 
 In spite of the very pronounced official leaning to- 
 wards serum-therapy, — we are told (11803) that ''con- 
 siderable effort is being made by the Commander-in-Chief 
 in India to secure the inoculation of as large a pro- 
 portion as possible of the British Army in India,'' — 
 civilians attacked by typhoid will probably prefer less 
 " up-to-date "' methods of treatment.* 
 
 The system of prophylactic inoculation with Anti- 
 Plague sera, has been officially adopted by the Govern- 
 ment of India ; and a former Viceroy, Lord Curzon, has 
 publicly eulogised Haffkine, the pioneer thereof. It began 
 in 1897 ; and no effort to secure its general adoption by 
 the Medical Faculty throughout India would seem to 
 have been spared. 
 
 * As throwing light on the theory of causation by microbes. Dr. 
 Thresh in the Malvern Hydro Case told the Court that he had once 
 swallowed by mistake a tumblerful of water full of typhoid bacilli 
 without ill effect (Daili/ Telegraph, Jan. 25th, 1908). Dr. Kleiu 
 once purposely swallowed a glass of cholera bacilli without harm, 
 in order to prove his disbelief in Koch's discovery. 
 
28 
 
 Yet in 1905, there were 1,040,429 deaths from the 
 plague,— over 350,000 in the Punjab alone. This was 
 among the natn^s. It is significantly admitted (11935) 
 that before Haffktne's treatment was introduced, " cases 
 A PiT^ T''^ comparatively very fewamong Europeans." 
 And that (11.930): "the general mortality from plague 
 among the European population in India has always bten 
 
 Thus the annual death-roll is enormous and, although 
 like aU epidemic waves those of Plague fluctuate 
 m virulence shews no present sign of diminution, 
 ilie proffered inoculation statistics (ibid, 11792) are 
 much the reverse of convincing. They usually indicate 
 a small balance of seeming success (ie, in projyhylaxis,- 
 there ts here no question of cure). But inconsiderable 
 m any event that is assuredly far below what would 
 appear, were the pretensions of either Haffkine or Yersin 
 warranted by genuine Science ; and their Sera of real 
 value. 
 
 But Indian Plague-inoculations remarkably serve to 
 Illustrate the academic character of ordinary vivisection- 
 methods ; which habitually substitute deduction from 
 assumed, or at any rate from non-proved, facts for the 
 guidance of experience and observation. The plaeue 
 origmates and is ever rife in huts built of mud w!jls 
 upon an earthen foundation. The native villages consist 
 of these thickly crowded together upon soil reeking with 
 pestiferous germs,— a veritable mushroom-bed for the 
 mahgnant niicrobe. The walls are crumbling and porous • 
 into them the sun's heat draws up the foul air as into a 
 ventilating shaft. Here is a perpetual nidv^ of plague- 
 epidemics; and none can wonder. (See paper read by 
 Dr. Charles Creighton before the Indian Section of the 
 Society of Arts). 
 
 Instead of attacking this state of things in the manner 
 which ordmary prudence would suggest,-the attention 
 ot the Indian Government, under Vivisection-direction 
 IS entirely devoted to rats and fleas ! The association of 
 
 29 
 
 these creatures with the plague is problematical, and at 
 the moat, highly obscure."*^ But they naturally lend them- 
 selves to the practices of the Vivisector ; and to copious 
 " legitimes promesses pour V avenir^ 
 
 The total failure of Serum-therapy for Snake- Venom 
 is generally admitted; although the medical expert 
 examined by the Royal Commission naturally lets the 
 much- vaunted Antivenin down easily. He says : 
 '* Although the Antivenin has a decided protective 
 influence, it is not practically of very great use." (Major 
 L. Eogers, Q. 8035). 
 
 One of the practical difficulties in detail, is that every 
 species of poisonous snake appears to need, for the 
 neutralisation of its venom, a special serum. In a 
 country like India, it is rather difficult to keep on hand 
 a complete stock, — especially as each should be freshly 
 prepared. Calmette's applies to the cobra only ; and is 
 not admitted by Sir Lauder Brunton to have cured a 
 single case of cobra-bite. 
 
 How then stands the up-to-date Balance-Sheet of 
 Serum-Therapy ? On the Credit side, but a very scanty 
 and partial measure of success ; on the testimony of its 
 most zealous advocates. 
 
 Even that small modicum must be subjected to such 
 heavy discounts or deductions in manifold directions, as 
 ultimately to become altogether eflkced. The auditor 
 has to make allowance for the statistical inclusion of 
 dubious cases ; for the enthusiastic zeal of credulous and 
 non-scientific votaries ; for the large pecuniary interests 
 involved (these substances are now an important article 
 of trade), for the well-known curative influence of 
 
 * There are three varieties of rat at Calcutta — the black, the 
 mole-rat, and the brown. The two former are supposed to propagate 
 plague, the latter not. So Sir B. Ray Lancaster, writing in the 
 Daily Telegraphy considers the proposed crusade against our common 
 brown rat a great mistake. It has probably protected us by driving 
 away the black, which is a house-rat ; whereas the former inhabits 
 the sewers. 
 
so 
 
 powerful mental impressions, as in Faith-healing, and so 
 on. 
 
 Foremost of all however counts the point mentioned 
 in the Introduction ; that every Anti-toxin contains 
 some chemical or other, endowed with precious thera- 
 peutic properties, — to which whatever value may attach 
 to the serum must be ascribed. The omission of this 
 wholesome ingredient has involved notably disastrous 
 consequences. In 1902, nineteen villagers at Mulkowal 
 were inoculated with Haflfkine's plague-serum, from 
 which the carbolic acid had been omitted. All died — of 
 tetanus, not of plague ! 
 
 And then per contra, what have we ? A very con- 
 siderable sum of avowed and notorious Failure ; a still 
 larger of Failure, secret and never to be disclosed, — folks 
 don't proclaim such things from the house-tops ! And 
 finally, such loss to mankind by the diversion of Medicine 
 from Nature's clearly prescribed paths, as future ages 
 alone can estimate ; when the reversionary method of 
 Vivisection has been finally discarded.'*^ 
 
 V. 
 
 Cancer. Consumption. The Drug Factory. 
 
 The other spheres of Vivisection-activity hardly de- 
 mand more than passing mention. To the non-credulous 
 eye, failure is sufficiently obvious along the whole line. 
 
 * " Reversionary^ For the study of Anatomy the medical students 
 at Salerno, the great medical school of the Middle Ages, dissected 
 only " the bodies of swine ; as likest the human form divine." — 
 Longfellow, 
 
 Herophilus and Erasistratus, according to Galen, dissected 600 
 livijig men and women. In Egypt, criminals were assigned for 
 the purpose ; as also at Pavia, in the Middle Ages. An American 
 doctor has just openly advocated a return to this arrangement. It 
 is almost incredible that the great Lister should have proclaimed at 
 Berlin in 1890, thai it had now become necessary to experitnent 07i 
 Men. — See British Med. Journal, Aug. 16/90, Address at Berlin 
 Congress. 
 
 31 
 
 The last-named is the one most densely obscured by 
 ** Octopic " clouds. It serves to indicate the huge com- 
 mercial interests, now enlisted in the Vivisection cause. 
 
 The extensive mice-inoculations undertaken in refer- 
 ence to cancer by the Imperial Research Fund are 
 simply a rediictio ad absurdum of Vivisection argu- 
 ments and modes of thought. 
 
 Because certain maladies associated with micro- 
 organisms are believed to be cured by serum-treatment, 
 it is assumed that a remedy of the same class may also 
 cure Cancer, which has nothing whatever in common 
 with microbic disorders. A vigorous search for an 
 " Anti-toxin Cure" is promptly initiated. "^ 
 
 It is found that a certain Tumour affecting mice can be 
 transferred from one mouse to another. The nature of 
 the growth is problematical ; though many similar 
 formations in other animals,t long believed by medical 
 scientists to be cancerous, have eventually proved due to 
 a fungus. A microscopic thin section, however, resembles 
 one of cancer. So although the microscopic indications 
 of that malady are notoriously unreliable and fallacious,! 
 the mouse-tumour is forthwith assumed to be cancer ; 
 and, furthermore, to be identical with the cancer of 
 human beings. In the quest of serum-cure for that 
 scourge, mice innumerable are promptly slaughtered. 
 
 * The phenomena of Cancer are in every respect curiously unlike 
 those of every disease in which a micro-organism has been discovered. 
 The fact renders causation by a microbe highly improbable, if not 
 altogether impossible. 
 
 f AMiO'Mycosis, the Rag Fungus, which attacks cattle, was long 
 considered a cancerous growth. The Report of the l.C.R. Fund 
 which describes the mouse-experiments, gives an account of a similar 
 tumour in dogs. There are many more of the same class. 
 
 I It is most dangerous to base a diagnosis of cancer in Man on 
 microscopic evidence alone. Clinical signs should always rank first. 
 The microscope can only corroborate. It cannot always even dis- 
 prove. Witness the sad case of the Emperor Frederick. 
 
iiasSi.- *-:: 
 
 32 
 
 It is needless to add that there has hitherto been no 
 result ; and that benefit to science in the future can 
 hardly be anticipated with confidence. For, at the out- 
 set two main points, beside sundry minor ones, combined 
 to differentiate the mouse-malady from human cancer 
 for any one who possesses more than academic know- 
 ledge of the latter. There is no perceptible analogy 
 whatever. 
 
 (a) The tumour sometimes disappears spontaneously. 
 This no true human cancer has ever been known to do, 
 
 (b) A mouse carrying one of these ''Jensen's Tumours" 
 far exceeding its whole body in weight, will run about 
 without any sign of pain or suffering. The health and 
 vitality are apparently quite unimpaired. 
 
 For magnitude of operation-sphere the Eoyal Com- 
 mission on Tuberculosis probably bears the record— as 
 perhaps also for relative paucity of practical results. 
 That body has occupied five years, and two separate 
 farms beside the laboratories, in a research merely pre- 
 liminary. The list of animals comprises cattle, goats, 
 pigs, dogs, guinea-pigs, rabbits, and monkeys with the 
 chimpanzee. The Eeport shews no new fact. It merely 
 goes to contradict the improbable assertion of Professor 
 Koch that animal tuberculosis is distinct from the human 
 and cannot be communicated to man. This negative, so 
 far as it may be supposed to go, has done nothing to 
 further the better treatment— or even the better abstract 
 knowledge— of Consumption, 
 
 Both these grandiose Vivisection-schemes have how- 
 ever succeeded admirably in ''trailing a red herring 
 across the scent": that is to say, in diverting attention 
 and intellectual force from the true path. The Cancer 
 investigations have only served to perpetuate that utter 
 contempt of Cancer-Science, which, combined with a 
 hopeless and unfounded pessimism, pervades all the 
 ranks of Medicine, from the highest to the lowest. 
 They tend to prevent its reform by improved medical 
 education ; one of the most crjdng needs of the time. 
 
 (fi) See the Eeports of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 
 
 38 
 
 The Tuberculosis inquiries have merely focussed both 
 public and medical gaze on two points— (a) The Tubercle 
 Bacillus; (6) the Milk Supply. Now the microbe, though 
 casually associated with Consumption-phenomena, does 
 not appear to be invariably so. Neither has it ever 
 been shewn to be either the cause of Consumption, or 
 per se the vehicle of contagion, — whenever the malady 
 is contagious, an event which Sir Douglas Powell, a high 
 authority, regards as exceptional. (R.V. Commission, 
 Q. 5783 et seq.) As to the latter question, there is 
 evidence that children can be fed on the milk of tuber- 
 cular cows for years, without any impairment of health. 
 (Dr. Holt, in Medical News,) 
 
 Hence, neither of these matters can be regarded as 
 highly material to the vital point at issue, the extinction 
 or cure of Consumption, the ''White Plague." The 
 attainment of that aim plainly turns, not upon the 
 fantastic hypotheses of Bacteriology,^ but on the 
 reverent observance of Nature and her ways,— not upon 
 the hypodermic syringe, but on questions of fresh 
 air, pure food, wholesome dwellings, light, a sound 
 physical foundation in childhood, and so forth. 
 
 The evidence of Prof. Cushny before the Royal Com- 
 mission is particularly instructive in shewing : 
 
 (a) The enormous trade in "Synthetic" drugs intro- 
 duced by Vivisection. 
 
 {b) The unpractical views of disease current, through 
 the same cause, among the younger practitioners. 
 
 (c) Their tendency to view everything connected 
 with the Healing Art, through Vivisection-spectacles ; 
 
 * To the Science of Bacteriology in the hands of the latter-day 
 Bacteriologist, Tennyson's verse : 
 
 " A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies" 
 applies with peculiar force. 
 
 The microbic part of Bacteriology (dealing with germs and their 
 phenomena per se) is Science. The medical element (that which 
 concerns the application of micro-organisms to the purposes of the 
 Healing Art) is mostly, if not entirely, Fiction. 
 
34 
 
 to credit no novelty introduced into practice, unless 
 based on living-animal experiment.* 
 
 So highly does the Chemical industry value the aid 
 
 given in this way (ie, by Vivisection) "that its leaders 
 
 . have appointed pharmacologists and erected 
 
 laboratories for animal experiment at the cost of many 
 
 thousands of pounds per annum/' (Q. 4819). 
 
 Most of the laboratories referred to are in Germany, 
 Germany, the land of incomparable industry in minute 
 details ; also par excellence of Vivisection, of medical 
 and physiological " Octopism/' Space does not permit a 
 detailed discussion of the chemicals. But no candid 
 (general) practitioner of experience will decline to admit 
 that any commensurate improvement in the treatment 
 of disease is wholly wanting ; that only one of the drugs, 
 here and there, has value ; that the majority are far 
 inferior to those previously in use ; that many are 
 deleterious or even dangerous ; that on the most 
 favourable estimate of the 1 4 large groups described by 
 Prof. Cushny we have a single grain of wheat among 
 many bushels of chaflp. 
 
 The most ardent Vivisectionist would have difficulty 
 m proving that the sum of human suffering has been 
 appreciably lessened, or even a single death averted by 
 the introduction of Heroin, Urotropin, Thallin, Ortho- 
 form, Paraldehyde, Ureihane, Veronal, Sulphonal, 
 Trional, et hoc genics omne. 
 
 This very able witness may be aptly regarded as 
 typifying the Vis Academica of Vivisection. No 
 practical man of Medicine would endorse his remark : 
 (Q. 4711) ''I would suggest that the usefulness of 
 Pharmacology lies in breaking up disease into symptoms, 
 each one of which can be treated with drugs when those 
 
 * Witness the idea that Digitalis, a very old established remedy 
 for Heart-disease, is a modern Vivisection -product. It was the 
 remedy when I was a student, 1863. Yet Professor Cushny 
 refers its use for cardiac maladies to a Vivisection-Research by 
 Traube and Brunton, about that epoch ! 
 
 35 
 
 symptoms are present ; instead of treating the whole 
 disease with drugs." 
 
 Surely that idea must touch the supreme height of 
 academic folly. ''^ 
 
 VL Conclusion. 
 Suggested Lines for Future Research. 
 
 It has become increasingly evident how completely 
 the cruel, misleading, and futile system of Living- 
 Animal Experiment is supplanting the only method 
 whereby all valid progress in the Art of Healing — from 
 the days of Hippocrates down to Harvey,t Sydenham, 
 Trousseau, Lister — has been achieved. That method 
 consisted in vigilant observation by the bed-side and 
 in the mortuary : combined with carefully reasoned 
 deduction from the facts perceived. 
 
 Also that the vast aggregate of animal pain and 
 anguish which since Claude Bernard's confession have 
 gone on accumulating at an ever increasing ratio, have 
 not actually added to practical medicine one jot or tittle 
 of good. For those who look under the surface, there 
 can be no more convincing proof of this than the 
 testimony, before the sitting Commission, of all the 
 foremost Vivisection-advocates (See final note.) 
 
 The first step therefore obviously indicated — after 
 the Abolition of Vivisection — would be a Eeform in 
 Medical Education involving return to the old wise 
 paths : developing sympathy as well as cold, hard 
 
 * Even Professor Cushny is compelled to admit (Q.5249) " I 
 think there is no question that a large number of these new remedies 
 are no advance upon those formerly used." Also (4963-4) that no 
 experiment on the living animal is ever final and complete. 
 
 f Harvey, although a Yivisector did not on his own shewing, thus 
 discover the Circulation of the Blood. Moreover no physiologist 
 would resort to experiment on the living animal in order to demon- 
 strate it. This IS universally admitted. Under the microscope 
 one can easily witness the phenomenon in the web of the frog's foot. 
 But that involves no experiment. 
 
36 
 
 knowledge ; promoting development of the reasoning 
 and perceptive faculties ; really making for practical 
 efficiency in the cure, relief, or prevention of Man's 
 physical ills. 
 
 The total prohibition of living-animal experiments 
 per se, would unquestionably constitute a healthy 
 stimulus to medicine, of inestimable value to mankind. 
 Since the extinction, fifty years ago, of the apprentice- 
 ship-system, the training of the student has become 
 more and more academic ; until under the Upas shadow 
 of Vivisection, a practical acquaintance with the proper 
 medical ^ details of his profession has finally become all 
 but impossible, — certainly very unnecessary. He must 
 pass the examinations. For those, he can learn almost 
 everything required from books. Anything beyond is 
 rather detrimental than not, as tending to encourage 
 scepticism and originality, — qualities not favoured by the 
 average examiner, medical or other. 
 
 By the apprenticeship method, every young man was 
 bound to acquire an intimate acquaintance with illness 
 in its every day forms , — a totally difierent matter 
 from the picked cases of disease seen in the hospital. 
 Also what was perhaps of hardly less importance, he 
 was brought into far closer contact with human misery, 
 human emotion, human weakness, and human strength 
 than is ever remotely possible in the crowded and 
 artificial hospital ward. 
 
 That method has gone, and it would be idle to attempt 
 its revival, — were such desirable, which is not the case. 
 If however the custom were still in existence, we should 
 hardly find the present almost universal disposition to 
 credit any preposterous Vivisection-fallacy. We should 
 not see eminent surgeons or physicians professing utter 
 disbelief in drugs ; and prophesying the extinction of 
 medical pills or potions in the near future. They do 
 
 * The surgical details are not included. The Art of Surgery has 
 become elaborately perfected, as all men know, in these latter days. 
 
 ! 
 
 37 
 
 this, because it has never been necessary for them to 
 know anything about the subject. The knife is the 
 weapon of the Surgeon, Faith-healing is the magic wand 
 of the Physician. With the homely ** family doctor'' 
 matters stand quite difierently. He is forced to dis- 
 regard humbug and look at things as they are. 
 
 The public would hardly credit the insignificant 
 attention paid to medical treatment by the educational 
 bodies in this best of all possible worlds. The teachers 
 openly disregard or contemn it. They themselves have 
 never learnt it. Take up the Pharmacopoeia, and you 
 find it crammed with absurdly complex '' washing-bill " 
 preparations and more or less preposterous drugs. Pick 
 up a medical text-book and you are confronted with 
 abundant prescriptions for any particular disorder ; from 
 which you are at liberty to pick and choose at your own 
 sweet will.=^ There is nothing to tell you which is good 
 and which is bad : what is true, and what is false. 
 There is no machinery for sifting the wheat from the 
 chafi". Every young practitioner has to do that for 
 himself. Experto crede. I have been through the mill. 
 
 I do not think it would be Utopian to enact a rule 
 which would procure the chief object aimed at by the 
 old plan without any of its disadvantages. That object 
 was to familiarise the practitioner with sickness amid 
 the daily life of the people. It could be even better 
 secured by an academic curriculum first of all. Then 
 several years should be devoted to a probation more or 
 less under the conditions of what is termed " general 
 practice.'' Not until those had elapsed should the aspirant 
 receive his full diploma. Much less should he be placed 
 on a hospital staff or be permitted to teach. It is un- 
 necessary perhaps to add that, as at present constituted, 
 such a proposal might be expected to meet the most 
 
 * This is probably one reason for the vogue of Diphtheria- Anti- 
 toxin. I remember the text-books previously ;— full of useless 
 remedies, of which a single trial served to prove the ineflaciency. 
 Occasionally the patient survived that trial. 
 
38 
 
 strenuous opposition from all the Principalities and 
 Powers of Medicine. 
 
 Secondly comes the question of Eesearch-Work in the 
 Laboratory. The great problem of Life itself, so far as 
 that may be supposed to fall within the range of our 
 finite intellect, depends for solution upon our acquaint- 
 ance with the real nature and properties of Protoplasm, 
 the name given to the living jelly which constitutes a 
 cell. The cell is the unit of all animated things. Our 
 complex tissues and organs were once potentially en- 
 shrined in a single cell. 
 
 Subsequently that gave birth to innumerable others. 
 Some of these in turn underwent metamorphosis into 
 the formed tissues, though many (or rather their off- 
 spring) persist as simple cells till the end. Now certain 
 animalcules, such as the little Amoeba of our ponds, 
 never pass beyond the first mono-cellular stage. 
 
 The embryonic cells from which the human body was 
 elaborated are, to all intents and purposes, and so far as 
 we know, identical with the Amoeba. Both are com- 
 posed of this Protoplasm. Both behave exactly alike, 
 can move about independently, can absorb or reject 
 nutriment, &c. The human cells were once upon a time 
 practically independent organisms. Many still remain 
 so. Cancer-cells are once healthy cells which appear to 
 have become so anew — have in fact reverted to the 
 embryonic type. 
 
 Did we know what Protoplasm is, and why it behaves 
 so mysteriously under different circumstances, we should 
 possess a key to all the infinitely varying phenomena of 
 Health, of Development, of Disease. But unfortunately 
 the word is merely a verbal expression. We are absolutely 
 ignorant of the stupendous facts it denotes ; or rather 
 serves to conceal. 
 
 In order to acquire such knowledge as we may on 
 this most vital point, the Science which is the most 
 highly evolved Common Sense will naturally devote 
 its attention primarily to the lowest forms of life, — 
 
 39 
 
 particularly of animal life. It will study the growth of 
 unicellular organisms in health. It will then consider 
 their variation under conditions of disease, artificially 
 produced. Thence it would pass on to investigation of 
 the laws which govern the combination of cell-units into 
 organised beings higher in the scale, such as the Sea- 
 Anemone or the Ascidian. 
 
 The next great step would be to ascertain if possible 
 how such cell-aggregations become subordinated to 
 control by Nerves,— in other words, the relation of Pro- 
 toplasm to Ganglia, or other nerve-centres. Development 
 and Function are regulated by the Nervous System of 
 the animal; whose health primarily depends on the 
 well-being of its nerves. Almost all disease-phenomena 
 in ourselves, whether of intrinsic or extrinsic origin can 
 be traced to some nerve-aberration in the first instance. 
 Those of Cancer in the most prevalent forms of that 
 highly complex malady, pre-eminently illustrate this.'^ 
 
 *The coming race of medical investigators will learn 
 how to explore widely the hidden arcana of Natural 
 forces as yet hardly touched ; and pushed on one side 
 by the current Vivisection vogue. Such are Electricity, 
 Radiant energy, with the unknown " Psychic Forces," 
 of which telepathy and the dowser's rod offer faint 
 suggestions ; to say nothing of Hypnotism, the '' Sub- 
 liminal Consciousness," and all those mysterious phe- 
 
 * Ten leading varieties, or genera, 13 minor ditto, or species, of 
 Cancer are described, besides numerous less important kinds. Their 
 phenomena turn on the properties of their cell-elements. These 
 according to the Autositic Theory, the only one which plausibly 
 explains all Cancer-phenomena, are cells emancipated from control 
 by the nerves. Most cancers own a neurotic cause e.g. trouble and 
 
 ^ The extrinsic causes of disease, such as microbes and parasites, 
 are most prone to attack the sickly. Malaria follows a chill, t.e. a 
 nerve-shock, or condition depressing the nerve-centres. Parasites 
 seize on the weakly animal, as they do on the previously languishing 
 plant Huxley's well-known phrase '' Good animals first, implies 
 appreciation of this point, too often lost sight of by modem civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
40 
 
 nomena of like order so glibly explained away by modern 
 
 Science in hollow verbal phraseology which only 
 
 Makes still darker 
 What was dark enough before. 
 
 Research among the lower organisms is however the 
 main path to be followed by Medicine and its professors 
 in the ages yet to be. That could shock no sentiment 
 of humanity, for it would not inflict a single pang on 
 any sentient creature. It would stop far short of 
 animals endowed with such a highly-developed nervous 
 system as to feel pain. Experiment on them would be 
 needless and superfluous. Having once found a clue to 
 the ultimate mysteries of disease, those which concern 
 the cell-unit and its nerve-control, observation and ex- 
 perience may be relied on for the rest. Such an enquiry 
 has become almost the sine qua non of further progress 
 in Healing Art ; and to that, the Abolition of Vivisection 
 is an essential preliminary. 
 
 In conclusion it may be well to remember the pregnant 
 
 words of the great surgeon with a recital of whose work 
 
 this essay began. 
 
 " Some day I shall have a tombstone put over me, and an inscrip- 
 tion upon it. I want only one thing recorded on it, and that to the 
 effect that he laboured to divert his profession from the blundering 
 which has resulted from the performance of experiments on the sub- 
 human groups of animal life, in the hope that they would shed light 
 on the aberrant physiology of the human groups. Such experiments 
 never have succeeded and never can ; and they have as in the cases of 
 Koch, Pasteur, .... not only hindered true progress, but have 
 covered our profession with ridicule." — Lawson Tait, Letter in 
 Medical Press and Circular j May, 1899. (The italics are not in the 
 original.) 
 
 Intcriiatioiial Medical Anti-Vivisection Association. 
 
 BRITISH SECTION. 
 
 Advocates of Vivisection before the Royal Commission. 
 
 These mostly content themselves either with ipse dixit state- 
 ments of the benefit it confers ; e.g. Sir Victor Horsley and Brain- 
 Surgery : or like Professor Osier with Yellow Fever, cite voluntary 
 experiments by men on themselves : or thirdly, like Colonel Bruce 
 in re Malta Fever, give discoveries procured by examination of the 
 blood, milk, &c., not by Vivisection at all. 
 
 Central J6jecutl\?e Committee. 
 
 Herbert Snow, Esq., M.D, M.B., Chairman. 
 
 J. T. ASHTON, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 
 E W. Berridge, Esq., M.D., M.B. 
 
 Miss Helen Bourchier, M.D. 
 
 G. H. Burford, Esq., M.B., C.xM. 
 
 J. Burns-Gibson, Esq., M.A., M.D. 
 
 W. J, Cameron, Esq., M.B., Ho?i. Treasurer, 
 
 T c r. ^3, Park Street, Park Lane, W. 
 
 J. Stenson Hooker, Esq., M.D. 
 
 Miss Arabella Kenealy, L.R.C.P. 
 
 S A Stoddard Kennedy, Esq., L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S 
 
 H. Valentine Knaggs, Esq., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. 
 
 D. MacNish, Esq., M.A., M.B., CM. 
 
 JOHN Shaw, Esq., M.D., M.B. 
 
 Stephen Townesend, Esq., F.R.CS. 
 
 Miss Lind-af-Hageby, Hon. Secretary, 
 
 224, Lauderdale Mansions, 
 
 Maida Vale, London, W. 
 
 Extraci from the Rides for the British Section of 
 the hiternational Medical A nti- Vivisection 
 Association, 
 
 All men and women holding a Degree or Diploma in Medicine 
 or Surgery m Great Britain and Ireland or who, residing in Great 
 Britain and Ireland or the Colonies, having qualified elsewhere 
 approve of and are willing to suppoit the objects of the Association 
 can beco4iie members of the British Section of the International 
 Medical Anti- Vivisection Association. 
 
 The minimum subscription of members shall be 2\(i per annum. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 LAY ASSOCIATES. 
 
 Lay Anti-Vivisectionists who are anxious to further the special 
 objects of the Association may join the British Section as Associates 
 on payment of an annual subscription of not less than 10/6. 
 
 Associates shall be entitled to a copy of each of the publications 
 of the British Section, and to special notification of lectures and 
 meetings, but shall not be entitled to a vote at the General Meetings 
 of members. ° 
 

 40 
 
 nomena of like order so glibly explained away by modern 
 Science in hollow verbal phraseology which only 
 
 Makes still darker 
 What was dark enough before. 
 
 Research among the lower organisms is however the 
 main path to be followed by Medicine and its professors 
 in the ages yet to be. That could shock no sentiment 
 of humanity, for it would not inflict a single pang on 
 any sentient creature. It would stop far short of 
 animals endowed with such a highly-developed nervous 
 system as to feel pain. Experiment on them would be 
 needless and superfluous. Having once found a clue to 
 the ultimate mysteries of disease, those which concern 
 the cell-unit and its nerve-control, observation and ex- 
 perience may be relied on for the rest. Such an enquiry 
 has become almost the sine qua non of further progress 
 in Healing Art ; and to that, the Abolition of Vivisection 
 is an essential preliminary. 
 
 In conclusion it may be well to remember the pregnant 
 words of the great surgeon with a recital of whose work 
 this essay began. 
 
 '* Some day I shall have a tombstone put over me, and an inscrip- 
 tion upon it. I want only one thing recorded on it, and that to the 
 effect that he laboured to divert his profession from the blundering 
 which has resulted from the performance of experiments on the sub- 
 human groups of animal life, in the hope that they would shed light 
 on the aberrant physiology of the human groups. Such experiments 
 never have succeeded and never can ; and they have as in the cases of 
 Koch, Pasteur, .... not only hindered true progress, but have 
 covered our profession with ridicule." — Lawson Tait, Letter in 
 Medical Press and Circular, May, 1899. (The italics are not in the 
 original.) 
 
 '4* 
 
 Advocates of Vivisection before the Royal Commission. 
 
 These mostly content themselves either with ipse dixit state- 
 ments of the benefit it confers ; e.g. Sir Victor Horsley and Brain- 
 Surgery : or like Professor Osier with Yellow Fever, cite voluntary 
 experiments by men on themselves : or thirdly, like Colonel Bruce 
 in re Malta Fever, give discoveries procured by examination of the 
 blood, milk, &c., not by Vivisection at all. 
 
 I 
 
 \i 
 
 International Medical Anti-Vivisection Association. 
 
 BRITISH SECTION. 
 
 Central iejecuti\?e Commtttee^ 
 
 Herbert Snow, Esq., M.D., M.B., Chairman. 
 
 h T. ASHTON, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 
 E W. Berridge, Esq., M.D., M.B. 
 
 Miss Helen Bourchier, M.D. 
 
 G. H. BURFORD, Esq., M.B., CM. 
 
 J. Burns-Gibson, Esq., M.A., M.D. 
 
 W. J. Cameron, Esq., M.B., Hon. Treasurer, 
 
 T c XT ^3, Park Street, Park Lane, W. 
 
 J. Stenson Hooker, Esq., M.D. 
 
 Miss Arabella Kenealy, L.R.C.P. 
 
 S. A Stoddard Kennedy, Esq., L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S. 
 
 S* y/^^?'^^^^ Knaggs, Esq., L.R.C.P., M.R.CS. 
 
 p. MacNish, Esq., M.A., M.B., CM. 
 
 John Shaw, Esq., M.D., M.B. 
 
 Stephen Townesend, Esq., F.R.CS. 
 
 Miss Lind-af-Hageby, Hon. Secretary, 
 
 224, Lauderdale Mansions, 
 
 Maida Vale, London, W. 
 
 Extract from the Rules for the British Section of 
 the International Medical Anti- Vivisection 
 Association. 
 
 All men and women holding a Degree or Diploma in Medicine 
 or Surgery m Great Britain and Ireland or who, residing in Great 
 Britam and Ireland or the Colonies, having qualified elsewhere 
 approve of and are willing to suppoit the objects of the Association 
 can becoiiie members of the British Section of the International 
 Medical Anti- Vivisection Association. 
 
 The minimum subscription of members shall be 2/6 per annlim. 
 
 * * ♦ ♦ 
 
 LAY ASSOCIATES. 
 
 Lay Anti-Vivisectionists who are anxious to further the special 
 objects of the Association may join the British Section as Associates 
 on payment of an annual subscription of not less than io/6. 
 
 Associates shall be entitled to a copy of each of the publications 
 of the British Section, and to special notification of lectures and 
 meetings, but shall not be entitled to a vote at the General Meetings 
 of members. ° 
 
 m 
 
 Financiai Support Urgently Needed. 
 
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