MORAL & RELIGIOUS ESTIMATE OF VIVISECTION.

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EFORE coming to the proper subject of this paper, we are confronted by a preliminary objection too important to be passed over in silence, though a very brief consideration will suffice to prove that it has no real weight. Vivisection is confessedly an unpleasant subject; so unpleasant, indeed, that it is almost as impossible, and for somewhat similar reasons, to enter minutely into descriptive details, in works intended for general circulation, as in the case of Turkish atrocities. And both classes of culprits have accordingly profited by their own wrong, on the well-known principle, " Scelera ostendi, flagitia celari debent." It may be taken as some indication of an analogy between the two, that journals like the Pall Mall Gazette, which are never tired of sneering at the "humanitarian " principles of Mr. Gladstone and his followers, betray a hardly less cynical impatience of our plea for the protection of dumb animals from the cruelty of experts. And, while I heartily respond to every word of Mr. Gladstone's eloquent denunciations of "the one anti-human specimen of humanity," I am disposed to think, for reasons which will appear presently, that in this unenviable gradation of eminence, the Vivisector may fairly claim the nearest approximation to the Turk. To the vivisectors themselves, who "do good by stealth, and blush (not without reason) to find it fame," I owe no apology for reopening the question. But even the most benevolent persons are apt to grow weary of having records of inhuman outrage continually forced on their attention. And it may at once be allowed that an urgent practical motive can alone justify our persistent iteration of the loathsome tale. This brings me at once to the point of the preliminary objection I am anxious to dispose of before going further.

In consequence of the Report of a Royal Commission, on which the friends of Vivisection were more than adequately represented, a bill for restraining the practice was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Carnarvon, on behalf of the Government, in 1876,

and eventually became law, after undergoing serious modifications, or rather mutilations, in its progress. Its original draft was far from satisfactory, but might perhaps have been accepted as a temporary compromise, till a fuller measure of relief could be obtained. But in its passage though Committee it was so materially altered, chiefly in deference to the vehement opposition of a large section of the medical profession, as to become at last very much what Mr. Hutton, in his letter to Lord Granville, had expressed his fear that it would become, "a Bill far better adapted to protect unscrupulous physiologists than to protect the creatures on which they operate." So far from affording any excuse for desisting from further agitation in the matter, this unfortunate Act makes it only the more imperative, for it goes far to establish the practical impossibility of placing any effectual" restraint" on vivisection, short of its total prohibition. And hence, while an "International Association for the Total Suppression of Vivisection had already been formed, the previously existing "Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection" has remodelled its programme, since the passing of the Act, in accordance with the generally expressed desire of its members, with a view to procuring "the Total Prohibition of Painful Experiments on Animals." The reasons for dissatisfaction with the present state of the law are not far to seek, and may be briefly summarised.

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In the first place, to those who object to cruel experiments on animals altogether it must of course appear a grave evil that the principle of Vivisection, however carefully guarded, should now for the first time receive the explicit sanction of the Legislature. It was at least arguable before, that these practices were forbidden by the general law against cruelty to animals. For it is not easy to understand why a carter or groom who kicks or flogs his horse to death in a fit of passion, or a thoughtless boy who stones a cat in sport, should be more liable to punishment than a learned professor or medical student who deliberately tortures cats and dogs and horses for hours or days together in the alleged interests of science. Morally the guilt of the latter, as being more highly educated, would

The University of London and Vivisection (Daldy, Isbister, & Co.).

Yet, when some months ago I had occasion to speak on this subject at a meeting in a provincial town, the leading medical man of the place indignantly charged me with entire ignorance of the facts, in proof of which he insisted that the Act of 1876 (a) forbids all painful experiments on animals without anæsthetics, and (b) exempts cats and dogs altogether. It is true that both conditions were inserted in the Bill, but he ought to have known that, through the urgent remonstrances of members of his own profession, both were eliminated before it became law.

• See Third Report of the Society, Aug. 1878, p. 7.

seem to be considerably the greatest. Torture, it may be added, whether for civil or ecclesiastical offences, even in ages when it was unhappily universal, or all but universal, throughout the rest of Europe, was always illegal in England. It was practised, no doubt, under some of our sovereigns, as, e.g., Elizabeth and James II. ; but that was not because it was legal, but because absolute rulers were powerful enough to override the law. It is now for the first time in history expressly legalised in this country-not, indeed, as regards man, but as against creatures which, being dumb and defenceless, have a special claim on his protection. This is our first objection to the Act. And the fact that any partial measure stops the way, and renders more difficult the attainment of a satisfactory solution, is a second. Still it might have been provisionally condoned, on the obvious plea, so often inevitably admitted in practical politics, that "half a loaf is better than no bread," till a more complete security could be obtained. And if Lord Carnarvon's Bill had passed in its original form, with the clause afterwards introduced for the entire exemption of cats, dogs, and horses from vivisection, it would pretty certainly have been accepted, not as a final settlement of the question--no half measure could be so regarded-but as a step in the right direction, securing to the victims of torture a real and not inconsiderable measure of immediate relief. But there is nothing in the Act, in the shape it eventually assumed under medical manipulation, to justifyfar less to demand-even this provisional acceptance. And the tone adopted by distinguished medical men like Sir William Gull, who insist that "knowledge is always humane," and denounce "in the language of deep contempt and even passion "-to cite Mr. Hutton's words-all who attempt to procure any restriction of Vivisection, as drawing an indictment against Providence," and supporting a movement "founded in gross superstition, like the medieval movement against witchcraft," affords additional evidence of the hopelessness of any practical compromise. Henceforth it is war to the knife; Humanity against Science falsely so called, and Science against Humanity.

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And now to come to details. It might be enough to refer to the original sin of the Act, which may be summed up in the words of a paragraph from a local paper, brought under my notice by a friend in order to prove its adequacy, but which, to my mind, conclusively proves the opposite. The writer, who is evidently a vivisectionist, complains that the Act is being "so worked as almost to put a stop to physiological research in this country;" but he at once explains

Hutton's Letter to Lord Granville, p. 8.

that "this is due not so much to the provisions of the Act as to the way in which they are applied" by the present Home Secretary; and then he significantly adds, that there is so strong a feeling about the matter among leading physiologists that "some steps will no doubt be taken before long to represent the folly and mischief of the course which has hitherto been adopted by the Home Office." We know only too well that the first part of the statement is exaggerated; but if it proves, valeat quantum—what I have no wish to dispute-that Mr. Cross is doing his best to carry out the Act in a loyal and humane spirit, it also proves how entirely it depends for its efficiency on the personal will and judgment of the Home Secretary for the time being, and how easily pressure may be brought to bear upon him, which might become morally irresistible, to reduce it to a dead letter. There might seem, perhaps, to be no immediate danger of this while the memory of the passing of the Act is fresh, and its operation is jealously watched by hostile critics; but in course of time, at all events, when their vigilance begins to flag, and the working of the Act falls into other hands, the danger will prove a serious one.1 Suppose, e.g., Mr. Lowe, or any one like-minded with him in this matter, held the office! With the Home Secretary for the time being it rests to decide, on his own sole responsibility, to whom and to how many applicants licenses for vivisection shall be granted. He is under no obligation to reveal-and has hitherto, in fact, steadily refused to reveal, as we shall see-either the names of successful or the number of unsuccessful applicants. He alone decides whether anæsthetics are or are not to be dispensed with. And lastly-mark this!-it is provided by Clause 21 of the Act, "that a prosecution against a licensed person shall not be instituted except with the assent in writing of the Secretary of State." This last provision ominously recalls the similar clause introduced into the now defunct Ecclesiastical Titles Act, for the express and almost avowed purpose of reducing it—as, in fact, it did reduce it for the twenty years it encumbered the statute book-to a dead letter, and which accordingly won for its author the appropriate sobriquet of " the boy who chalked up 'No Popery' and ran away." Nor is it any answer to say that the Act prescribes the use of anesthetics. In the first place, the effect of anæsthetics on the lower animals, when applicable at all-and in many cases they cannot be applied, because to deaden sensation would be to destroy life-is so doubtful at best that Dr. Hoggan

There is a ghastly significance in a remark made lately in the Saturday Review: "We are not quite accustomed to vivisection yet, that is the fact; soon we shall be absolutely indifferent."

considers them "far more efficacious in lulling public feeling towards the vivisectors than pain in the vivisected," and does not hesitate to say that they have proved "the greatest curse to vivisectible animals." And his testimony is confirmed by that of Sir W. Fergusson, who says that an experiment performed under anæsthetics "is not of the smallest value" (1077), as well as that of many other medical witnesses examined before the Royal Commission. In the next place the Act provides that anæsthetics may be dispensed with, "if insensibility cannot be produced without frustrating the object of such experiment" (as would generally be the case); and so, again, an animal need not be put out of its agony after undergoing the operation "until the object of the experiment is attained." Here is a loophole for any amount of unrelieved and undisguised torture, subject only to the precarious safeguard of a Home Secretary's license.

And if we turn from the letter of the Act to the evidence of its practical operation so far, under circumstances which must be considered exceptionally favourable, the prospect is still less reassuring. The Act, I repeat, is never likely to be worked in a more humane spirit than at present and by the present Home Secretary, as Mr. Holt observed in moving the second reading of his Bill for its amendment last year. Yet what is the result? The first point to strike one is that the system of licensing established by the Act is shown to be a system of secret licensing. When Mr. Mundella moved last year for a Return of the licenses asked for and granted, full returns were refused, and have again been refused this year. We were then told the number of persons licensed up to the date of the Return, and most of the places registered for Vivisection, but the number of applicants and the names of the persons licensed were resolutely withheld. It is easy to understand the reluctance of these gentlemen to have their names revealed, nor can there be any doubt that Mr. Cross was acting quite within his legal rights in refusing to reveal them; but this, to begin with, is a very suspicious circumstance indeed. Still, something may be learnt, and more may be inferred, from the limited information that has been vouchsafed to us, and that something is the reverse of satisfactory. It appeared in the Session of 1877 that twenty-three licenses had been granted up to that time; a small number, perhaps, but nearly double the number at which Dr.

Speech of J. Maden Holt, Esq., M. P., May 2, 1877 (25 Cockspur Street). 2 The number had risen to 46 by the Return moved for in the last Session, i.e. it was just doubled. There were 7 licenses for dispensing with anesthetics, 6 for operating on cats and dogs, and 15 dispensing with the obligation to kill the animal before recovery; also the use of curare has been sanctioned.