his humanitarian mask, and from another his scientific reputation? Since they found their own teaching and experiments odiously travestied at popular meetings and in pamphlets, why did they not hold meetings and write pamphlets themselves, to open the eyes of the public to the shameless calumnies of their accusers?

No doubt a noisy and passionate warfare, however imperiously demanded by the necessities of the situation, must be disagreeable to men devoted to the calm investigations of science; but it is none the less true that the English physiologists, by their strained attitude, have seriously compromised the high interests committed to them.

Some few instances of the anti-vivisectionist methods of procedure will show that I am by no means too severe when I assert that they are unworthy of serious controversy.

Some years ago, my English friends sent me a placard purporting to contain drawings from my "Physiologische Methodik" as they had appeared in certain illustrated papers. These placards had been posted up by hundreds of thousands in every corner of the kingdom. The title was, as I have already said, "The Horrors of Vivisection." Below the engravings was this inscription: "These engravings are reproductions from Cyon's celebrated work."

On this placard were some ten of the plates from my atlas-notably, Plates I. and II., which represent the instruments ordinarily used in vivisections, and Plate VIII., which shows the position of the hands while injecting the narcotic into the veins and introducing the pipes into the vessels. All this is neither horrible nor painful. Then came Plates XIV., XV., and XXI., which might, no doubt, be distressing to look at if they represented operations on the living subject, but— unfortunately for excitable sensibilities-they do but show the anatomical disposition of the salivary glands and their nerves, of the nerves of the heart, and so on, in dogs, frogs, or rabbits,-all this, of course, drawn from the dead body of the animal. The authors of the placard could not really have been deceived; the description was to be found in the book itself; and besides, to any one at all acquainted with these things, the mere appearance of the dissections was enough to show that they were done from anatomical preparations.

Each of these anatomical plates was accompanied by a note bearing the appearance of a textual quotation, and conceived in this sort of taste: "Animals must suffer that experiments may succeed;" "The students are requested to come in good time to the laboratory: living animals are to be boiled ;" and so on in the same style.

But the most shameless thing of all is at the bottom of the placard, where they have put a drawing which is not in my book at all. This design-" The mute appeal of the poor monkey"-is what would be called, in theatrical slang, the "key" of the placard. It

The disingenuousness of my opponents

They wished to find in my book

represents a monkey fastened upright on the vivisection table, his eyes raised to heaven, and his paws held out in a supplicating attitude. The professor and his pupils, armed with the instruments of torture, stand, with savage faces, chuckling over their victim. It is unnecessary to remark that the only head in the picture with a human face is that of the monkey. The professor, who is supposed to represent me, is a shabby old man, with a pimpled face and spectacles. I was thirty-two when my book appeared! Moreover, I have never yet experimented on a monkey. But this is mere trifling. has gone much further than this. an avowal of the cruel pleasure of the vivisector in tormenting his victims. For this purpose some few lines have been detached from their surroundings and held up to public indignation, with comments designed to impair the sense. I have never taken up this accusation, but I think the time has come to make an example of it once for all. Repeated ad nauseam in all the anti-vivisectionist pamphlets, the passage has even served Professor Zöllner as a subject for nearly half his book, "Ueber den Missbrauch der Vivisectionen" (Leipsic, 1880); and, if I am not mistaken, it has been noticed also in the petition to the German Reichstag. Here is the passage:-"The pleasure of having overcome technical difficulties hitherto deemed insurmountable is always one of the keenest pleasures of the vivisector."

Even apart from their context, these lines-to any impartial and unprejudiced mind-simply mean that the vivisector, like any other investigator, finds a keen moral satisfaction when, after vanquishing the many difficulties of the experiment, he at last discovers some new function, and finds his arduous efforts crowned with success. It is the height of disingenuousness to pretend that this joy comes to him from the sufferings of the animal, and to conclude. that the practice of vivisection develops cruelty. The dishonesty of this interpretation is the more apparent when the words are read in their own place, preceded and followed by explanations and amplifications.

After several pages explaining the general purpose of a vivisection, the manner of performing it, the many difficulties to be overcome, and the minute precautions to be employed in order to make it scientifically valuable, I add :

"He who is incapable of pursuing with rapt attention, for hours together, a tiny nervous ramification almost imperceptible to the naked eye-who feels no pleasure in being able to isolate this nerve and subject it to electrical

* He even asserts (pp. 28-30) that if works like that of Professor Cyon are not soon suppressed, the next attempt on the life of the Emperor of Germany will come from a physiological laboratory.

excitation, or, guided only by the sense of touch, to tie with his fingers, at the bottom of a deep cavity, some invisible vessel-lacks some of the qualities indispensable to the successful performance of vivisections. The pleasure of having overcome technical difficulties hitherto deemed insurmountable is always one of the keenest pleasures of the vivisector. The feeling of the physiologist when, from the depths of a wound full of blood and of destroyed tissues, he succeeds in drawing out a nervous fibre and resuscitates by artificial excitation its extinguished function, resembles in some respects that of the sculptor when he succeeds in creating out of a block of marble a beautiful living form."

I ask any honest reader, is it possible to mistake the meaning of my words, or to find in them the slightest indication of cruelty?

Besides, the manifestation of the odious sentiment with which I am credited would have been singularly out of place in a chapter the earlier part of which is entirely devoted to setting forth the rules to be followed for sparing pain to the animal during vivisection. The following extract will afford a sufficient answer to my calumniators :

"If, then, all discussion of the legitimacy of vivisections is idle, on the other hand the experimenter must never lose sight of these two points:— "1. Never to attempt a vivisection without having first tried to attain by other means the object in view. (This holds good especially in the case of mere demonstration.)

"2. Wherever the nature of the experiment admits of it, always to use anasthetics, such as chloroform, chloral, opium, &c." (p. 9.)

Thus, long before this agitation sprang up in England,* physiological treatises themselves were recommending that use should always be made of narcotics, such as opium, chloral, and chloroform (no question at all of the much-decried curare); and that recourse should not be had at all to these operations, except where the scientific end could not be attained by other means.

In the same chapter I have in several other places indicated the general method of procedure in these operations :—

"In general, the following rule is always to be observed: The smaller and more circumscribed the wound, the easier it is to find the nerve or artery sought for. The cautious operator is more sure of success than the one who makes big wounds and uses few precautions. The animal should always be treated as if it were intended to survive the operation, and to survive under the most favourable conditions" (pp. 13, 14.)

It will be seen that I have everywhere pointed out the means of avoiding the making of large wounds, as equally prejudicial to the success of the experiment and painful to the animal.

In this way, works like Mr. Burdon Sanderson's and mine, by making known to physiologists the best methods of operating, have done more to diminish suffering than all the clamours of the anti

*My book, published about the end of 1875, was written in the years 1873, 1874, and 1875. The part from which these quotations are taken had already been printed

in 1874.

vivisectionists. It required an ignorance not less profound than theirs to see in such books engines of torture.*

Those who accuse the physiologists of seeking in vivisection the satisfaction of a cruel instinct,—those who, on the word of M. Zöllner, see in me a monster of cruelty,-will no doubt be somewhat surprised to learn that, after having performed during the last fifteen years an incalculable number of vivisections, I have never yet been able to bring myself to operate on a human being. When I was a medical student, I never could bear to be present at least in close proximity— during an operation; eighteen years of medical practice and of uninterrupted vivisections have never dulled my sensibilities in this respect. If I operate on animals with the greatest composure, it is, in the first place, because during the operation I think of nothing at all but the scientific result to be obtained; and then, because in every case where the object of the experiment admits of the use of anæsthetics, the animal has been rendered completely insensible. In a surgical operation, on the contrary, the interest of the operator is often mainly in his fee. This consideration has never been sufficient to overcome my repugnance to cause suffering to any living thing.

Yet another example, to show how distant is the feeling either of cruelty or of compassion from the motives which decide the physiologist to perform a vivisection. A passionate hunter and rider, I have a strong attachment to horses and dogs. On the other hand, I have always had a horror of "the harmless necessary cat."+ Well, I have performed a great number of vivisections on dogs; I have even operated on horses; whilst I have never been able to bring myself to vivisect a cat, the animal of all others which it would cost me the least pain to hurt.

I have already criticized the purely defensive warfare to which the English physiologists have confined themselves. I must be allowed to insist still further on this point, which is not without its importance, since the faults of the past are lessons for the future. If, setting aside from the first, as above discussion, the question of their scientific rights, the physiologists had carried the war into the enemy's camp, and roundly set forth the motives which governed the action of the anti-vivisectionists, the battle, fought out on this ground, would soon have ended in a decisive victory.

* Throughout the whole course of my physiological teaching I have been opposed to the repetition of these experiments by the students for the sake of practice. Attacked by several of my fellow-workers on this subject, I took pains to demonstrate the uselessness and fallibility of such exercises in my "Recueil des Travaux de mon Laboratoire" (1874, St. Petersburg, pp. 165 seq.).

+From psychological observations on persons fond of cats, I feel justified in saying that nearly all the anti-vivisectionists must have a passion for them. I will not further notify the outcome of these observations, lest I should increase the rancour of our adversaries.

VOL. XLIII.

MM

We find amongst our adversaries-as among other agitatorstwo classes, the leaders and the led. Amongst the former, very few are sincere; the greater part only seek to gain at little cost a notoriety and a position they could not otherwise have secured; and often their true object is even less creditable. The interrogation of Mr. Jesse, the chief promoter of the agitation in England, is most instructive from this point of view, and cannot leave in any just mind the slightest illusion as to his humanitarian sentiments.*

I regard as honest enemies those who, through want of occupation, through an eccentricity amounting to disease, or through hysterical sentimentality, have associated themselves with this movement in the belief that they are doing a work of piety and charity. Is it necessary to repeat that women-or rather, old maids-form the most numerous contingent of this group? Let my adversaries contradict me, if they can show among the leaders of the agitation one young girl, rich, beautiful, and beloved, or one young wife who has found in her home the full satisfaction of her affections!

to me.

I know the English leaders too little to seek instances among them in support of what I say. Their German congeners are more familiar I wish to say a few words with regard to two persons, of whom one initiated the anti-vivisectionist agitation in Germany, and the other, thanks to his great scientific reputation, has given it a certain breadth of range. The first is M. C. von Weber, the second,

Professor Zöllner.

A good deal might be said on the strange causes which led to the action of M. von Weber. The question being a somewhat delicate one, I shall confine myself to the statement of a single fact, which will sufficiently mark the sincerity of that gentleman.

Before entering on this war against the physiological laboratories, M. von Weber thought it necessary to collect some information as to what was actually being done. Nothing, of course, could be more reasonable; but he set about it in a somewhat remarkable manner. Living at Dresden, within a short distance of Leipsic, the abode of the celebrated Professor Ludwig, M. von Weber starts for Leipsic and seeks the physiologist's laboratory. Others might have made their way, unexpected, into that laboratory-open, indeed, to all the world-in order to surprise the tormentor in flagrante delicto. M. von Weber, on the contrary, chooses for his visit the moment when the laboratory is closed for the vacation; and the competent person from whom he receives his information on the manner in which physiological experiments are conducted is—the porter who has charge of the dogs! This man, never dreaming for what purpose the questions are asked, answers with the ignorance to be expected from a person

in

* See his interrogation in the "Report of the Royal Commission," &c. London, 1876, pp. 219, 270, 514.