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state of medical knowledge was barren. Asked about anæsthetics, he answered, "We have no absolute proof that anæsthetics are ever used, because no anti-vivisection doctor has ever been allowed to witness any experiment." Questioned about plague, he was of opinion that the use of the preventive treatment had been an actual means of propagating the plague. He had never been in India, and had never seen the plague. He was speaking from information gathered from books and conversations, and not from personal knowledge. He had not read the reports of the Plague Commission. He had not read the evidence of the Chairman of the Plague Commission. Asked whether he knew the results of the preventive treatment at the Byculla Jail, he said "No." Asked whether he was aware that the Plague Commission, who were mingling with plague night and day, were all inoculated themselves, and all escaped, he answered that he did not know that. Asked whether he had considered how far plague is infectious or contagious, or not, he said, "What between rats and fleas, and all the rest of it, one does not know any more than one does with many other diseases."

This witness also alluded to the sale of antitoxins. He said that the inventors of sera and antitoxins received royalties upon the sales. He said he would furnish evidence that some British inventor did that.1 Asked certain questions in ethics, he said that he thought that the medical student was a good deal rougher than he used to be. That was the general view, he should think. He had heard from certain doctors, "whom you would call anti-vivisection doctors," that clinical research was to a great extent subordinated in these days to experimental research. He had not any knowledge of the curriculum required of a medical student. His Association did not consider that any benefit It appears that this evidence was not furnished.

whatever had been derived from the use of any sera in the treatment of disease. Asked whether his Association had made any inquiries into the conditions of cancer research in this country, he could not say. Asked what medical

experts had helped to draw up his précis, he named Miss Kenealy and Miss Bourchier. He said that he had very great doubts whether man had the right to kill one of the lower animals. Asked whether he had read Mr. Hobday's evidence before the Commission, he answered, "No, I just looked at it." Asked about vaccination, he said that he objected to it altogether. Asked about diphtheria antitoxin, he said that he had never seen any case where it had been used. Asked whether he could give any instance of any man who had become callous or inhumane after having performed experiments on living animals, under anaesthetics, he answered, "Of course I cannot."

He was asked whether his Association, or he personally, during the whole of the past year, had made any attempt whatsoever to accept Dr. Starling's invitation to visit his laboratory and see the work there for themselves. And he answered: "No, because we should be of no use. . . . What I should like to do would be to be able to see through a hole in the door without it being known that I was there. ... If we could get admission for Miss Lind-af-Hageby, I dare say it would be very useful to us."

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EVIDENCE OF LORD RAYLEIGH AND LORD
JUSTICE FLETCHER MOULTON

LORD RAYLEIGH, O.M., P.R.S., March 5, 1907 LORD Rayleigh, President of the Royal Society, presented a statement on behalf of the Royal Society as follows:

"The Royal Society, from its age and the position accorded to it among scientific institutions, feels its responsibility as a guardian of the general interests of science in this country. Founded as it was for the promotion of natural knowledge, whenever from time to time legislative changes have been proposed which might seem likely to affect the advancement of that knowledge, the Society has desired to make its voice heard on behalf of scientific progress. The recent appointment of a Royal Commission on the subject of experiments on animals has been deemed by the President and Council of the Royal Society to be an occasion when they may ask to be allowed to lay before that Commission a statement of their views on the broad scientific bearings of the question. There can be no doubt that the main cause of the remarkable development of science in modern times has been the adoption of the experimental method of investigating nature. In every department of research this method has led to the most

important advances, both in questions of theory and in practical applications to the useful purposes of life. From the beginning of its history the Royal Society has fostered the prosecution of experiment, and not only in physical and chemical but in biological inquiry, and its publications are full of records of the discoveries which have consequently been made. In no branches of investigation have the theoretical and practical successes of experimental work been more conspicuous in recent years than in physiology and its practical applications in medicine and surgery. In medicine, the careful and patient testing of the effect of drugs on the lower animals has not only led to an accurate knowledge, not otherwise attainable, of these effects as produced on the human body, but has greatly increased the number of substances now available to the physician in the treatment of disease. Without this method of investigation the progress of pharmacology, in recent years so astonishing and beneficent, would be arrested, and diseases, which may in time be successfully combated, would continue their ravages unchecked. In modern surgery the application of similar experimental work has been attended with brilliant success. Most delicate and fundamental operations on the human body have been made possible by the knowledge obtained from the treatment of animals. The President and Council of the Royal Society claim that since the continued advancement of science in every department depends so largely upon the use of the experimental method, the utmost caution should be observed in any proposals for legislation whereby the prosecution of the method might be unduly limited. So much has already been gained from the application of experiments on animals, both for the progress of physiology and for the alleviation of human suffering, and so much more may be confidently expected in the future, that the

President and Council trust that nothing will be done that would hamper the legitimate employment of the method. While precautions should undoubtedly be taken against improper use of experiment on living animals, it is not the province of the Society to suggest what safeguards should be adopted. It is, however, the bounden duty of the President and Council to urge that those safeguards should be so framed as not unnecessarily to interfere with that advancement of knowledge to promote which the Society exists. Such restrictions would not only cripple or arrest the growth in this country of an important branch of biological science, but in so doing would reduce the efficiency of both physician and surgeon to mitigate or cure disease. It might then become no longer possible to maintain the high position which this country has gained in researches necessary for the advancement of knowledge, and for the guidance of medical practice; and the investigators, to whose devotion and skill the progress of medical science owes so much, might be compelled to seek in foreign universities and scientific organisations the opportunities for research which they could no longer find at home. This statement is not founded on general knowledge alone. The co-operation of the Royal Society has often been sought by the Government of this country in taking measures to arrest the spread of deadly disease, and to improve the conditions of health in distant parts of the British Empire. Without the ungrudging services of physiologists and pathologists, many of whom the Society is proud to count among its Fellows, the services thus solicited could not have been given. The President and Council gladly avail themselves of this opportunity of testifying to the laborious and unselfish devotion, often in most dangerous conditions, with which the necessary experimental researches have been carried on, and to the

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