The experiments were of various descriptions, 45 having been physiological, 7 therapeutical, and 202 pathological. The greater number consisted of hypodermic injections and inoculations.

The principal were, investigations of the gases of blood and blood pressure; the movements of respiration, functions of heart and nervous control of heart; intestinal movements in connection with respiration; uterine contraction; nervous and chemical control of digestive glands; the study of X-rays; study of calf vaccine lymph; of medico-legal investigations; of the intravenous injection of drugs in disease; of the study of the tubercle bacillus, and of the pneumococcus; of the pathogenicity of lumbar puncture; of the actions of the kidney; of the action of adrenalin and of an antimeningococcus; experiments on preparation of immune sera; testing virulence of typhoid; effects of section of spinal cord.

Much good work was done in connection with study of

pathology of diseases of the lower animals, for instance, anthrax, fowl cholera, swine fever, swine erysipelas, Johne's disease, and the pathological organisms in milk and in lard. The work done was, in my opinion, done sincerely, within the provisions of the Act, and with the best intention.

As I had occasion to mention in my last report, the increase in the experiments of late years is largely connected with the study of new investigations in the matter of the treatment of disease by means of antitoxines, sera, and vaccines, and is therefore of high therapeutic and pathological value, as tending to the development of a new and most important knowledge of disease and its treatment. I am, etc.,

W. THORNLEY STOKER,

To the Right Honourable
the Chief Secretary to the
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

Inspector for Ireland.

XIII

THE REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION

THE final Report of the Royal Commission on Vivisection was published on March 12, 1912, four years after the Commission had ceased to hear evidence. It may be procured, price 18. 3d., from Wyman & Sons, Fetter Lane, E.C., or through any bookseller. Happily, it is unanimous: there is no minority report. Three of the eight Commissioners sign the Report subject to certain reservations, which they put in memoranda. None of the recommendations contained in the Report needs the intervention of Parliament. All such changes as are recommended in it come well within the province of the Home Office and the Treasury.

Both among the Commissioners and among the witnesses the cause of the anti-vivisection societies was very generously represented. The number of anti-vivisection witnesses was eighteen, exclusive of the two representatives of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The Report deals with evidence given to the Commission; and the latest of that evidence is now four years old. Thus, the Report is silent over the work done from 1908 onward. Science does not stand still while Royal Commissions deliberate; and the Report has a rather oldfashioned air. It says nothing of Flexner's discovery of

a serum-treatment for epidemic meningitis, nor of his subsequent work on epidemic infantile paralysis; nothing of Ehrlich's recent work on spirochata, nor of Ford Robertson's work on general paralysis of the insane; nor does it refer to the admirable results, published by Sir William Leishman in February 1909, of the preventive treatment against typhoid fever among our army in India. Nothing is said of the fact that the Government of the United States has made this treatment compulsory on all officers and men under forty-five years of age in the United States Army-excluding, of course, those who have already suffered from the disease. Nothing is said of the reduction of the death-rate from sleeping sickness in the Uganda Protectorate, from 8,003 in 1905 to 1,546 in 1910. There were contributory causes, but one contribution toward this reduction was the accurate knowledge gained through the experimental study of the disease. Nothing is said of the wiping-out of "Rock-fever" in Gibraltar, by stopping the use of the goats' milk. These and other important illustrations of the value of experiments on animals-for instance, the latest results of the treatment of diphtheria, the latest results of the preventive treatment against rabies, Nuttall's study of malignant jaundice of dogs, and Copeman's study of distemper-did not come before the Commissioners, and are not mentioned in the Report.

The Report begins with a short account (pp. 1 to 10) of previous legislation, and of the text and the administration of the Act. It then deals with certain charges made against the Home Office by Mr. Coleridge (see chap. x. p. 277). The Commissioners do not appear to attach much importance to them. "We are of opinion," they say, "that, on the whole, the working of the Act has been performed with a desire faithfully to carry out the objects which its framers had in view." The Report then refers

to Dr. Crile's experiments (see chap. v. p. 163) and it is to be noted that Colonel Lockwood, one of the Commissioners, speaking in the House of Commons on the day on which the Report was published, stated that the Commissioners, after carefully searching through the whole question, believed that the animals used in these experiments were absolutely senseless and without pain.1

The Report goes on to certain statements made by Miss Lind-af-Hageby, Mrs. Cook, Lieut.-Colonel Lawrie, and Mr. Graham. "After careful consideration of the above cases, we have come to the conclusion that the witnesses have either misapprehended or inaccurately described the facts of the experiments."

The Commissioners condemn Dr. Pembrey's position. They also make the following statement:

"We desire to state that the harrowing descriptions and illustrations of operations inflicted on animals, which are freely circulated by post, advertisement or otherwise, are in many cases calculated to deceive the public, so far as they suggest that the animals in question were not under an anæsthetic. To represent that animals subjected to experiments in this country are wantonly tortured would, in our opinion, be absolutely false."

The next part of the Report (pp. 21 to 47) is a brief review of the progress of science, and of the results of experiments on animals (see chaps. iii.-viii.). In the course of this review, the Commissioners call attention to the work done, by the experimental study of the diseases of animals, toward saving or safeguarding the lives of animals. They also refer to the many researches made on behalf of the Local Government Board, the County and Urban District Councils, and the Board of Agriculture. Finally, they

"Parliamentary Debates," vol. 35, No. 20, p. 1045.