HAROLD C. ERNST 145 



will deal in the same way with diphtheria, typhoid and 

 scarlet fever. To one who has seen half a street swept 

 clear of its children, or has lost his own by these hor- 

 rible pestilences, passing one's offspring through the 

 fire to Moloch seems humanity, compared with the 

 proposal to deprive them of half their chances of 

 health and life because of the discomfort to dogs and 

 cats, rabbits and frogs, which may be involved in the 

 search for means of guarding them." 



Another paragraph was also quoted here to the same 

 end the effort to show that Huxley was in opposition 

 to the practice of animal experimentation. (" Life and 

 Letters; " New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1901, p. 463.) 

 Unfortunately for our belief in the frankness of the peti- 

 tioners the paragraphs which precede and follow the one 

 quoted were omitted. They are as follows : 



" I have always felt it my duty to defend those 

 physiologists who, like Brown Sequard, by making 

 experiments upon living animals, have added im- 

 mensely not only to scientific physiology, but to the 

 means of alleviating human suffering, against the igno- 

 rant and sometimes malicious clamor which has been 

 raised against them." 



" But personally, indeed I may say constitutionally, 

 the performance of experiments upon living and con- 

 scious animals is extremely disagreeable to me, and I 

 have never followed any line of investigation in which 

 such experiments are required." 1 



" When the course of instruction in physiology here 

 was commenced, the question of giving experimental 

 demonstrations became a matter of anxious considera- 

 tion with me. It was clear that without such demon- 

 strations, the subject could not be properly taught. It 



i This clause alone was quoted by the petitioners. 



10 



