176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" So long as this remains unrepealed, these scientific horrors, which I 

 hold to he an insult to the Deity and to the civilization of our generation, 

 will proceed." * Let us see what facts Mr. Bergh has to offer in support 

 of so decided a condemnation. Of his Vivisection Address, several pages 

 are occupied with descriptions of more or less cruel European experi- 

 ments, and with lurid comments thereon ; a single page is devoted to a 

 single New York case. Immediately after dwelling at some length 

 upon the atrocities perpetrated in the veterinary school at Alfort, in 

 France, he says : " Those of you who have heen ahle to listen to the 

 recitals I have just made, will, perchance, experience a glow of nation- 

 al pride at the thonght that such devilish deeds are impossible in this 

 happy land of yours ; but your self-gratulation is but partially true, 

 as I have lately had occasion to verify. On the 19th of December, 

 1879, I dispatched an officer of the society I represent to attend an 

 exhibition of a similar sort at one of the colleges of the city of New 

 York. ... A live dog was brought in, said to be under the influence 

 of an anaesthetic." The rest of the description indicates that the ex- 

 periment was the same as No. 6 of those mentioned upon page 171. 

 So far, therefore, as depends upon the evidence furnished by Mr. 

 Bergh, to evoke the law for the suppression of vivisection in the State 

 of New York, because formerly anaesthetics were unknown, and be- 

 cause in France they are still too often unemployed, is as if an army 

 were summoned for the extermination of the panthers in the " North 

 Woods," upon the pleas that they were numerous and dangerous not 

 many years ago, and that at the present time in India thousands of 

 people are annually slain by tigers. 



So far as I can ascertain, Mr. Bergh is not only the originator and 

 instigator of the anti-vivisection legislation in this State, but almost 

 its sole supporter. No articles by members of his society have come 

 to my notice. According to the "Medical Record " for March 13, 

 1880 (page 292), in that year but a single vote was cast in the Assem- 

 bly against the acceptance of the adverse report of the committee to 

 which his bill had been referred. Its fate at the last session is thus 

 announced in the Annual Report of his Society: "That sum of all 

 physiological villainy, vivisection, which I again recommended to the 

 consideration of that sapient State congress which was characterized 

 by a portion of the press as a ' mob,' has been remorselessly, and at the 

 bidding of a heartless and opinionated medical faculty, disrespectfully 

 slaughtered as before." 



Nevertheless, in a letter dated November 24, 1882, Mr. Bergh says, 

 " I am not quite sure whether I shall introduce a vivisection bill at the 

 ensuing session"; and in view of what has taken place in England, at 

 first sight a most unlikely nursery for any movement in behalf of ani- 

 mals, it may be well to consider somewhat carefully his qualifications 

 for leadership in a movement of such importance. 



* Vivisection address, 1S80, p. 24. 



