1 87 5-] VIVISECTION. 201 



and what he said made a deep impression on me. He was a 

 man eminently fond of animals and tender to them ; he would 

 not knowingly have inflicted pain on a living creature ; but 

 he entertained the strongest opinion that to prohibit experi- 

 ments on living animals, would be to put a stop to the know- 

 ledge of and the remedies for pain and disease." 



The Anti- Vivisection agitation, to which the following 

 letters refer, seems to have become specially active in 1874, as 

 may be seen, e.g. by the index to ' Nature ' for that year, in 

 which the word " Vivisection " suddenly comes into promi- 

 nence. But before that date the subject had received the 

 earnest attention of biologists. Thus at the Liverpool 

 Meeting of the British Association in 1870, a Committee 

 was appointed, whose report defined the circumstances and 

 conditions under which, in the opinion of the signatories, 

 experiments on living animals were justifiable. In the spring 

 of 1875, Lord Hartismere introduced a Bill into the Upper 

 House to regulate the course of physiological research. 

 Shortly afterwards a Bill more just towards science in its 

 provisions was introduced to the House of Commons by 

 Messrs. Lyon Playfair, Walpole, and Ashley. It was 

 however, withdrawn on the appointment of a Royal Com- 

 mission to inquire into the whole question. The Commis- 

 sioners were Lords Cardwell and Winmarleigh, Mr. W. E. 

 Forster, Sir J. B. Karslake, Mr. Huxley, Professor Erichssen, 

 and Mr. R. H. Hutton : they commenced their inquiry in 

 July, 1875, and the Report was published early in the follow- 

 ing year. 



In the early summer of 1876, Lord Carnarvon's Bill, 

 entitled, " An Act to amend the Law relating to Cruelty to 

 Animals," was introduced. It cannot be denied that the 

 framers of this Bill, yielding to the unreasonable clamour of 

 the public, went far beyond the recommendations of the 

 Royal Commission. As a correspondent in ' Nature ' put it 

 (1876, p. 248), " the evidence on the strength of which legisla- 



