162 ANNIVERSAET ADDEESS 



plants in Cassiobury, and it would hardly account for the disease 

 in the winter. It seems to be inflammation of the membranes of 

 the brain and spinal cord, but why it should be epidemic I cannot 

 say. In fourteen months about 120 of the deer died. 



I should like to make a passing remark on what I consider some 

 retrograde and ignorant legislation. I allude to the Act to amend 

 the Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, commonly called 

 the Anti- Vivisection Act. This is often considered to be a doctor's 

 question, but it concerns the public more than it does the medical 

 profession. I can speak with impartiality, because, although I have 

 been a student of medicine for thirty-four years, yet I have never 

 performed vivisection (except on the human subject), and I do 

 not recollect seeing it done. Tet I can quite understand that to 

 those who wish to extend the boundaries of knowledge it is an 

 important means of research, and such students of nature should 

 have every encouragement and help given them. For a knowledge 

 of the laws of life is necessary for the treatment of disease, and 

 if the public wish to keep the science of physiology imperfect, 

 and succeed in their object, the treatment of disease will be more 

 imperfect, more painful, more prolonged, and more expensive than 

 it need be. As to cruelty, I do not believe it. Nothing is so 

 cruel as ignorance, and those who wish to hug their ignorance of 

 biology are the truly cruel. If the public knew their own 

 interest, instead of listening to the blatant cry of a few amiable 

 but misguided sentimentalists, they would establish physiological 

 laboratories in every large town in the kingdom. There are very 

 few sciences that would be likely to yield such grand results as 

 physiology, and to pay, not only in a pecuniary point of view, 

 but in relieving human suffering, as well as that of the animal 

 kingdom, for all future ages. 



I may here remind you of the great honour and distinction that 

 has lately been bestowed on one of the honorary members of our 

 Society — by his being made a member of the Berlin Academy of 

 Science — an honour very charily bestowed on foreigners, but 

 affording evidence of the high regard in which Charles Darwin 

 is held in Germany. May he long continue to enjoy all his well- 

 deserved honours ! Great as his reputation is at the present day, 

 I feel convinced it will be greater in the future. 



In my address last year, I brought before your notice some facts 

 and some speculations under the title of " A Sketch of the Plan of 

 Nature," and endeavoured to show that there seemed to be a law 

 that all things should move in a circle. For, taking for granted 

 that force and matter are indestructible, and that they are always 



