1874 VIVISECTION 161 



require an official assurance that he would not do 

 that which he had explicitly affirmed he did not 

 intend to do, affected him personally, and he there- 

 fore declined the proposal made to him to give the 

 course in question. 



It followed from the fact that experiments on 

 animals formed no part of his official course, and 

 from his refusal under the circumstances to under- 

 take the non-official course, that his opinions and 

 present practices in regard to the question of vivi- 

 section did not come under their Lordships' juris- 

 diction, and he protested against the introduction of 

 his name, and of the approbation or disapprobation 

 of his views, into an official document relating to a 

 matter with which he had nothing to do. 



In an intermediate paragraph of the same docu- 

 ment, he could not resist asking for an official de- 

 finition of vivisection as forbidden, in its relation to 

 the experiments he had made to the class of teachers. 



I should have to ask whether it means that the 

 teacher who has undertaken to perform no " vivisection 

 experiments" is thereby debarred from inflicting pain, 

 however slight, in order to observe the action of living 

 matter ; for it might be said to be unworthy quibbling, 

 if, having accepted the conditions of the minute, he 

 thought himself at liberty to inflict any amount of pain, 

 so long as he did not actually cut. 



But if such is the meaning officially attached to the 

 word "vivisection," the teacher would be debarred from 

 showing the circulation in a frog's foot or in a tadpole's 

 tail ; he must not show an animalcule, uncomfortably 

 fixed under the microscope, nor prick his own finger for 



VOL. II M 



