LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. llX 



meeting in that large hall. It was mainly of educated and more 

 or less reserved men, but they showed an enthusiasm equal to that 

 which a mob might have shown. If Gladstone had only known 

 what he knows now when he was in the plenitude of his power, 

 I believe we should have abolished the vile rule of the Osmanlis 

 some years ago. However, I believe you will do it by yourselves, 

 though we of the really Liberal way of thinking should have 

 been glad to have done our share in company with you. Every 

 day I am expecting to hear you have smashed up one or both of 

 the armies of the savages you are fighting against.' 



Both as Professor of Physiology and as a Member of the 

 Medical Council, Dr. Rolleston felt called on to take a leading 

 part in the question of vivisection, or, to put it more accurately, 

 experimentation on living animals. As early as 1863, at the 

 British Association at Newcastle, he had taken up the subject in 

 his Presidential Address to the Biological Section; and in 1871, 

 when presiding over the same Section at Liverpool, he drafted 

 the resolutions of a Conference which led to legislative action. 

 When the Royal Commission was appointed in 1875, he was of 

 course called to give evidence. He stated it as his opinion that 

 for teaching purposes before large classes some few experiments 

 may be useful and expedient, provided invariably that the animal 

 be rendered insensible by ansesthetics and killed before returning 

 to sensibility; it may thus be practically considered as dead, 

 although for physiological purposes it is a living machine. He 

 did not wish to prevent experiments on animals for bona fide 

 scientific purposes, but if causing pain they should not be per- 

 formed before more than an exceedingly limited number. How- 

 ever, he thought such experimentation very liable to abuse, as 

 likely to tempt a man into carelessness of the sight of suffering, 

 and specially as acting on the emotional nature in a way which 

 he compared to the effect on the spectators of the ancient gladia- 

 torial shows. Considering that the practice required to be 

 specially guarded, he recommended that a register should be 

 kept of all experiments, and that they should only be performed 

 in authorised places open to an inspector. This was the gist of 



