538 



NATURE 



[Oct. 4, 1883 



Method of S :ientific Research," by Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., 

 &c. ( 'iir regret that Mr. Lawson Tait should have de- 

 stroyed any reputation lie may have had as a man who 

 ought to have some acquaintance with physiology, by 

 making so public a display of his astonishing want of 

 knowledge, prohibits us from saying much upon this 

 painful episode in the vivisection controversy. " Philan- 

 thropes,'' indeed, has treated him with a leniency which 

 is suggestive of compassion ; but while it was necessary 

 for our author to show by a few quotations in what a 

 quagmire of ignorance and inaccuracy Mr. Lawson Tait 

 his here immersed himself, we have no heart to look at 

 so sorry a -.pectacle. 



Having thus stated the aim and scope of the work 

 before us, we may conclude this notice by quoting a pas- 

 sage or two as fair samples of its literary merit and 

 umentative tone : — 



"This then is the sum total of the pain-giving experi- 

 ments upon animals performed in England during three 

 years. Less than 100 cases, of which the great majority 

 consist of inoculations, followed — not by torture, but — by 

 illness, form the contributions of our country to the 

 'systematic torturing of thousands of beasts all over the 

 .' referred to b) a writer on the subject. It is a pity 

 that ninety-five animals should have been put to any dis- 

 comfort at all ; and if illness and pain could be abolished 

 from the world at one blow, the happiness of the lower 

 creatures would be no small ingredient in the general joy. 

 er, physiologists must aim at something 

 humbler; they must try to decrease what they cannot 

 destroy, and to alleviate where they cannot heal. And 

 those who wish to narrow the means at their command 

 for doing so, by totally prohibiting experiments on living 

 animals, had better be quite sure that they know what 

 the state of things is which they propose to alter. The 

 same writer says that ' experimentation on living animals 

 is a system of long protracted agonies, the very recollec- 

 tion of which is enough to make the soul sick as with a 

 whiff and an aftertaste from a moral sewer.' The degree 

 of correspondence between this phrase and the facts of 

 English physiological practice will be apparent to the 

 reader of the foregoing pages. And it is with facts alone 

 that we wish to deal." 



Again, after narrating a long list of cases in which 

 medical and surgical practice, both on men and animals, 

 has been directly indebted to physiological experiments, 

 it is said : — 



"The part of experiment in the progress of medicine is 

 not confined to such results as can be catalogued. At 

 every turn it controls observations, corrects deductions, 

 verifies discoveries, suggests inquiries, always (as Prof. 

 Sharpey so well said before the Royal Commission) 

 'putting a lamp in the hand of the physician.' This lamp 

 has been turned down rather low in England, but it still 

 burns. Will the world be better if it is altogether extin- 

 guished, and the task of shedding light upon the onward 

 path of medicine left to the torch-bearers of other 

 countries? For it is inevitable that — if the present anti- 

 experimental agitation should prove successful — its history 

 must tend to force all physiologists into identifying ten- 

 derness to animals with unscientific sentimentalism, and 

 unreasoning disregard of the sufferings of men. And that 

 injury to their finer feelings which is now supposed to 

 resulted from the free exercise of their profession 

 must in truth come to pass in some measure from its 

 enslavement in England." 



Unfortunately on the subject of vivisection the great 

 majority of persons seem to think that they are entitled to 

 hold strong opinions without waiting to consider or inquire- 



Were this not the ca;e, we should predict that this little 

 book would have an enormous sale, for it is one that costs 

 very little, cither in time or money, to read, and it is 

 written by some thoroughly competent and very judicious 

 author. But although we are afraid that it will not meet 

 with the recognition which it unquestionably deserves, 

 we are not without hope that many who read this review, 

 and who desire to form their opinions touching the vivi- 

 section controversy on a basis of sound information and 

 consecutive reasoning, may be induced to see how much 

 ado about nothing that controversy has raised. 



George J. Romanes 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Transactions of the New Zealand Institute. Vol. 



xv. for 1882. Edited by James Hector, M.D., F.R.S. 



Issued May, 1883. 

 Tms volume of nearly 600 pages contains a number of 

 interesting and valuable papers on zoology, botany, and 

 geology. As might naturally be expected, most of these 

 relate to the fauna, flora, or geological structure of New 

 Zealand, and in this way we can note from year to year 

 the excellent progress that is being made in the scientific 

 exploration of this country. While the paper, type, and 

 general appearance of this royal octavo volume are excel- 

 lent, we would venture to hint that it is possible that 

 sufficient time is hardly given to the authors, no doubt 

 widely scattered from Wellington, to properly correct 

 their proofs, and that the general artistic finish of the 

 numerous plates might be greatly improved. 



Among the more important contributions to this volume 

 may be mentioned the following: — Zoology: E. Meyrick, 

 descriptions of New Zealand Microlepidoptera. Allud- 

 ing to the descriptions of Walker and Butler as unreliable, 

 the author in the first part of his memoir describes twenty- 

 nine species of Crambidas, sixteen as new. In a second 

 part a list of Tortricina is given ; of thirty-eight species, 

 eleven are described as new. C. Chilton, several papers 

 or. new or rare species of Crustacea ; several subterranean 

 forms are described. G. M. Thomson, on New Zealand 

 Copepoda ; Prof. Hutton, several papers on the struc- 

 ture of Gasteropods, and on additions to the Molluscan 

 fauna ; W. Colenso, on some new Arachnida ; W. T. L. 

 Tr.ivers, on the distribution of birds ; R. W. Fereday, 

 descriptions of many new butterflies ; W. Arthur, notes 

 on fishes ; T. F. Cheeseman, on two new Planarians ; 

 Prof, von Haast, on a skeleton of Megaptera lalandii ; 

 Prof. J. Jeffery Parker, several anatomical memoirs. 

 Botany: W. M. Maskell, on new Desmids ; T. F. 

 Cheeseman, additions to the flora ; W. Colenso, new 

 ferns and flowering plants ; John Inglis, accounts of some 

 diatomaceous deposits ; Charles Knight, on the lichens 

 of New Zealand ; D. Petrie, on two new species of Carex. 

 Geology : S. Herbert Cox, on the minerals of New 

 Zealand ; Prof. F. W. Hutton, on some Tertiary shells, 

 and on a silt deposit ; W. S. Hamilton, on the formation 

 of the quartz pebbles of the Southland Plains ; J. A. Pond, 

 on the occurrence of platinum in quartz lodes at the 

 Thames Gold Fields. Several miscellaneous papers are 

 added, one of the most interesting being an account of a 

 visit to Macquarie Island, the most southerly island of 

 the New Zealand group ; it lies considerably to the south 

 of Kerguelen Land or the Crozets. It is about eighteen 

 miles long, and five miles broad. A list of the plants 

 collected is given ; their affinities are all towards the New 

 Zealand flora, and no new species were discovered. 



Electricity and its Uses. By J. Munro. (London : The 



Religious Tract Society, 1883.) 

 In attempting to give the general reader " an understand- 

 ing of all the essential parts " of the more wonderful and 



