March 6, 1902] 



NA TURE 



417 



special view to finding the correct tune, or of the interfer- 

 ence with signalling in a similar way. This fear is, how- 

 ever, somewhat imaginary, as it is doubtful whether such 

 an enterprise would be commercially successful, and it is 

 inconceivable that anyone should devote his energies to 

 its realisation purely out of malicious rivalry. Even in 

 war time, we think, it would hardly repay the labour, 

 and, moreover, Marconi's system now promises to be of 

 more use in peace than in war. It may be remarked, too, 

 that syntony — especially syntony so thorough as that 

 described by Prof Fleming eighteen months ago, when 

 two distinct messages were sent and received lay the 

 same transmitting and receiving wires — opens up the 

 possibility of multiple.x wireless telegraphy, which would 

 be equivalent to a great increase in the speed of 

 signalling. 



We may finally quote some remarks made by Mt. 

 Marconi on his arrival in .America after his success with 

 the experiments on the P/u/ailtip/tia. 



"I believe," he said, " that the distance at which a 

 wireless message maybe sent depends only on the power 

 of the sending station. I think it possible to send a 

 message entirely around the world, to start the message 



eastward around the globe, and to receive it at the same i 

 station from the westward. 



" I now know that the curvature of the earth does not 

 in the least affect the waves. Many people who have 

 reasons for hoping so have said that this would prove a 

 fatal defect to the system, but it is not so. During the 

 voyage I carried out a number of experiments which 1 

 had long wanted to make, but which I had never 

 attempted before. You must pardon me for not dis- 

 closing their nature. .W\ 1 can say is that they were 

 eminently satisfactory to me." M. S. 



THE METROPOLITAN HOSPITALS AND 

 VIVISECTION. 



AirE have recently received the new edition of a 

 '• pamphlet entitled "The Metropolitan Hospitals 

 and Vivisection, a Guide for the Charitable in the 

 Disposition of their Gifts and Bequests," by the Hon. 

 Stephen Coleridge. The pamphlet begins with a pro- 

 logue which consists of a short phrase snatched without 

 any context from a speech delivered by the Home Secre- 

 tary. Owing to the shorn character of this phrase, which 

 stands out grotesquely framed with interpolations, we 



NO. 1688, VOL. 65] 



are unable to say what the Home Secretary really meant. 

 The author, however, draws an inference which certainly 

 is not justifiable, viz. that serious operations without 

 anajsthetics necessarily involve the torture of animals. 

 Whether this is so or not depends entirely upon what is 

 meant by a serious operation and what is meant by 

 torture, concerning neither of which is a word said. By 

 torture we certainly do not mean mere momentary pain. 



The main object of the essay is, however, threefold. 

 In the first instance Mr. Coleridge, presumably satisfied, 

 from his prologue, that the legalised torture of animals 

 by so-called vivisectors actually takes place, and that 

 no matter what its object may be is unjustifiable, 

 classifies all metropolitan hospitals according to their 

 supposed connection with vivisection. He further appeals 

 to all those who have money to give, to enrich only those 

 hospitals printed in plain type in his list, being the ones 

 which at the present time are entirely free from vivisection 

 and vivisectors. The second object of the monograph 

 seems to be to denounce as diversion of charitable funds 

 from their legitimate object any payment from the 

 hospitals to the medical schools attached to them. There 

 is also in addition to this an assumption that such pay- 

 ments are practically for the subsidy 

 of vivisection so-called, and a further 

 appeal to the charitable on this count. 

 The third object is apparently to im- 

 pugn the integrity of the committee 

 for the distribution of King Edward's 

 Hospital Fund. 



First, then, according to Mr. Cole- 

 ridge, the charitable should give only 

 to those hospitals which at the time 

 of their bequest are entirely free from 

 all vivisection connections. It must 

 be at once pointed out that this is a 

 somewhat complicated affair, and will 

 require very careful study upon the 

 part of the donors, in that the staffs of 

 hospitals change, and, further, a man 

 of science once a vivisector is not 

 always a vivisector. Since he does 

 not vivisect for amusement, he does 

 so only when he has a definite pro- 

 blem in his mind, and accordingly 

 arranges a series of experiments 

 capable of giving him a definite 

 solution. From this it follows, as 

 indeed the list in this pamphlet shows, 

 that a hospital intimately connected with vivisectors one 

 year may be entirely emancipated from them the next, 

 and therefore that the terms of an anti-vivisection 

 bequest will require alteration from year to year. 



The hospitals at present free from all vivisection taint, 

 according to the pamphlet before us, contain 4516 beds ; 

 of these 4500 beds, ethically, according to Mr. Coleridge, 

 eligible for the gifts of the charitable, 1 109, or practically 

 one quarter, are devoted to lunatics or idiots. Now this 

 fact surely should have been clearly stated, and also its 

 corollary, viz., that should the charitable decide to sup- 

 port only those hospitals satisfying Mr. Coleridge's 

 requirements for eligibility, one quarter of their sub- 

 scription will be devoted to the maintenance of lunatics 

 or imbeciles, extensive provision for which is already 

 supplied out of the rates. Further, another fact of which 

 the charitable, in Mr. Coleridge's sense, should be cog- 

 nisant is, that of the remaining 3000 or so beds no less 

 than 500, or approximately one-eighth of the original 

 total, are devoted to the maintenance of incurables. Two- 

 eighths of the subscriptions of the charitable should, 

 according to Mr. Coleridge, go to lunatics, one-eighth to 

 incurables. Of the remaining 2900 beds, 300 either be- 

 long to local cottage hospitals or are devoted to small- 

 pox or other infectious diseases. The former hospitals 



