110 REPORT—1863. 
such cases, the term vivisection was a misnomer. Secondly, chloroform was in 
these days almost invariably employable and employed: the cases in which it 
could not be put into use, on account of its introducing some chemical or other 
source of fallacy, were very few. On the other hand, it was quite open to the op- 
onents of vivisection to say, that recognizing the susceptibility to pain which th 
ower creatures had, and, in addition to this, certain rudiments in them of a moral 
nature, as giving them still further claims upon our consideration, and feeling that 
we could not without grievous injury to our own better nature make a practice of 
sacrificing their lives, we were necessitated to regard vivisection as something un- 
justifiable and indefensible, To this it might be replied, that such a line of argu- 
ment, if consistently followed out, would lead, as indeed it had led, to vegetarianism, 
against which the instincts and, even less ambiguously, the practice of the great 
mass of mankind would be found to rebel, at all events at present. And it might 
further be said, that the results of experiments on the lower animals had enabled 
us to understand something of the nature of, and to combat, with something of 
success, the attacks of two terrible human maladies, epilepsy and diabetes. "The 
question was a complex one, very different considerations having to be weighed 
one against the other, one scale containing human, the other brute suffering, 
Wantonness and malignity were, of course, excluded from our consideration ; whilst, 
on the other hand, the means at our disposal for the extinction of sensibility and 
of life diminished the amount of brute suffering to a very small actual residue. 
Nothing, however, could be alleged in favour of vivisection, if practised for the 
sake of obtaining merely greater operative dexterity ; and the whole discussion was 
expressly limited to the consideration of it, as practised in England, by the fol- 
lowing words :—“ In a country like this, where litatin life is highly prized, brute 
misery will never be wantonly produced: ‘The merciful man is merciful unto his 
beast.’ It is possible that, where human life is held cheap, the man who loveth 
not his brother may be wanton in his treatment of the brute. This is not the case 
here, and in a British Association I need allude no further to the matter.” 
In structural (and especially in the microscopic part of structural) anatomy, the 
writings of Professors Beale and Kiihne (both of whom had read papers last year 
before the Subsection) were particularly noteworthy, and the names of Dr. Turner 
and Dr. Roberts were both honourably connected with the subject and with the 
Association. As a periodical, the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Microscopical So- 
ciety,’ and as a systematic work, Virchow’s ‘ Cellular Pathology,’ were deserving 
of our best acknowledgments. 
The important questions of “ Man’s place in Nature,” and of the relative position 
of the several varieties of the species, had neyer received so much attention from 
professed anatomists as within the present year. Professor Huxley’s name at 
home, and Karl Vogt’s abroad, sufficiently illustrated this observation; and Von 
Baer and Rudolph Wagner were devoting the evening of their long lives of success- 
ful biological labour to the elucidation and exposition of this momentous question. 
The most recent systematic work on comparative anatomy with which the 
speaker was acquainted was that of Gegenbaur’s, and it was also a most excellent 
one; and Professor Owen’s edition of Hunter’s ‘Essays and Observations’ was a 
most valuable addition to the literature of that branch of knowledge. 
No place could boast of better workers in zoological anatomy than Newcastle, 
rich in an Albany Hancock, a Joshua Alder, a Dr. Embleton; nor could any local 
natural-history society fairly claim a superiority over the Tyneside Naturalists’ 
Field-Club. 
A new systematic work on zoology was now issuing from the Leipsie press: 
the names of the several authors, Peters, Gerstiicker, and V. Carus, were a very 
abundant guarantee for its anatomical and Seo dies merits. 
The present was a period preeminently fruitful in systematic treatises on phy- 
siology. The excellent English manual, by Dr. Kirkes, had just reached its fifth 
edition; one, if not both, of Dr. Carpenter’s larger works were out of print, and 
would, it might be expected, shortly rea nee in fresh editions. On the Continent, 
Funke’s very comprehensive ‘Lehrbuch’ was possi through its fourth, Vi- 
crordt’s had attained its second, and Budge’s within the present year its eighth 
edition. 
