46 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. XV. No. 367. 



Huxley, ' ' a more drastic measure than Avas 

 demanded. As a writer in Nature (1876, 

 page 248) puts it, ' The evidence on the 

 strength of which legislation was recom- 

 mended went beyond the facts, the report 

 went beyond the evidence, the recommenda- 

 tion beyond the report, and the bill can 

 hardly be said to have gone beyond the 

 reeonunendations, but rather to have con- 

 tradicted them. ' ' ' 



As to the early working of this law Hux- 

 ley remarked in the following year in 

 his address on ' Elementary Instruction in 

 Physiology' as follows (' Coll. Essays,' III, 

 310): 



"So it comes about that, in this year of 

 grace, 1877, two persons may be charged 

 with cruelty to animals. One [a fisherman] 

 has impaled a frog, and suffered the crea- 

 ture to writhe abovit in that condition for 

 hours; the other [a teacher] has pained the 

 animal no more than one of us would be 

 pained by tying strings round his fingers, 

 and keeping him in the position of a hydro- 

 pathic patient. The first offender says, 

 ' I did it because I find fishing very amus- 

 ing, ' and the magistrate bids him depart in 

 peace— nay, probably wishes him good 

 sport. The second pleads, ' I wanted to im- 

 press a scientific truth vsdth a distinctness 

 attainable in no other way on the minds of 

 my scholars,' and the magistrate fines him 

 five pounds. I cannot but think that this 

 is an anomalous and not wholly creditable 

 state of things. ' ' 



Looking back over more than twenty-five 

 years of the practical working of this law 

 we can affirm without hesitation that under 

 its operation both physiological science and 

 physiological education have been kept by 

 the State, or rather by the propaganda 

 which secured the passage of the statute, 

 under a needless and injurious subjec- 

 tion. 



As early as 1865, and apparently before 

 the scientific men of Great Britain had 



seriously begun to oppose the anti-vivisec- 

 tion propaganda. Dr. John C. Dalton, Pro- 

 fessor of physiology in the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons in New York 

 City, delivered an address before the New 

 York Academy of Medicine, which, for lu- 

 cidity of statement, dignity of tone, wisdom 

 and high seriousness, seems to me superior 

 to any treatment of the subject with which 

 I am familiar ('Vivisection: "What it is, 

 and What it has Accomplished.' Address 

 before the New York Academy of Medicine, 

 December 13, 1866). Many of Dr. Dalton 's 

 definitions and illustrations are worthy of 

 quotation, e. g. : 



" The subject of discussion is not vivisec- 

 tion in its narrowest sense, but the entire 

 method of experiment upon living animals 

 as a means of study in physiology and the 

 kindred sciences" (p. 5). 



"Experimental vivisection is no more 

 open to the charge of cruelty * * * than 

 the dissection of human bodies for the 

 study of anatomy is open to the charge of 

 sacrilege and impiety. * * * (P. 2.) 



"We might as well expect to learn the 

 phenomena of magnetism by experimenting 

 with subjects not magnetic, as to study the 

 phenomena of life anywhere but in the 

 actions of the living body." (P. 7.) 



Dr. Dalton published further in 1875 

 ' Experimentation on Animals as a means 

 of Knowledge in Physiology, Pathology 

 and Practical Medicine, ' and I cannot help 

 feeling that it was largely his calm, fair 

 and yet firm, attitude that caused the fail- 

 ure of the anti-vivisection propaganda in 

 the State of New York in 1867 and again 

 in 1874. 



In Massachusetts repeated attempts have 

 been made to secure legislation ' regulating ' 

 vivisection. An anti-vivisection propa- 

 ganda is constantly maintained in Boston, 

 and for several successive years bills aim- 

 ing at the ' restriction ' or ' regulation ' of 

 vivisection have been introduced into the 



