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POPULAE SCIENCE EE VIEW* 
vivisectionists have spoken of. Indeed, students are exception- 
ally considerate to the subjects under examination, as we doubt 
not those who have had to perform experiments on animals will 
bear us out in testifying. 
But if we have not a sufficient argument in favour of vivi- 
section from the tendency to spare the feelings of animals by the 
use of chloroform on the part of the vivisectors, and from the 
fact that vivisection is as to cruelties practised every day through 
stupidity and sport (!!!) in the ratio of about 1 to 1,000,000, we 
have a last argument of greater import than any that have gone 
before. It is that vivisection is of use, and that it is by means 
of vivisection that nearly all those results have been attained 
which have led to establish Medicine on a partly rational basis, 
and which have led to advances in the art of medicine — in its 
widest sense — that have immensely tended to the relief of human 
suffering. It would, of course, be out of our power in such an 
article as this to give a list of the series of experiments on animals 
that have led to the correct ideas on the subject of digestion, 
circulation, respiration, absorption, secretion, and more recently 
on muscular action and brain-power. But those who are 
interested in this important question will do well to refer to a 
valuable article in the “ British Medical Journal ” of the present 
year, in which they will find the whole of this question amply, 
and fairly, and dispassionately discussed. 
Is it not, then, unfair as well as unwise to present a Bill on 
this subject which deals exclusively with the medical profession. 
We think it is ; yet it has been done. Mr. Cross has succeeded 
in getting a Bill passed through the House almost at the last 
moment, just as the members might be said to have been 
looking out their guns and cartridges, and preparing for the 
terrible slaughter of the twelfth. Just at this moment they 
have passed a Bill to hamper and impede the labours of the 
practical physiologist. What a magnificent subject for a clever 
satire. And yet, thoigh the Bill is objectionable to the medical 
profession in some of its features, more especially so in its preven- 
tion of vivisection in any medical school, and in its application 
to vertebrate instead of warm-blooded amimals, the anti-vivisec- 
tionists are outrageous with Mr. Cross for his timidity (!!) in 
leaning towards the medical profession. Thus has the Home 
Secretary fallen into the position usually occupied by the person 
who sits between two stools. 
We think that the only member of the House of Commons 
who spoke rationally and calmly on the subject was Mr. Bobert 
Lowe, and we thoroughly sympathise with all the observations 
he made upon the subject. 
The anti-vivisectionists are dissatisfied, and mean to open 
the battle again next session. But things will be changed then, 
