102 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
paper. Tf it is evil, it is fundamentally evil, and the thing to do with something 
that is fundamentally evil is to fight it uncompromisingly until you have stran- 
gled it out of existence. That is our attitude to vivisection. We view it as an 
evil, an evil which must be fought and which must be driven out of existence. 
Now, we have from time to time had the English language enriched by words 
added to it from across the Atlantic, and there is one which comes to my mind 
at the present moment which seems to sum up this American bill very effec- 
tively — “ballyhoo.” And it does, indeed, sum up the whole intent, as I see it, 
of the American bill. It is ballyhoo ; it is to bamboozle the public and to kid 
them into believing that something effective is now being done to harness an 
evil and to make for humane treatment of animals. 
We have our own problems in this country and I am firmly convinced that 
many of our problems have been made more difficult owing to the number of 
people who believe that something controlled by act of Parliament cannot be 
completely cruel — a misguided belief on their part, hut a sincerely held belief. 
We come up against it all the time with well-intentioned people who say “We 
think yon must be exaggerating because, after all, vivisection in this country 
is controlled by act of Parliament and therefore there should be no cruelty.” 
We have then to point out to them that the people who determine the degree of 
protection for the animals are the very people who are themselves indulging in 
the practice of vivisection which causes the suffering to the animals; and to be 
judge and jury in one’s own case and to give oneself acquittal is not consistent, 
with English standards of justice, at least. 
SPECIOUS ARGUMENTS 
Now, we have had similar cases in the past : specious arguments, the old selfish 
arguments, come up from time to time — that this is necessary for human welfare. 
We learn so much for human medicine by these practices ; and that seems to 
give them sanction for all these atrocities which they perpetrate on our fellow 
creatures, which are often referred to as “the lower creation.” Heaven help us 
if we consider ourselves to be the higher creation, so long as we can do such 
things. We have had, in the past, the same arguments applied to slavery. We 
were told that slavery was necessary for the preservation of the plantations in 
the South ; no other labor could do the same work that the slave labor could, 
and therefore the slaves must not be emancipated. But eventually they were 
emancipated, and the plantations all continued, and thrived and flourished pretty 
successfully, as one can see when one considers the millionaire fortunes of our 
tobacco kings. 
We in this country had the same argument applied to child labor and slave 
labor and, owing to the activities of such pioneers as Lord Shaftesbury, also a 
pioneer in the fight against vivisection, child labor in the factories and mines 
was abolished in this country, and the factories did not go bankrupt, and the 
mines did not go out of existence because they could not get child labor. They 
just went on flourishing. 
And the same is true of medicine. If we can abolish this vicious practice, 
which so often proves to be misleading, I am quite sure that we shall get more 
accurate information about the treatment of human diseases and human ail- 
ments than ever we can get in this way. Let us develop the infinitely great 
lines of research that are concerned with clinical investigation, investigation of 
what happens to human beings who are suffering from disease, and learn from 
them, from the accumulation of knowledge of successful treatment as compared 
with unsuccessful treatment. There you have the sort of remedy that can make 
for human health, together with a better way of living that avoids the causes of 
illness. There is our case and there are our lines of territory. And all these 
arguments for the old vicious system to go on because it is necessary and because 
it is harmless as long as it is controlled are fallacious, misleading, and can lead 
only to damnation. 
The Scandal of Vivisection 
(By Harvey Metcalfe, Secretary of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of 
Vivisection) 
If I read this bill properly, it appears that, if it becomes law, not only can 
a licensee do the experiment, but he can authorize medical studeuts to do it, 
possibly first-year students, and the only penalty seems to be the loss of the 
license — and then it can be reinstated. 
