INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
631 
and are therefore justly to be condemned. Others, on the 
contrary, were both legitimate and necessary in the infancy 
of medical knowledge, and these, when properly conducted, 
threw new light on abstruse points of physiology. But these 
ends having been obtained, is it right to continue to torture 
the lower animals under the plausible plea of still furthering 
the ends of science, and diminishing the sufferings of dis- 
ease? We answer, no ! It is the end alone that can justify 
the means. We therefore rejoice, that in this country the 
day has arrived when not only the public voice, but the 
voice of scientific men, is raised against vivisection. What has 
been but the too frequent result of analogous vivisections car- 
ried on by different experimenters at one and the same time ? 
Why, that conclusions the very opposite of each other have 
been drawn ; and what, we may again ask, can more plainly 
show the fallacy, as well as the cruelty of these operations ? 
When a poor animal is writhing under a surgeon’s knife, all 
the various functions of life are disturbed and disarranged, 
and the wonder is not that different results have followed, 
but that any correct deductions have ever been arrived at by 
such means. 
We rejoice to know that we have it now in our power to 
lessen suffering by the employment of anaesthetic agents in 
the daily pursuit of our practice, and that veterinary surgeons, 
much to their credit, have given free use to these as a means of 
diminishing pain. Scarcely an operation of importance is 
now performed by them without the patient being first 
brought under the sedative influence of ether or chloroform. 
This speaks well for the profession, and it may be averred 
that veterinary science has thereby proportionably risen in 
public estimation ; a circumstance which you, as students, 
should not lose sight of. Depend upon it, that humanity to 
animals is a true index of a noble mind, and this, when seen 
to be in daily operation, will be appreciated by those you 
look to for support. 
Besides vivisection, it has been attempted to unveil intri- 
cate points in general physiology by the exhibition of medi- 
cinal substances. Such a course of procedure upon the whole 
is not open to the same abuse as vivisection ; nevertheless, it 
has often been abused by unnecessary repetition, and far 
more frequently, perhaps, by the exhibition of agents posi- 
tively destructive to life. The remarks we have made in 
opposition to vivisection, will apply equally to such a mode 
of investigating the operations of vitality upon the animal 
organism. Closely allied also to this method of studying 
physiology is the subjecting of animals to the influence of 
