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[March 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Vivisection , its Opponents and Richard Wagner .* By Wilhelm 
Jensen. Stuttgart : Levy and Muller. 
This little work opens with a humorous but faithful account of 
the rise of the present most lamentable agitation. The author 
remarks that in all times cases have occurred when the great 
conflict between Reason and Folly suddenly concentrated itself 
in some region which had hitherto remained in peace. Such, till 
lately, was the position of Physiology, pursuing quietly her 
course, whilst the merits of her labours were hidden behind those 
of the medical practitioner, who applied her results to the service 
of mankind. But few years ago the layman who should have 
presumed to prescribe to physiologists what methods of research 
should be adopted, and what should be avoided, would have been 
generally, and justly, pronouuced insane. Suddenly there has 
broken out, especially among nations of Germanic descent, a 
mental epidemic which reminds us, e.g ., of the dancing* mania 
in the Middle Ages. 
Physiology has been accused and condemned in the same 
breath in a manner which in mendacity, stupidity, and effeCt among 
the ignorant equals the agitation concerning the Marpinger 
miracle. Profs. Heidenhain, Herrmann, and Virchow have in- 
deed put forth pamphlets in defence of the liberty of research, 
but the majority of physiologists have thought it beneath them 
to defend their cause in non-scientific organs. Such conduct, 
however, at least as far as England is concerned, is a serious 
error. A vast majority of the public never read scientific jour- 
nals ; they meet consequently with no exposures of the mis- 
representations circulated in literary and political organs by 
professional agitators and anile sentimentalists, and thus we are 
in danger of being overpowered by organised ignorance. 
Our author proceeds to give a definition of vivisection which 
is logically correCt, but differs greatly from that adopted by our 
essentially illogical sentimentalists and law-makers. In their 
eyes every “ painful experiment ” — or rather every experiment 
which they pronounce painful — is vivisection, even though no 
“ section ” at all should take place. Thus the British toxicolgist 
is deprived of the use of an occasionally useful method of 
recognising poisons. He may not, e.g., administer to a rabbit 
or a Guinea-pig an extraCl obtained from the contents of the 
viscera of a person supposed to have been poisoned, in order to 
* Ueber die Vivisektion, ihre Gegner und Herrn Richard Wagner. 
