Physiology and its Opponents. [October, 
a month. The inhabitants have even fitted their little con- 
servatory with blinds, striped pink and white, and the 
unhappy plants are all this time enjoying the luxuries o 
etiolation. Now when these good people return home, will 
not the air of a house which has been been kept so long 
without ventilation and insolation more than counterbalance 
any benefit which they may have received from the sea- 
breezes and the problematical ozone of Bournemouth or 
Torquay ? We know an instunce where a family, on thus 
returning to their shut-up dwelling, were attacked with what 
was called a “ low fever,” which, they maintained, had been 
caught at the watering-place where they had sojourned, i o 
convince them of the truth was impossible. 
V. PHYSIOLOGY AND ITS OPPONENTS.* 
f CIENTIFIC research, and even the study of science 
altogether, have been opposed and piesciibed. at 
different times under varied pretexts. At one time 
they were condemned as impious, at another as ungentle- 
manly in comparison with “ classics,” and now one at least 
of the main branches of biological science is bianded as 
cruelty, with all the most ignominious epithets which the 
heated imagination of neuropaths or the rancour of piofes- 
sional agitators can supply. Some persons may indeed 
plead that the wrath of the Bestiarians or Humanasters is 
dire<5led not against physiology in itself but against experi- 
ments upon living animals. We reply in the words of 
Shakspeare : — 
“ You take my life 
When you do take the means whereby I live.” 
In like manner you paralyse a science if you rob it of any 
of the means of research, of which experiment, the systematic 
cross-examination of Nature, is, wherever practicable, the 
most important. 
* Apologia or explanation of my last Article on Vivisection which appeared 
in a London Journal, September, i, 1884. By a “ Weak Woman ” who with- 
holds her name. 
The Ethics of Vivise&ion. 
August 1, 1885. 
By J. Robertson. From " Our Corner.” 
