gator he held as entirely indifferent the
sufferings of animals subjected to his experiments, that, except for
teaching purposes, he never used anaesthetics unless necessary for his
own convenience. Some members of the Commission could hardly realize
the possibility of such a confession.

[A] "Human Physiology," by John Elliotson, M. D., F. R. S.
(page 448).

"Do you mean you have no regard at all to the sufferings of the lower
animals?"

"_No regard at all_," was the strange reply; and, after a little
further questioning, the witness explained:

"I think that, with regard to an experimenter--a man who conducts
special research and performs an experiment--he has _no time, so to
speak, for thinking what the animal will feel or suffer_!"

Of Magendie's cruel disposition there seems only too abundant
evidence. Says Doctor Elliotson: "Dr. Magendie, in one of his
barbarous experiments, which I am ashamed to say I witnessed, began by
coolly cutting out a large round piece from the back of a beautiful
little puppy, as he would from an apple dumpling!" "It is not to be
doubted that inhumanity may be found in persons of very high position
as physiologists. _We have seen that it was so in Magendie._" This is
the language of the report on vivisection, to which is attached the
name of Professor Huxley.

But the fact which, in my own mind, constitutes by far the strongest
objection to unrestrained experiments in pain, is their questionable
utility as regards therapeutics. Probably most readers are aware that
physiology is that science which treats of the various functions of
life, such as digestion, respiration and the circulation of the blood,
while therapeutics is that department of medicine which relates to the
discovery and application of remedies for disease. Now I venture to
assert that, during the last quarter of a century, infliction of
intense torture upon unknown myriads of sentient, living creatures,
_has not resulted in the discovery of a single remedy of acknowledged
and generally accepted value in the cure of disease_. This is not
known to the general public, but it is a fact essential to any just
decision regarding the expediency of unrestrained liberty of
vivisection. It is by no means intended to deny the value to
therapeutics of well-known physiological facts acquired thus in the
past--such, for instance, as the more complete knowledge we possess
regarding the circulation of the blood, or the distin