g Post a
letter from a London physician, describing his personal experience in
the laboratory of this physiologist.

"SIR,

"If the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals intends to
give effect to the memorial presented to it on Monday, and do its
utmost to put down the monstrous abuses which have sprung up of late
years in the practice of vivisection, it will probably find that the
greatest obstacle to success lies IN THE SECRECY WITH WHICH SUCH
EXPERIMENTS ARE CONDUCTED, AND IT IS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THAT
SECRECY that its best efforts should be directed. So long as the
present privacy be maintained, it will be found impossible to convict,
for want of evidence. No student can be expected to come forward as a
witness when he knows that he would be hooted from among his fellows
for doing so, and any rising medical man would only achieve
professional ruin by following a similar course. The result is that,
although hundreds of such abuses are being constantly perpetrated
among us, the public knows no more about them than what the distant
echo reflected from some handbook of the laboratory affords. I
venture to record a little of my own experience in the matter, part of
which was gained as an assistant in the laboratory of one of the
greatest living experimental physiologists.

"In that laboratory we sacrificed daily from one to three dogs,
besides rabbits and other animals, and after four months' experience I
am of opinion that not one of those experiments on animals was
justified or necessary. The idea of the good of Humanity was simply
out of the question, and would have been laughed at; THE GREAT AIM
BEING TO KEEP UP WITH, OR GET AHEAD OF, ONE'S CONTEMPORARIES IN
SCIENCE, even at the price of incalculable amount of torture
needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor animals. During
three campaigns I have witnessed many harsh sights, but I think the
saddest sight I ever witnessed was when the dogs were brought up from
the cellar to the laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of appearing
pleased with the change from darkness to light, they seemed seized
with horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, divining,
apparently, their approaching fate. They would make friendly advances
to each of three or four persons present, and as far as eyes, ears,
and tail could make a mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they tried it in
vain. Even when roughly grasped and thrown on the torture-trough, a
low c