discourses, the
lecturer made the following statement of his views:

"With respect to what are called `vivisections,' I assure you that I
have as great a horror of them as any members of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The rules in respect to them are
these: First, no experiment that can be done under the influence of an
anaesthetic ought to be done without it. Secondly, no PAINFUL
experiment is justifiable for the mere purpose of illustrating a law
or fact already demonstrated. Thirdly, whenever for the investigation
of new truth, it is necessary to make a painful experiment, every
effort should be made to insure success, in order that the suffering
inflicted may not be wasted. For the question of cruelty depends not
on the amount of suffering, but on its relation to the good to be
attained by it."[1]

[1] Medical Times and Gazette, February 25, 1871.

The lecturer contended that no experiment should be performed by an
unskilled person with insufficient instruments, and argued, therefore,
in favour of the establishment of Physiological Laboratories, equipped
with all modern devices and instruments for vivisection.

Some of his demonstrations were doubtless unproductive of pain, but in
view of the fact that in other experiments no anaesthetic was
employed, it may be questioned whether his second "rule" was always
very strictly observed. In one lecture he referred to his
demonstration "as the first time that we have applied electrical
stimulus to a nerve," and explains that when the experiment is made on
an animal paralyzed with curare, the effect is more complicated when a
sensory nerve is irritated, since then "the arteries all over the body
contract, because the brain is in action."[1] No plainer confession of
the existence of sensibility could be made, yet for obvious reasons
the lecturer carefully avoids admitting the presence of pain. During
the following year there appeared articles describing "the teaching of
practical physiology in the London schools." At King's College in
London, for example, demonstrations were made by the lecturer, but
"experiments on animals are never given to the ordinary student to do;
Professor Rutherford's experience on this point is that such attempts
result only in total failure."[2] On the other hand, at University
College, the Continental method of teaching was to be found. "Student
perform experiments on animals. Frogs, curarized or chloroformed, ar