erfere with the
progress of science; they would simply stop the abuses which
existed."[1]

[1] Medical Times and Gazette (Editorial), June 27, 1874.

In January, 1875, we find the London Lancet also suggesting legal
supervision and restriction:

"We are utterly opposed to all repetition of experiments for the
purpose of demonstrating established doctrines.... We believe an
attempt might be made to institute something in the way of regulation
and supervision. IT WOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT, FOR EXAMPLE, TO IMPOSE
SUCH RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRACTICE OF THESE EXPERIMENTS as would
effectually guard against their being undertaken by any but skilled
persons, for adequate scientific objects."[2]

[2] The London Lancet (Editorial), January 2, 1875.

A month later the Lancet devotes its leading editorial to a discussion
of the ethics of vivisection. After criticizing the position taken
by the antivivisectionists, the writer says:

"On the other side, the discussion has been conducted as if it
concerned physiologists alone, who were to be a law unto themselves,
and each to do what might seem right in his own eyes; that the matter
was one into which outsiders had no right whatever to intrude; in
fact, that `WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT,' and so unquestionably right as to
stand in no need of investigation or restriction. We have, from the
first, striven to take a middle course, not because it was safe, but
because it seemed to us the sound and true one. Without disguising
the difficulties, we have nevertheless expressed our conviction that
the subject was one about which it was impossible not to feel a sense
of responsibility, and a desire to ascertain whether the line between
necessary and unnecessary could be defined; and whether any attempt
could be made to institute something in the way of regulation,
supervision, or restriction, so as to secure that, while the ends of
science were not defeated, the broad principles of Humanity and duty to
the lower animals were observed. Animals have their rights every bit
as much as man has his...."

Admitting the probable necessity of some repetition of experiments in
research, the writer continues:

"It is for the purposes of instruction, however, that it becomes
questionable whether and to what extent experiments of this kind
should be performed. A chemical lecturer teaches well, in proportion
to the clearness with which he can demonstrate the correctness of his
statements by experiment