iseases had disappeared crossed the Atlantic, and nearly six
years afterward, in the columns of a New York journal, it again
appeared.[2] Yet the statement was untrue. It is indeed difficult to
believe that any educated medical man in England or America could have
read it without recognition of its untruth. Let us glance at the
evidence.

[2] New York Times, July 28, 1912.

If it were true that the septic diseases which relate to blood-
poisoning had really been so completely abolished that description of
them were now impossible--as Sir Victor Horsley declared--it is
evident that as causes of any part of English mortality they would
cease to appear. The report of the Registrar-General of England and
Wales tells a very different story. Sir Victor Horsley gave this
testimony in November, 1907. During the five years preceding, and
ending December 31, 1907, NO LESS THAN 2,933 PERSONS DIED FROM BLOOD-
POISONING (PYAEMIA AND SEPTICAEMIA) IN ENGLAND AND WALES. During the
year 1907, the year that testimony was given, the tribute of 604 lives
was exacted by these diseases which had "GONE"! Even during the year
following (1908), the recorded deaths due to blood-poisoning in
England and Wales were 560; and yet the disease had been solemnly
declared to be non-existent by the leading defender of English
vivisection!

Nor is this all. In proportion to the total population the death-rate
from blood-poisoning WAS HIGHER DURING THE YEAR THAT SIR VICTOR
HORSLEY GAVE THIS ASTOUNDING TESTIMONY THAN IT WAS EVEN FORTY YEARS
BEFORE. In 1868, in England and Wales, to a million persons living,
the death-rate from septic diseases, or blood-poisoning, was fifteen;
the year following it was sixteen. In 1870 it rose to eighteen,
falling, however, to sixteen for the next two years. Nearly forty
years go by, and we find a leading English vivisector assuring a Royal
Commission that blood-poisoning had so completely disappeared that a
medical writer could not describe it; and the Registrat-General
charging this extinct disease with a death-rate of nineteen in 1906
and eighteen in 1907, A HIGHER RATE OF MORTALITY THAN A GENERATION
BEFORE![1]

[1] For these statistics see reports of the Registrar-General of
England and Wales, 54th Report, Table 16, and 73rd Report, Table 22.

These are officially stated facts. At the cost of half a crown Sir
Victor Horsley might have learned that the diseases he so glibly
declared had "gone" were still