[BILL 7.] SECOND READING.

HC Deb 02 May 1877 vol 234 cc205-48

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. HOLT,

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said: Mr. Speaker, in making that Motion, the House will probably expect me to state the object and explain the provisions of the Bill, as well as notice the objections raised to, and give my reasons for, the course I am pursuing in thus bringing the subject forward for consideration. The object of the Bill is two-fold. It aims at supplying a defect in Martin's Act, and it is also intended to prohibit painful experiments known as vivisection. Hon. Members are aware that Martin's Act is the Act under which prosecutions for cruelty are conducted. It has been a very valuable Act; but experience has proved that it is defective—in one respect, in that its provisions are restricted to domestic animals. To remedy that defect I propose to the House to enact— If any person shall from and after the passing of this Act cruelly torture or wantonly or barbarously injure any vertebrate animal he shall be guilty of an offence against this Act. I trust this will so far commend itself to the approval of hon. Members that I need say little in support of it. It is, I believe, well known that acts of cruelty, condemned by every one, have remained unpunished, because, though revolting to the feelings of the whole civilized community, the law cannot reach them. As I imagine that any objections which may be taken to this clause will relate merely to details, I need not dwell on this part of the Bill. The object of this Bill is also to provide a special remedy for a special form of cruelty; to prohibit the practices known as vivisection. To effect this, I ask the House to enact that— From and after the passing of this Act it shall not be lawful to perform any experiment causing, or being in itself of a nature to cause, pain or disease in any vertebrate animal, except for the purpose of alleviating or curing any disease from which such animal is suffering; and any person except as aforesaid performing or taking part in any such experiment, or permitting any such experiment to be performed upon any premises over which he has control, shall he deemed guilty of an offence against this Act. The Bill provides for the registration and inspection of places where there may be danger that cruelty is practised, and for the entry, on warrant, to search private premises where there may be reason to think that experiments are conducted. The Bill contains also provisions for the administration of the law, taken, with slight alteration, from the Cruelty Act of last year. Such is the object, and such are the provisions of the Bill. In the next place, I think I ought to notice some of the objections which are raised to the legislation proposed, and the arguments offered in defence of vivisection. First, let me try to remove one of the objections raised, which I know to influence some persons, and which may be present to the minds of some hon. Members. I find the movement against vivisection is regarded by some persons as an attack on the Medical Profession. Now, Sir, I wholly repudiate such a charge, so far as I am concerned myself. I am attacking not men, but practices and opinions—practices and opinions which have been denounced and are denounced by medical men—I make no attack on the Profession. To me it is a source of deep regret if, through the action of some of its leading members, an honourable and noble Profession should have become in anywise identified in the eyes of the public with vivisection, and should be thereby lowered in dignity and position in their estimation. But I will not admit that the Profession, as such, is to be confounded with the advocates of vivisection. I know that there are many medical men of no little experience who oppose the practice, on scientific, no less than on moral grounds. I have presented Petitions to this House signed by medical men, in favour of the total suppression of vivisection. I have met with language employed by medical men in denouncing vivisection as strong as any I have seen anywhere. I am told that many doctors, especially country practitioners, are ignorant of the whole subject; and I hear that at this moment there is a movement going on, which will, I hope, result in the complete vindication of the Faculty throughout the United Kingdom from any complicity in physiological cruelty. I deprecate any attack on the Profession; but I say that if medical men choose by their own act to rank themselves under the banner of vivisection, they must not expect that the fact of their being members of that Profession will save them from becoming involved in the same condemnation with vivisectors. Another objection is raised by those who tell us that our demand for the total abolition of vivisection is Utopian, humanitarian, sentimental, and that our object is not within the range of practical legislation. If this means that because we cannot with absolute certainty stop cruelty in scientific research, therefore we ought not to forbid it by law, I reply that you do not argue in this fashion on other questions. Such an argument would be a bar to every attempt to repress crime by legislation. I look on this as a moral question. Vivisection is an immoral act, and therefore to be suppressed. It is as a moral question that I have taken this up: I say that whatever may be the reasons or the results which you can bring forward, unless it can be shown that the practice of torture is morally right, the Legislature is bound, if it deal with the subject at all, to prohibit it altogether; and I cannot abandon that ground. But when I examine the argument, irrespective of moral considerations, I contend that if the opposition to vivisection be well founded, it is no argument against legislation to say that we cannot entirely put it down, or that we shall thereby compel physiologists to visit other countries for their cruel experiments. I repeat, you do not argue in this fashion on other questions. Let me illustrate my position by reference to a crime created by law, not otherwise morally wrong, but inconvenient and injurious to the material interests of society, and consequently totally prohibitive. There is nothing morally wrong in making a model of a shilling or of a bank note, any more than in striking a medal, or in preparing a fac simile of Magna Charta. You do not inquire into the motive; you prohibit it because you feel that the interests of society require it, and you forbid the act absolutely, in spite of the circumstance that you may fail to prevent its commission, and that you may drive the skilled engraver, or the clever artizan, to practise his art in other countries. Sir, I do not say the cases are parallel, but I do say the argument is untenable in either case. Under this head I think I may properly notice the argument offered to the House last year by my hon. Friend the Member for West Cumberland (Mr. Percy Wyndham), whom I regret not to see in his place. If I understand him aright, he urged that we are engaged in an Utopian scheme, and he remonstrated with me for attempting to reverse the course of nature. I understood him to argue thus—"Nature is cruel; the processes of Nature bring good out of evil; do not attempt to be wiser than Nature: be content to leave things as they are." I think my hon. Friend will see that if his argument were sound, nothing ought to be done to civilize the savage or to cultivate the earth: because Nature is savage and nature is wild. My hon. Friend would upset the whole course of modern civilization. I cannot think that he is of opinion that we live in a perfect world; nor would he sanction the doctrine that the disorders of the world are to be the measure of our duty and conduct. I submit that we live in a disordered world, that we are surrounded with evil, and in conflict with evil at every step, and that it is not the course of Nature, but the overruling providence of God, which brings good out of evil. Though we may not be able to account for the origin of evil, nor for the great amount of pain and suffering apparently unmerited which we see around us, surely we are not on that account to ignore it! We may not be able effectually to remedy it. Are we therefore to add to it? True,—the beasts prey one upon another; but I do not see how anyone can possibly justify the cruel acts of an intelligent, responsible man by a reference to the habits, instincts, and passions of the irresponsible beast. I submit that the civilization of which we boast is of a most imperfect type if it permits us to increase—nay, if it do not compel us to lessen, so far as we can, innocent suffering whether in man or beast. Let the guilty suffer, under a just sentence, according to their deserts, and in their case temper justice with mercy; but let innocence rejoice in the protection of a righteous law. Another allegation which I think I ought to notice, is that our statements are exaggerated. Whenever a vivisector meets with an exaggerated statement, he is perfectly justified in describing it as exaggerated. Sir, in this case there is no need for exaggeration. The facts are bad enough without exaggeration. I do not admit the justice of the charge made against us, though I admit that if our assertions be compared with those made by vivisectors, there is a wide difference; but I say that I have observed on the part of the advocates of vivisection a constant desire to extenuate their experiments and to magnify their results. It would appear from the statements of some persons, that the great work of physiological life in respect of vivisection, is to "scratch the tail of a tadpole," and that the result, in the vast majority of instances, is the prolongation of human life and the relief of suffering; the tadpole suffers little; mankind are vastly benefited. In reply to the charge of extravagance, I will simply turn to the Blue Book, and ask whether there has been anything charged against the cruel physiologists which its pages do not amply confirm? The experiments described and uncontradicted, described as performed in England, and admitted to be true, are sufficiently horrible to justify the public excitement which prevails. Take Mr. Wickham Legg's experiments on cats, and Dr. Rutherford's on dogs—are not they bad enough?—the latter of' which, by the way, have been so pointedly condemned by a man of the highest scientific authority, Sir William Thomson, in a letter to The Scotsman. He says— Sir,—In your print of this morning I see a report of Professor Rutherford's paper on the secretion of bile, read at the meeting of the Royal Society yesterday evening, when, as President, I was in the chair. As chairman, I did not feel that I had the right to express my opinion that experiments involving such torture to so large a number of sentient and intelligent animals are not justifiable, by either the object proposed, or the results obtained or obtainable, by such an investigation as that described by Professor Rutherford. I feel this opinion very strongly after many years' serious consideration of the general question of the advisableness or justifiableness of experiments involving cruel treatment of the lower animals. University, Glasgow, March 6th, 1877. Is it possible that there can be anything more shocking than the experiment spoken of by the late Sir William Fergusson. He says— I have reason to imagine that such sufferings incidental to such operations are protracted in a very shocking manner. I will give you an illustration of an animal being crucified for several days perhaps; introduced several times into a lecture room for the class to see how the experiment was going on."—[1037.] I do nut know what is learnt, I do not know what can be learnt, from an animal in such an unnatural condition; but I say that the thing is too horrible to admit of exaggeration; and that, be the results what they may, the experiment is unjustifiable. I do not think it possible that any graver charge can be brought against vivisectors than that which rests an the authority of Sir William Fergusson. We are told there is exaggeration. Is not the exaggeration on the other side? We hear it said again and again that experiments are performed under anesthetics, and the public are led to believe that the animal in such cases is insensible to pain. Of course, an experiment may be commenced under anæsthetics; does anybody believe that an animal can be kept for three or four days under its influence? Is there no exaggeration here? I fear that those medical men are right who tell us that the anæsthetic is exhibited to narcotize public feeling rather than to relieve the suffering animal. But, Sir, I know I shall be told that we dealt with this subject last year, and that before we re-open it, we ought to wait to see how the Act works. This argument may satisfy those who want to get rid of an unpleasant subject, or who object to vivisection only in so far as they consider it is an abuse of a lawful practice; but those who regard the practice as unlawful in itself cannot rest content with an Act, however well it may work, which licences the abomination and can be made to protect the cruel experimenter. What are we to gain by waiting to see the working of the Act? Is it not clear that the Act will work as the Home Secretary works it? Is it not also evident that the mode of working the Act in one year, even in the hands of the same Minister, is no criterion how it will be worked in another year? Much less can it afford any evidence how the Act will be worked under a change of Government. Does anyone doubt that my right hon. Friend desires to work the Act from the humane point of view? For myself, though I lament that he has been persuaded to depart from the position he originally assumed, I do not expect to see any Home Secretary work the Act on more humane principles. Work it as well as he may, I am not satisfied to leave, even in the hands of my right hon. Friend, the power with which this Act entrusts him. I object to leave it in the power of any man to authorize the performance of the experiments described in the standard works for instruction and reference accepted in England. I object altogether that it should be in the power of any learned Corporation to issue certificates for such experiments. I think that our national character is at stake, and I desire to vindicate it without delay from all complicity with cruelty. But, Sir, I submit that we have seen enough already of the working of the Act to justify further legislation. The Return lately issued shows as much as my right hon. Friend's advisers think it expedient to reveal of the working of the Act. It gives us to understand that we must not expect full Returns, and that the Act is to be worked partly in the dark. We are not to know the number of applications, nor the names of the successful applicants, nor the terms and conditions of the licences. When it shows that no licences have been issued for the more painful experiments performable under the Act, it shows that the Act has done one piece of service—it has demonstrated that these experiments are not necessary, and might just as well have been prohibited altogether; but it reminds us that they are permitted under the Act, and that we must not rest until it is repealed. It shows that the system of licensing established last year was a system of secret licensing—a system at variance with the strongest feelings of the people and self-condemned, and that the shield of secrecy is required to protect the tender feelings of vivisectors from the rough usage of public opinion. The Return shows further, that the licences issued are mainly for purposes of demonstration to students—the very thing which the public justly dread as likely to have a demoralizing effect. Remember, this implies the constant repetition of experiments from which nothing new is to be learnt—the demonstration of facts which can be described in print and illustrated by diagrams. Remember, this demonstration is employed in lectures, not exclusively addressed to medical students, but intended to form part of a course of general education; in lectures, too, which are attended by young ladies, who are thus receiving that higher education which is intended to raise them in the social scale—to perfect their womanly accom- plishments. Remembering this, we regard the working of the Act with no satisfaction, and are ready to agree with Dr. Anthony, who thinks it a bad practice to permit vivisectional experiments for the purpose of demonstration; and with Dr. Haughton, who expresses an equally decided opinion in very strong language— I would shrink with horror from accustoming large classes of young men to the sight of animals under vivisection. I believe that many of them would become cruel and hardened, and would go away and repeat these experiments recklessly, without foresight or forethought; science would gain nothing, and the world would have let loose upon it a set of young devils."—[1888.] What a charming prospect for English society in the next generation! Does it not justify us in making a stand against this kind of education, and in seeking, without delay, to repeal an Act which works in this direction? The Return further discloses the fact that one of these licences is connected with the Gloucester County Asylum; one with the Glasgow Royal Infirmary; and others with London hospitals. This will not increase public satisfaction; but I shall return to this phase of the question in a few minutes. I maintain, Sir, that this Return ought to make my position stronger, and that when its full significance is understood, it will make the demand louder for the total prohibition of vivisection. Having thus replied to some preliminary objections, I will endeavour to deal with the question on its merits, and to grapple with the arguments by which the advocates of vivisection support their position. My position, in brief, is this—First, I regard the practice as morally wrong, and, therefore, to be forbidden; and in the next place, I submit that, whether you consider vivisection in itself to be lawful or unlawful, whether you deem it to be an abuse in itself, or only in so far as it is carried to excess, the evidence in the Blue Book shows that the only way effectually to stop the abuse is to prohibit the practice. Why should we not prohibit the practice? The advocates of vivisection assert that it is necessary for the progress of science—necessary for the relief of the suffering—and attended with beneficial results. I join issue with them, and assert that it is morally wrong—scientifically erroneous—socially dan- gerous. You tell me that vivisection is necessary. Before asking how you establish the necessity, I ask—Where do you get your authority to do what you like with the creatures placed in your power? I know you have the power; but right and power are not interchangeable terms. The exercise of power without right is selfish tyranny, and the only right which man possesses is that which the Creator has given him. He gave man the right to rule—but not with unlimited authority. You will search in vain for any right to torture. Many persons seems to think that if in the exercise of power which we possess we are guided by a benevolent motive, it is a lawful exercise of that power; but I submit that no motive can justify an immoral act. You may pity the man who steals a box of pills to relieve a suffering child, but you do not applaud the act or approve the man's moral perceptions, much less do you recognize the motive as a ground of exemption from prosecution. It must be a mistake to think that the civilization, which is very strict in requiring a recognition of the difference between meum and tuum, ought to be indifferent to the cultivation of humanity, or to regard cruelty, even to an animal, as a venial sin, because perpetrated from a benevolent motive. But how do you establish the necessity which you allege to exist? Do you assert there is no other means by which medical knowledge can be advanced, and means discovered for the relief of human suffering? Turn to the Blue Book, and you will find the opinions of eminent medical men, expressed in no ambiguous terms, to the effect that they do not consider experiments on animals as the most important source of knowledge. Sir James Paget says [382]— I can quite believe that ardent physiologists put more trust in the experiments on living animals than I should; and certainly those studying therapeutics and diseases think more of them than I should. I think more of the advantage of clinical enquiry. Dr. Acland says [957]— I do not think that for the purpose of advancing the knowledge of medicine, experiments on animals are the most important things. Sir William Fergusson was asked [1100]— have such experiments, in your opinion, had any direct bearing upon the progress of surgical practice He replied— Well, I do not think it. I am as familiar as most people with these experiments, and I cannot say that I have been much impressed with the value of them. But admitting that clinical and pathological observation in the human subject is the more important means for the advancement of medicine, can you show that vivisection is any means at all? You point to discoveries and results which some persons tell us are reckless assumptions. The discovery of the circulation of the blood has been adduced as an instance in point. Yet, what has Dr. Lauder Brunton lately said respecting Harvey's investigations? I take from The British Medical Journal, of 17th March last, an extract from Dr. Brunton's Goulstonian Lectures— Harvey himself was led to form his ideas regarding the course taken by the blood from the position of the valves in the veins, and might possibly have been able to describe it exactly, without making a single experiment. You also bring forward Hunter's operation for the cure of aneurism. Dr. Macilwain said before the Royal Commission that this assertion is [1845] "entirely untrue," and Sir James Paget, in the Hunterian Oration delivered last February, is reported in the medical papers to have said, with reference to Hunter's scientific renown— No one seems to have known better than he did the danger of reasoning from physiology into practical surgery; and with especial reference to the operation for the cure of aneurism— This was no laborious result of physiological induction; it was a plain result of facts, collected in the wards and in the dead-house. And so with other alleged discoveries. One witness says [5669]—"We have discovered the use of nitrite of amyl." Another replies—"It was nothing more than a happy guess."—[1781.] Whilst a doctor, to whom I have spoken on the subject, says—"Whatever may be its effects on animals, it has proved fatal to man." We hear a great deal of the value of experiments on guinea pigs as the cause of the success which has attended Mr. Spencer Wells in his celebrated operations. So far as I can learn, the facts do not bear out the statements made. In the first place, the operations on guinea pigs were not new—the facts had been ascertained 100 years ago by Bichat on his dog. Upon that, however, I do not insist, as I do not admit that the success of Mr. Spencer Wells arises from vivisection in any degree. I rather urge that if these experiments on guinea pigs were of the value attributed to them, they ought to be of no less service to other operators in ovariotomy. But the fact is, that, though Mr. Spencer Wells only loses 22 per cent of patients, other surgeons lose 76 per cent. This satisfies me that the success of Mr. Spencer Wells is not to be attributed to experiments on animals, but to his own skill and care. Again;—I call attention to the action of the Medical Society of Victoria. They have lately, by a formal decision in solemn conclave, come to the conclusion, after 20 years' experience, that experiments on dogs, conducted to obtain an antidote to snake-bite, afford no clue to the action of remedies on man; and they have discontinued these experiments. You may point to the alleged valuable contributions to science made by the researches of Dr. Ferrier, with reference to the functions of the brain. Do you know that Dr. Brown-Sequard, one of the greatest of living vivisectors and authorities on vivisection, has given details of cases so recently as last August, which prove that the teachings of vivisection on the functions of the brain and nerves are a tissue of mistakes created by vivisection, but rectified at last by correct clinical observation during life, and careful examination of diseased structures after death? Thus the sufferings of animals in these experiments have been wholly thrown away. I think I have said enough to throw doubt on the necessity for vivisection. I maintain that you have not yet established the necessity: but I go further, and maintain that it is scientifically erroneous and misleading—that it can be shown to be scientifically erroneous and misleading—and that, whether you regard the illogical mode of procedure, or the actual result to the human patient. Look for a moment at the course of procedure; I say a scientific enquiry ought to be conducted in a logical fashion. Tell me whether the rules of logic are not wholly disregarded by those who employ vivisection to advance medical science, and to relieve human suffering? Now, Sir, one of the objects for which vivisection has been employed, is to as- certain the action of drugs on the various organs of the human body. A physiologist desires to ascertain the action of a particular drug on, say, the liver of a man, for especial use, when that organ is diseased. Remember he is a scientific man; he is engaged in scientific research; he requires, above all things, accuracy in his conclusions; he ought, above all things, to be logical in his proceedings. He is most anxious not to take a leap in the dark, not to act the part of an empiric. A mistake may be attended with fatal results to the human patient whom he seeks to benefit. Surely such a man engaged in such an investigation ought to be logical in his procedure! How does he proceed? Of course, he secures a licence from the Home Secretary; then, as it seems to me, his mistakes begin. He takes a healthy dog, he subjects him—of course under anæsthetics—to the usual treatment. The body is cut open, the bile duct divided and brought to the outside; the drug is administered in the usual way; the result is carefully noted. When it is done, what have you got? When it has been repeated 100 tunes, what have you got? The results may not vary in the least, but what do they establish? They show the action of a certain drug on the liver of a healthy dog placed in an abnormal condition, and nothing more. Your experiment proves absolutely nothing as to the action of the drug on the liver of a sick dog—there may be conditions present which would vitiate the results—much less as to its action on the liver of a sick man. Yet you call this scientific investigation. Is it not beyond dispute that if you want to know the effect on man you must experiment on man? Dr. Rutherford admitted this to the Royal Commission. He said [2926]—"I experiment on dogs; I leave it to others to experiment on man." And Dr. Houghton illustrated the point forcibly by saying [1885] that— Notwithstanding the exhaustive series of experiments with reference to the action of mercury by the late Dr. Hughes Bennett, there is not a doctor in Europe or America who has altered his practice in treating congestion of the liver with blue pill. Thus the hundreds and thousands of victims which have suffered at the hands of vivisectors have suffered in vain, so far as any logical deduction is concerned. You may have made some guesses at the truth, with apparent success in some cases, but you cannot deny that it may be the case when you come to apply your so-called results in practical medicine, you may do irreparable injury to hundreds of patients before you find out that your conclusions are mistaken. This attempt to escape from empiricism by a disregard of the rules of logic cannot inspire the public with any great amount of confidence in the medicine of the future. It is well for the patient class that the Faculty has enough common sense to disregard theory and trust to experience. This establishes my third point. I say vivisection is not only morally wrong, and scientifically erroneous, but it is socially dangerous. I mean it leads, it has led, to positive injury to the human patient. This is no imaginary idea. I will endeavour to prove my point by reference to the practice of two men who in former years were at the head of the Profession—Sir Astley Cooper and Mr. Travers. I have obtained my information from a book recently published by Dr. George Macilwain. [Vivisection. Hatchards, 1877.] Page 94— Sir Astley Cooper thought that when the neck of the thigh bone was fractured within the bag or capsule which encloses the joint of the hip, repair by bony union was impracticable‖ . To prove this, as he thought, he made some experiments . ‖ on dogs, and finding that the fractures he made in the thighs of dogs united only by ligaments, he regarded that as a confirmation of his doctrine‖ . Sir Astley Cooper was surgeon to one of the largest hospitals, and a leading teacher of surgery. Concluding that bony union could not be obtained in the cases referred to, he recommended and adopted a practice which rendered it impossible. Thus, when the patient had been in bed for a fortnight or so, . . he recommended him to rise and use a crutch, which necessarily involved lameness for life. The lamentable result ‖ can only be estimated by considering what might have been the number of cases confided to his care, besides those to such of his pupils ‖ who ‖ would adopt the practice of their distinguished teacher. Further, with reference to Mr. Travers, Dr. Macilwain says, page 107— The very measure which Mr. Travers was led to recommend to combat the peritonitis (in the operation for strangulated hernia) was exactly that it was most dangerous to employ‖ [Page 106.] I believe that no more disastrous error ever proceeded from vivisection than the one in question; and whether Mr. Travers' treatment proceeded from what he did in his operations, or from what he neglected to do, it still illustrates the misleading character of vivisection, to which there always seems more or less tendency, inseparable from that mode of investigation. Here, then, we have definite instances, brought to our notice by a medical man, of the socially dangerous effects of vivisection. I believe it to have another effect equally dangerous. It encourages experiments on man, and that, I much fear, for the purpose of demonstration as well as in the interest of science. I speak on the authority of an eye witness who has seen two things done in an hospital for the purpose of demonstration without regard to the pain inflicted on the patient. One is the rubbing together the ends of a broken bone to afford an illustration of what is termed crepitation. A doctor was passing through the wards with his class of students; they came to a man whose leg had been broken and not yet set; the doctor rubbed the ends of the bone together to let his pupils hear the sound. When he passed on to the next case, the young men repeated the operation for their own instruction or amusement—say, in the interest of science—and when the patient screamed and writhed in agony, the doctor only cried—"Hold him down, hold him down!" Another instance given to me, also by an eye witness, is found in the case of a patient suffering from a dislocation of the wrist. One of the characteristics of this injury is that it is necessary, when the dislocation has been reduced, to retain the bones in their proper places by splints and bandages, otherwise it will recur. In the case in question, the wrist of the patient was set, but not bandaged in order that the dislocation might recur, for the purpose of demonstration to the class of students; and I am told that the pain the patient would suffer in the interest of science is extremely severe. There is another instance which I cannot pass over; an instance reported in The Lancet en the 20th and 27th of last January. The Glasgow Royal Infirmary figures in the recent Return as a place in which they are engaged in the pursuit of science, and apparently they are not very particular as to the means they employ, so when they get an opportunity of dealing with a case of human hydrophobia, they disregard the established rules of practice in their eager search after knowledge. I shall put the facts more briefly before the House by reading a letter which appeared in The Lancet of January 27th on the subject. I understand the fact of the dog passing through the ward has been explained by the Secretary to the Infirmary to have been an accident. I accept the explanation, but, I say, that had such an accident happened in the wards of a homœopathic, hydropathic, or mesmeric hospital, the carelessness of the authorities would have been most loudly denounced in the medical journals. The letter in The Lancet is to the following effect:— Sir,—I have read with astonishment a case of hydrophobia in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in your impression of to-day. I will not now discuss the question of the case being hydrophobia or not. But I will ask, how came a dog to he allowed to pass into the chamber of a man in the state there described? Was it for experiment, or was it accidental? If for experiment, God grant the Vivisection Act may protect our species. If accidental, it is to be blamed in no measured terms‖ I quote your correspondent's words When seen at midday, the hope was expressed that the symptoms, whatever was their origin, were passing off, and that the patient was in a fair way towards recovery. At 3.30 p.m., an event took place which completely and suddenly altered the aspect of the case. While the patient was lying, to all appearance, calmly in bed, a dog passed through the room, and was seen by him. Immediately thereafter he started up in bed, with his arms extended, and his eyes staring, his whole countenance indicating intense horror. He jumped out of bed, and, in attempting to climb over the screen, fell upon the floor; there he lay for a few minutes, groaning and talking, and tossing his limbs about.' Again—'Pouring from one vessel to another did not produce any effect; upon a few drops being sprinkled upon his face, the same sobbings were performed, and he complained of such a low trick being done upon him.' Again I quote the words of the article—'For a short time there seemed to be a lucid interval, in which, in pitiful tones of voice, he asked those around him to take him up into some quiet room, and. have an end made of him. This period of repose did not last long; for in a few minutes, after being breathed upon and fanned with a towel, he became again incoherent and maniacal.' And once again—'While standing behind him and out of his sight, I blew my breath once or twice upon the neck and face, when at once the muscles of the neck and of the upper and lower extremities became rigid, and the diaphragm acted spasmodically: the spasm was not followed by a second, without he was again provoked.' ARTHUR RICHARDSON, M.R.C.S. I make no comment on this shocking case. I simply quote the words of a medical man who has written with reference to it— These Glasgow cases demonstrate that the practice of cruel experimentation on the lower animals leads, as a matter of course and of necessity, to disregard all human suffering; and they show, beyond all question, what medical practice, under the influences that exist and are daily extending, with the sanction and approval of the most eminent members of the medical schools, will assuredly become, in hospitals and out of them, if the public does not interfere to prevent it. This makes the subject one of an emimently practical character. The question must become one of intense interest to the humbler classes, who in their hours of pain and weakness are treated in hospitals and county asylums. Your licences are some of them associated with these places. The names of the men are not given. May not the patients justly feel alarmed lest they should fall into the hands of some reckless experimenter? The course of our practice in sanitary regulations is to separate from their friends, and to isolate persons suffering from infectious disease. We send them to be treated in special hospitals. Is it not a matter of the very gravest importance to the country that no suspicion should be permitted to attach to those institutions? Remember, they will hereafter be placed under the charge of men who have been trained in the schools of vivisectional demonstration, for which you are now issuing your licences; and I cannot feel indifferent to the fact, broadly stated by Dr. Moxon, in the Hunterian Oration for the present year, that, under our modern system— There is growing up a generation of physicians who are so imbued with the scientific spirit as absolutely to forget, in the highest issues, that their Profession has any practical aim."—[Medical Times and Gazette, March 3rd, 1877.] This is no light and trifling matter. I regard it as a question of the gravest import, which demands the most careful consideration of Parliament. How does the matter stand? Some persons are seeking to justify cruelty, that they may gain knowledge, and the knowledge, when gained, has not necessarily any practical aim. We have passed an Act which legalizes cruelty with this object, and I conceive our first duty ought to be to recognize that we have not gone far enough, and to replace the Act of last year by a more thorough measure. I know that with the momentous issues which now engage public attention, this subject may easily be put aside, but I claim a place for it amongst the important social questions of the day. I ask hon. Members not to put it aside as disagreeable and troublesome, but to regard it as a question of importance; "as a question," to quote words better than any of my own, lately written to a friend by a general officer, well known to many sportsmen in this House— That undeniably affects our national character, and which ought not to be treated with careless indifference. It is right or wrong. Let every reflecting individual take a part in the matter; seek for information, and make up his mind to uphold or oppose the practice. We demand the absolute prohibition of vivisection. We believe that nothing short of that will cure the evil and vindicate our national character. The wellbeing of society demands that cruelty shall be punished by law, not merely in the humbler and less educated classes, but amongst the learned, the refined, and the powerful. Our moral perceptions demand, the true interests of science demand, the well-being of society demands, that good motives shall not be permitted in this country to extenuate bad actions—that results shall not be accepted irrespective of the means by which they are attained. I desire to see vivisection banished from this country as a relic of our savage nature, a practice of a barbarous age, inconsistent with our Christian profession, a disgrace to true science, and a blot upon our civilization. I beg to move the second reading of this Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Holt.)

DR. CAMERON

in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, he did not object in any way to the amendment of Martin's Act, but he did object to the proposal to interfere with vivisection as regulated by the Act of last year. The hon. Member for North-East Lancashire (Mr. Holt), in attempting to legislate upon the subject, had introduced about as crude and unworkable a measure as it was possible for the mind of man to conceive. This did not arise from any want of study, because the hon. Member appeared to have been applying his mind to the question for a considerable time. In 1875 the hon. Member had joined the Society for the Suppression of Vivisection, and in the autumn of that year he gave evidence before the Royal Commission. In the course of his evidence, he stated that up to that time he had paid little or no attention to the details of the subject. He had intended to do so, but had been prevented by illness. He had had time enough, however, to discover that the affairs of the society were in a very bad condition, and that the society in reality consisted of a secretary, who expressed as the views of the society whatever he chose to state, without summoning any meeting of a regular committee. This gentleman declined to have his accounts audited, and the hon. Member (Mr. Holt) stated himself that he was determined either to reform the society, or to retire from it. The hon. Member received one lesson on the subject of vivisection from the Commission, but he (Dr. Cameron) was sorry to see that it had already been forgotten. After informing the Commission that he had made no particular study of the matter, the hon. Member quoted as an illustration of the uselessness of vivisection, the fact that Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood was not due to that practice. The hon. Member quoted this on some second-hand authority, as he had done in his speech to-day. "Well," said one of the Commissioners (Professor Huxley), "have you acquainted yourself with the original writings of this author?" "No," returned the hon. Member. "Then allow me to read this passage to you from Harvey's works," and Professor Huxley read the following:— When I first gave my mind to vivisections as a means of discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover there from actual inspection, and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of difficulty, that I was almost tempted to think with Fracastorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God. And then a little farther on— At length, and by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing a variety of animals for the purpose, and collecting numerous observations, I thought that I had attained to the truth. "These," said Professor Huxley, "are Harvey's own words, and I presume you will modify the opinion you have ex- pressed." The hon. Member replied, "My opinion is based on a statement of Boyle's, which I have read." Yet not-withstanding that lesson which the hon. Member then received, he had again fallen into the same mistake to-day regarding Harvey's discovery. Before the Commission the hon. Member explained that his objection to the practice of vivisection was that it did not come within the grant of the lower animals to man made by the Almighty. He did not think sporting justifiable, but he would not interfere with it by legislation, because it was connected in some degree with the question of the supply of food. In regard to vivisections in connection with farming operations, he did not propose to interfere with the mutilations of domestic animals which took place, because he said he considered there must be some good reason for the practice adopted with respect to lambs, calves, pigs, &c., or otherwise it would not prevail so extensively. The only point on which the hon. Member expressed any distinct or decided conviction was in regard to the excision of the ovaries in sows, a practice which he unreservedly condemned. He wound up his evidence by saying that so repulsive to him was vivisection, that if he was seriously ill and his only chance of recovery was to employ a practitioner who had obtained his knowledge of his disease through vivisection, he would do so with great reluctance, and if he had a relative placed in a similar position he would not employ such a practitioner at all. [Mr. HOLT: Hear, hear!] The hon. Member said "Hear, hear!" but this protestation of the hon. Member of his readiness to sacrifice his friends to his convictions reminded him (Dr. Cameron) of nothing so much as the manner in which Artemus Ward had vindicated his reputation for patriotism when it was called in question during the American War—namely, by protesting his readiness to sacrifice his brothers-in-law and every other male relative to the conscription, provided only he was allowed to remain at home. The Bill which the hon. Member introduced last year upon the subject had at least the merit of being intelligible. That Bill provided that— It should not be lawful to perform any experiments of any kind causing, or of a nature to cause, pain or disease in any animal, or to cut or wound any living animal except for the purpose of killing any animal, or alleviating or curing any disease from which such animal was suffering, or performing any operation required to render any such animal better suited for the service of man, or ascertaining, in pursuance of a judicial inquiry, and by direction of the Secretary of State, and under such regulations as he might prescribe, the nature or operations of any supposed poison for which there was no known chemical test: Provided always,—that it should be an offence for a person to treat any animal with wanton cruelty, or to subject it to unnecessary suffering. The Times, commenting upon that Bill, said— As for Mr. Holt's Bill, physiologists will probably be glad to see it, for the absurdity of the position taken up by the author was transparent. He would have no operations on animals for the alleviation of human suffering, but he would permit the performing of any operation to render animals better suited for the service of man, in health, of course. These operations might be of any sort, performed by any one, however unskilled, and without the use of anesthetics. Could any proposal be more ridiculous? and yet it was seriously printed and laid on the Table of Parliament. He (Dr. Cameron) presumed it was in order to meet comments of that kind that the hon. Member had this year modified his Bill, and had cut out the express provision legalizing the forms of agricultural vivisection. But in doing so, the hon. Member had provided only for the punishment of wanton cruelty inflicted on any vertebrate animal, while he had absolutely prohibited experiments for purposes of scientific research. The effect of this provision in the Bill of this year was precisely the same, therefore, in effect as the specific provision in the Bill of last year, because no magistrate would convict any man of wanton cruelty who merely performed cutting operations upon living animals for the purpose of rendering them more suitable for the service of man. The hon. Member had not ventured to state that the Report of the Royal Commission went in the teeth of the evidence. But once admit that the Report of the Commission was in accordance with the evidence, and all the extracts given by the hon. Member from the answers of individual witnesses to isolated questions simply tended to show these isolated statements had been refuted by the great balance of evidence. The Report of the Royal Commission was, on the whole, a wise Report, and the Government last year introduced a Bill embodying the recommendations contained in that Report, and passed them into law. The Bill of the Government was open to certain theoretical objections; but, practically, it did everything required to remove all the evils that were formerly alleged to exist. The Act provided that no experiment should henceforth be performed on animals except by a person licensed by the Home Secretary, and for the advancement of physiological knowledge; that experiments should then be performed only under the influence of anæsthetics, except on the production of a special certificate that the use of anæsthetics would nullify the results it was hoped to obtain. Curare, about the action of which some doubt existed, was not to be deemed an anæsthetic; animals were to be killed before recovering consciousness; and no experiment was to be performed without anæsthetics on a dog, cat, horse, ass, or mule, except on special certificate that no other animal was available for such experiment. Judges in criminal cases might order experiments in cases where they were necessary for the detection of crime, and the Secretary of State was empowered to require details to be furnished of all experiments. The results of the working of the Act during the last six months had, as he would show in a few minutes, been perfectly satisfactory. But, before proceeding to that point, he should like to point out another mistake into which the hon. Member had fallen. He had dwelt upon the revolting effect which the performance of these experiments would have upon certain classes of young ladies before whom, he said, they were performed. Why, the Act of last year positively prohibited experiments upon living animals being made before the general public at all. A Return, to which the hon. Member alluded in the course of his speech, had recently been published as to the working of the Vivisection Act, and it showed that 23 certificates had been issued under that Act during the six months it had been in operation, and that in only one case had a licence been granted permitting experiments without anæsthetics. Even in that case, the licence was subject to the proviso that the Inspector should be satisfied within a moderate time that the experiments themselves were not of a nature calculated to inflict pain. At the present moment, therefore, there was not a single licence existing for any experi- ment calculated to inflict pain excepunder the influence of anæsthetics. Not a single certificate had been issued dist penning with the obligation of killing the animal before it recovered consciousness. There again, however, the hon. Member had gone wrong, and had dwelt upon the great sufferings experienced by the animals in recovering. At the present moment, hon. Members would see the walls placarded with illustrations of dogs and cats writhing in torture undergoing vivisection, and this despite the fact that not a single certificate had been issued under the Act of last Session permitting any painful experiments upon these animals. Meanwhile the hon. Member, without waiting for the Return, and not knowing how the Act was working, brought in his Bill, which repealed the Act of last Session, prohibited wanton cruelty generally, but in doing so excepted sporting, and agricultural vivisections, which would be allowed to go on unheeded, because they did not come under the head of wanton cruelty. In the present Bill, as compared with that introduced last year, there was one very important and deliberate omission. Last year the hon. Member provided that experiments should be lawful if they were necessary for the purpose of furthering the ends of justice, such as the detection of poison; but this year the hon. Member withdrew that exception from the Bill, and as the measure now stood, if it were passed to-morrow, and a man were poisoned with strychnine or some other poison difficult of detection, it would be unlawful to make any experiment, even if such experiment were necessary, in order to prove that a murder had been committed. He was satisfied there was no chance of a Bill like this being allowed to pass, but its introduction had been made to serve as an excuse for a renewed agitation on the subject. He protested against the unfair manner in which that agitation had been conducted, and the reckless fashion in which charges had been scattered about. The hon. Member had referred to certain experiments which were stated to have been made in the hospitals, and instanced a case in which a patient suffering from a fracture had been ordered by a surgeon to be forcibly held down, in order that the students might one after another familiarize themselves with the crepitus produced by rubbing the ends of the broken bone together. Now he (Dr. Cameron) did not believe in that case. At all events, the law provided amply at present against any such outrage or assault. The same remark would apply to the case in which it was alleged that a surgeon had allowed a re-dislocation of the wrist, in order that he might demonstrate the accident to his class. If the hon. Member was possessed of the real facts of the case, and they were as stated, there could not be the smallest difficulty in punishing the surgeon who was guilty of such inhumanity. He should like to say a word or two as to what had occurred at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The hon. Member led the House to infer that there was some connection between the cruelty alleged to have been carried on in the case to which he had referred, and the fact that a licence for experiments on animals had been granted to Glasgow Infirmary. The simple explanation of the fact would be found in this—that there was a medical school attached to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. As to the proceedings in regard to the case of hydrophobia, he had unfortunately not got details by him, because he did not see what possible connection the incident had with vivisection; but he had a strong impression that the surgeon under whose charge the case occurred had been able to explain the whole matter in a satisfactory manner, and to show that there had been gross exaggeration and misrepresentation in regard to it. He knew that the whole circumstances had been brought before the Governors of the Royal Infirmary, and that it was found that nothing had occurred more censurable than carelessness in allowing a dog to run through the Infirmary. So far as he remembered the explanation, everything that took place in the way of experiment took place before the nature of the disease was ascertained, and was undertaken in order that the nature of the disease might be determined. Hydrophobia did not occur, even in such a large institution, once in 10 years, and it was necessary to make some tests or experiments to ascertain the exact symptoms, in order to determine what the disease was. The hon. Member said that, "as might have been expected after such treatment the patient did not recover." He (Dr. Cameron) never heard yet of a patient affected with hydrophobia who did recover; the patient invariably died; so that the death which occurred in this case had nothing to do with the matter. To show the reckless manner in which charges against the medical profession had been made, he might refer to the evidence given by the Secretary of the society—Mr. Jesse—who charged Professor Huxley with encouraging vivisection, because he had published a handbook of physiology for the use of schools, in which, to make his explanations the more effective, he used a very common, though a slightly figurative, form of phraseology. "Take, for example," he said, "an animal, cut its spinal cord, and pinch its foot, and such and such phenomena will occur." "What," said Mr. Jesse, pointing to such a passage, "could be more conclusive as proof that Professor Huxley inculcates the practice of vivisection upon the boys and girls for whom his work is written?" Professor Huxley replied— Well, let us take another passage of the book; for example, this—'If the upper arm of a man, whose arm is stretched out, be tightly grasped by another person, the latter, as the man bends up his forearm, will feel a great soft mass, which lies at the fore part of the upper arm, swell, harden, and become prominent. As the arm is extended again the swelling and hardness vanish. On removing the skin, the body which thus chanes its configuration is found to be a mass of red flesh sheathed in connective tissue.' Are you of opinion that that passage suggests that boys and girls should remove the skin from one another's arms?" "I do not know," replied Mr. Jesse, "I never thought of it before. I should like to take it home and look it over." "The book is accessible to you," retorted Mr. Huxley. "I now take you to page 16 of the same work—'Let any person in the erect position receive a violent blow on the head, and you know what occurs. On the instant he drops prostrate in a heap, with his limbs relaxed and powerless.' Do you think that that is an encouragement to boys and girls to knock one another on the head "I do not know," was Mr. Jesse's reply, "It has rather a tendency that way, I should think, if they are experimentally inclined. He (Dr. Cameron) did not know whether any hon. Members from the sister Island were present; but if there were, and there was anything in the argument of Mr. Jesse, he thought he ought not to have read the extract. Mr. Jesse went farther in his misrepresentations. Without a shadow of proof he accused various hospitals of misappropriating funds which ought to be applied to the treatment of patients to the purposes of vivisection, and he now charged the hon. Member for North-East Lancashire with misappropriating the funds of the Anti-Vivisection Society. A hand-bill had been issued by Mr. Jesse with reference to the action by that hon. Gentleman in connection, he (Dr. Cameron) presumed, with the reformation of the society which the hon. Member had promised to undertake. A portion of it, printed in red ink, ran in these words— The taxed costs saddled upon you by Messrs James Maden Holt, M.P., Harrison, and Bagshawe exceed £500. Though the Chancery suit was never authorized by the subscribers, and was persisted in against the expressed desire of the most munificent and a large majority of the known members of the society, nevertheless, Messrs. J. M. Holt, M.P., Harrison, and Bagshawe do not consent to pay one farthing of the above costs. More unkind still, Mr. Jesse proceeded to turn the hon. Member into ridicule by publishing a number of extracts from the evidence given by him before the Royal Commission, concluding with the extract from The Times, which he (Dr. Cameron) had quoted, and which stigmatized the Bill of the hon. Member as "utterly ridiculous," and stated that physiologists would probably be glad to see it. Since the days when the hon. Member for North Warwickshire accused another hon. Member of being a Jesuit in disguise, there had not been, in Parliamentary experience, anything to equal these recriminations. The funds of the society were now free, and they were being devoted to disfiguring the walls with pictures and disseminating misleading handbills containing gross misrepresentations as to the real opinions of the persons quoted, with regard to vivisection, Sir Thomas Watson was quoted as saying that an experiment at the time of an animal being insensible was really of little or no value. Did that mean that Sir Thomas Watson was a supporter of the Bill of the hon. Member? What Sir Thomas Watson did before the Commission was to give examples of important results which had been obtained from vivisection, and to protest against its incautious restriction. Sir William Fergusson, it was true, thought that the results attributable to vivisection had been greatly exaggerated; but, far from denying that very important results had been obtained, he admitted that these results were of the greatest value, and so little did he approve of the proposi- tion of the hon. Member that he was opposed to any legislation that would trammel scientific men, and suggested that a strong expression of the Commissioners' opinion would be sufficient. Dr. Acland, so far from supporting the hon. Member's proposition, pointed out that observation of the living structures had revolutionized old theories of animal economy, and urged that while incompetent persons should be restrained from making such observations, public opinion was generally sufficient in other cases. Dr. Taylor was also quoted as against these experiments, but his evidence was to the directly contrary effect. Before the Commission he pointed out that experiments were useful for the discovery of antidotes, and, that as new drugs were continually being found, they were necessary for discovering their properties. Again, he pointed out that when chemistry failed to detect a poison, it might be necessary to apply part of the substance said to have produced death to a living subject. Not merely had he repeated these misstatements contained in the society's handbills, but the hon. Member had fallen into other mistakes in the same direction, especially in reference to Sir James Paget mid Professor Haughton. From the official summary of the evidence given before the Commission, which had just been published, he found that Sir James Paget stated that experiments on animals were often necessary in cases of novel inquiry, and that he gave a number of instances of their utility. As to Professor Haughton, that gentleman undoubtedly gave some strong evidence against the state of things which existed previously to the passing of the Act of last year; but what he advocated was the regulation, not the abolition, of vivisection. And if hon. Members would turn to the abstract of his evidence they would find that it contained one of the strongest practical arguments which could be desired against the proposal before the House. They would find that Professor Haughton had himself made some experiments upon frogs, which demonstrated the antagonistic actions of nicotine and strychnine, and that in consequence of the publication of the result of these experiments in America, nicotine was tried as an antidote in a case of strychnine poisoning in the human subject "and proved, as it had since done in five or six cases, success- ful." Thus, these experiments which Professor Haughton himself had undertaken upon frogs, had been instrumental in saying several lives. The amount of vivisection practised in this county was extremely small, and the vivisections which did occur in the country were, as was shown in the Return, entirely painless. There was not a single experiment that was not performed under anæsthetics, and there was not a single case in which the animal had not been killed before its recovery. Even before the passing of the Act of last year the extent of these experiments had been grossly exaggerated. One of the gentlemen whose name had been held up to loudest execration by the anti-vivisectionists was Dr. Klein, who had conducted for the Privy Council investigations into the transmissibility of tubercular or consumptive diseases, and researches into the nature of some of the contagious diseases of cattle. The important facts brought to light by Dr. Klein's investigations afforded ample justification for them. And what was the amount of animal suffering which he had inflicted, and which had brought upon him all this odium? in the course of a year's lectures he used, for purposes of demonstration, according to his evidence, 10 or 12 animals, mostly frogs, no dogs, and possibly one kitten. In his Privy Council experiments with reference to zymotic and epizootic diseases, three monkeys, three dogs, two cats, and four white mice had been used. The experiments, so far as the monkeys were concerned, consisted in giving them infected food, and as the result was to show that the disease experimented on was incapable of being produced in them, the experiment did them not the slightest harm. [Mr. HOLT: Hear, hear!] The hon. Member said "Hear, hear;" but it seemed to him that the monkeys had decidedly the best of it in that experiment. The suffering inflicted on the animals used in these experiments was a mere drop in the ocean as compared with that daily inflicted for agricultural and sporting purposes. If the promoters of this movement wished to illustrate the walls with horrors, they should represent surgical operations on mankind before chloroform was discovered. The hon. Gentleman had for a wonder abstained from following the usual practice of anti-vivisectionists, and denying that experiments upon animals had anything to do with the discovery of chloroform. They were in the habit of asserting that this discovery had been brought about by means of experiments instituted by Professor Simpson on himself and his assistants, forgetting apparently that these were animals of a very important class. To show, however, the value of experiments on the lower animals, even in connection with this discovery, he might mention an incident which had been narrated to him by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Mr. Lyon Mayfair). That right hon. Gentleman was Professor of Chemistry at the time when Dr. Simpson was conducting his researches into the properties of anæsthetics, and he was in the habit of supplying him with such chemical products as Dr. Simpson thought from analogy might he possessed of anæsthetic properties. On one occasion he obtained from him some bi-bromide of methylene, and before proceeding to test its properties upon himself, administered some to some rabbits. The result was apparently most satisfactory; anaesthesia was speedily produced, and the animals recovered without sickness or other bad effect. It was resolved that on the following day Professor Simpson should try the drug himself, and he was about to do so when some one suggested that before proceeding with the experiment they should see how the rabbits were getting on. On visiting them it was found that they had all died during the night. The agent, though apparently harmless, was possessed of deadly properties, and he need hardly say that, under the circumstances, Professor Simpson did not proceed with the experiment upon himself. In this case the life of the discoverer of chloroform—a life the value of which to humanity could not be over-estimated—had, in all probability, been saved by an experiment involving the sacrifice of a few rabbits. The introducer of the Bill had contested the assertion that Hunter's operation for the cure of aneurism was due to his experiments upon animals. Whether Hunter had, in the first place, been led to adopt the correct system by pure inductive reasoning, or through his experiments, he (Dr. Cameron) would not stop to argue, but this was clear—that Hunter had had extensive recourse to experiment in the course of his investi- gations; and that, without the aid of the facts elicited by these experiments, his operation, though it might have been discovered, would not have been established as the practice of surgery. The hon. Member for North-East Lancashire was particularly unfortunate in his selection of the arterial system as his battleground on which to combat the utility of vivisection, for there was no part of the human economy for our knowledge of which we were more clearly indebted to experiments upon animals, than the arterial system. It was by means of vivisection that Galen discovered that arteries were filled with blood, and not with air as was previously supposed. As they had seen, it was to vivisection that Harvey was indebted for the discovery of the circulation of the blood. The present system of tying arteries in operations was the result of experiments on animals made by Mr. Jones. Previous to these experiments, surgeons, in tying arteries, took the greatest care not to cut or bruise them for fear of in-clueing secondary hæmorrhage; but, in spite of all their precautions, the loss of life by secondary hæmorrhage was very great. Mr. Jones, however, discovered by means of his experiments, that if you wished to secure an artery properly, instead of dealing with it too tenderly you must tie it so tightly as to cut its inner coat. He found that if this were done, nature at once set up a reparative process, and secondary hæmorrhage became a rare complication. Again, within the last few years, by means of experiments on animals, Professor Lister had elaborated a most important improvement in the practice of ligaturing arteries. In many cases of operation a fatal irritation was kept up in the wound by the ends of the ligatures used, which had to be left hanging out of the wound until the arteries which they tied sloughed through, and allowed of their removal. Professor Lister, by means of experiments upon calves and other animals, discovered that a ligature prepared with carbolic acid might be cut off short and left to be dealt with by nature—that it gave rise to no abscess or suppuration, but became encapsuled in the surrounding tissue, and in course of time absorbed. Turning from the surgery of the arteries, however, let them look at numberless diseases to which mankind was subjected, and they would find that some of their most valuable knowledge was due to experiments upon the lower animals. Look, for example, at diseases produced by internal parasites. The subject was too technical to enter minutely into in that place; but for all their knowledge of the nature and causes of those diseases and their mode of prevention, they were indebted to such experiments. Then look at cholera. They had not been able to discover any cure for that fell disease, but they had discovered what was almost equally important—the agency by which it was disseminated, and the means to prevent its spread. They had found out the terrible danger which lurked in apparently inoffensive dejecta of cholera patients, and the subtle manner in which these colourless excretions might poison our wells and rivers and convert our sewage system into a hotbed of disease. And how had this important knowledge, which enabled them to combat an epidemic with intelligence and to guard against it with success—how had it been gained? By means of experiments on animals—chiefly white mice. He had a long list of other discoveries in medicine and surgery for which they were indebted to experiments on animals, but he would not weary the House by referring to them further. [Cries of "Go on."] Well, he might refer to the operation of the transfusion of blood—the history of the discovery of vaccination — the practice of resetting joints. By moans of experiments on animals it was shown that if a joint were cut out and the limb treated in a certain way, nature would supply a new joint and the utility of the limb remain very little impaired. Consequently in numerous cases of diseases or injuries of joints, where formerly a limb would have been amputated, the operation of resection was practised, and the patient when cured retained a very useful limb. In the same way it had been demonstrated that the periosteum or membraneous sheath of bone was endowed with the capacity of secreting and regenerating bony tissues, and in many operations involving the excision of diseased bone, the periosteum was now preserved under such conditions as enabled the bone which had perished to be restored. In his Bill of last year the hon. Member had made an exception in favour of experiments on animals under- taken for the purpose of furthering the ends of justice. That exception he had now, however, deliberately cut out. It might, therefore, be well to remind them that the murder by Palmer, which created so much sensation in the country some years ago, was brought home to him chiefly by means of experiments upon frogs. The case, too, against Dr. Pritchard, of Glasgow, who poisoned his wife and his mother-in-law, would, in all probability, have fallen through, had it not been for a series of experiments on animals, instituted by Dr. Penny, which conclusively established his guilt. Turning to the brighter side of the picture, he would refer to the evidence of Dr. Taylor before the Commissioners to show that if experiments were sometimes necessary in order to send men to the gallows, they might be useful in saving men from it. Dr. Taylor mentioned the case of a child which died of symptoms of poisoning, and a post mortem examination resulted in the detection of arsenic in the stomach. The mother was arrested for the murder of her child; but Dr. Taylor and Dr. Pavy investigated the case, and found that the child was suffering from ringworm, and had been treated with an ointment which contained arsenic. By experiments on living animals Dr. Taylor and Dr. Pavy discovered that arsenic being readily absorbed by the skin, traces of it could be found in the stomach in a few hours after it had been applied externally, and by that means the woman, who might otherwise have been consigned to the gallows, was sent forth to the world without a stain upon her character. As he had said, there was not the smallest chance of the present Bill being allowed to pass; and, under ordinary circumstances, he would not have troubled himself to expose the inconsistency of the well-intentioned hobby-mongers who, pursuing the shadowy horrors which they supposed to be flitting about in the 23 licensed physiological laboratories, left unheeded the thousand instances of needless suffering inflicted every day under their very noses, in the shamble, on the moor, and in the farmyard. But while he had simply wondered at the infatuation of a Gentleman who, holding it within the grant by God of the lower animals to man, to mutilate them, to hunt them, and to shoot them down, regarded it as contrary to that grant to sacrifice a few rabbits, white mice, or guinea pigs, for the purposes of acquiring knowledge which might prevent the spread of an epidemic, which might enable the surgeon to save a hundred limbs, or which might rescue the suspected murderer from the gallows—while he should have simply smiled at such infatuation, and the measure in which such ideas were embodied, in view of the agitation that was attempted to be got up under cover of the Bill, and the misrepresentations which were rife on the subject, he had considered it his duty to come forward and explain what appeared to him the real merits of the case and the real nature of the question at issue. He would conclude by moving the rejection of the Bill.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Dr. Cameron.)

MR. HARDCASTLE

supported the second reading of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Dr. Cameron) had endeavoured to meet the case by citing instances which he (Mr. Hardcastle) would admit did not involve any very great suffering, and in which humanity had benefited from experiments made upon the inferior animals, but he entirely overlooked the real point at issue, which was whether those Professors who had recourse to vivisection for the illustration of their teaching could be trusted to keep within the bounds of moderation. To show the length to which some experimentalists would go, he would refer to the fact that in France, where the practice existed, it had been carried to such an extent that those who practised it had become quite callous as regarded the torture to which they subjected the animals on which they experimented. The Report of the Royal Commission bore out the assertion that there had, too, been several instances of the same thing in this country, and it was one of the great difficulties in dealing with this subject that the details were of so painful and revolting a character that it was almost impossible to get persons to listen to them with patience. He would only quote one or two cases mentioned in the Report to show to what lengths the practice had been carried in France, and by Professors and even students in this country. In one instance a celebrated French experimentalist had run red-hot irons into the anterior lobes of the brain of a dog; but, to use his own words, although he beat it severely to keep it quiet afterwards, the animal raised such piteous cries that, for the sake of the neighbours, he was obliged to destroy it "after some days." The same operator cut open a bitch, and while she was lying in torture brought to her her pups, which, notwithstanding her agony, she began to fondle and lick. Another dog, after being cruelly tortured, managed to escape, and sought to propitiate his tormentor by placing his paws upon his shoulders and licking his face, but in vain; he was strapped down again, and the torture continued. But such atrocities were not confined to France. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital 16 cats were cut open while under chloroform, their biliary ducts were tied, and they were allowed to remain in that miserable condition until they died, which in some cases was not for three weeks. Evidence was given that medical students, too, sometimes performed experiments upon live animals, apparently for amusement, for nothing new resulted from their inexperienced researches. With regard to the argument put forward by Professor Huxley, that none but men of science had a right to form an opinion upon this matter, he ridiculed it. He believed that these learned Professors could not safely be trusted with the powers they claimed with reference to this subject. It was impossible to know to what extent they would go. Under the present Home Secretary there was sonic guarantee that the experiments would not be carried to excess; but some day we might have some admirer of those scientific men for Home Secretary, and then God help all the poor dogs and cats of London! A dog was a most intelligent animal. His sense—it was more than instinct—soon detected what was going on, and there could be no doubt that when dogs were put in a place for the purpose of vivisection, and one of them after another was taken away, the remaining dogs, scenting blood, suffered in anticipation the torture that awaited them. In dealing with so intelligent an animal as a dog, we were dealing with a creature that suffered far more than inferior animals, which were unconscious of the fate that awaited them; and as regarded the argument that shooting and hunting inflicted more torture on the brute creation than vivisection, it was to contrast the aggregate pain of thousands with the concentrated agony of one — which was absurd. Besides, man was by nature a hunting animal, and there could be no comparison between killing fairly in the chase, or for food, and strapping a writhing creature to a board to torture it for hours. He did not pretend to a scientific view of the case, but he dreaded lest the power should be left in the hands of the vivisectors to practise such cruelties as those which he had described. He thought that sufficient evidence had not been advanced to show that the beneficial results were at all proportionate to the cruelties and suffering which the experiments involved, and, therefore, he had pleasure in seconding the Motion for the second reading of the Bill.

MR. M'LAREN

said, he had listened with very great attention to the address of his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), and although he did not agree with his conclusions, he certainly admired the talent and research, and the arguments which he had adduced. But it seemed to him that one large portion of his hon. Friend's argument was altogether beside the question which naturally agitated the public mind. His hon. Friend dwelt largely on the effects of poison, and the advantages which arose from experiments made with poisons upon animals. But the form of vivisection which the public complained of was not that animals were poisoned. The cruelty which the public protested against was taking a living dog or other animal, pinioning him down to a table, making incisions in his body, exposing his intestines—it might be his heart—or practically dissecting the body to show the nervous system, and doing all these things on animals for the alleged benefit of science. This was not a new agitation, nor was it an unreasonable one, because the society who worked in this great city for the protection of animals against cruelty were almost unanimously willing to consent to Lord Carnarvon's Bill as originally introduced by the Government. If that Bill bad been allowed to pass into law, there would, he believed, have been very little, if any, agitation at the present time. But that Bill was entirely altered. The Bill in its original shape showed a desire on the part of the Government to put an end to what was complained of as far as possible; but it was altered again and again until it became a kind of licensing Bill—a measure for licensing parties to do what the original Bill was intended to stop altogether. He admitted that in the present Home Secretary they found a very humane administrator; but that might not always be so, and, moreover, it was not a wise thing to make the option depend upon the good will of one man whether these laws should he administered or not. To show that what he had stated respecting the objects of the Society for the Protection of Animals liable to Vivisection was correct, he would read a passage from their Report, in which they stated— If Lord Carnarvon's Bill had been suffered to pass in its original form the Society would have recognized it as a tolerably fair compromise between humanity and science, and would have dropped further agitation. That showed that the most influential parties engaged in the present agitation were not unreasonable men, who were prepared to set themselves against everything of this nature, but were willing to accept a fair compromise. It had been strongly alleged that the Royal Commission was, if not literally, almost altogether in favour of the present state of the law; that they discovered there was no real and solid cause of alarm or distrust, and that there was no great degree of cruelty manifested, so far as an opinion might be formed upon the evidence that had been laid before them. Now, the Royal Commission in their Report stated that very severe experiments were constantly performed, and witnesses had spoken from personal knowledge of the sufferings which had been often unnecessarily inflicted in the name of science. He thought that after such a statement it was really going too far to say that the Report of the Royal Commission was in effect to whitewash all the parties charged with cruelty in the matter of vivisection. They went on to say— It must be accepted as a proof of the willingness of men of the highest eminence in science to submit to the consideration of the Legislature this difficult question. The Royal Commission here referred to the fact that the most eminent physiologists in London were averse to vivisection to the extent to which it had been carried; that they were most willing to put a stop to it, if not altogether, at least to a great extent; and that they were disposed to co-operate with the Government in promoting the Bill which was introduced on the subject. This showed that the leading men of the Medical Profession were in favour of something effective being done. What those opposed to vivisection now complained of was, that this had not been done, and they said that if the Legislature would not reduce its use to a minimum which would not affect the public feeling, they must insist on the abolition of the whole thing. He (Mr. M'Laren) did not contend for the absolute prohibition of vivisection but he thought that the latitude that was at present given was much too great. Reference had been made in the debate to the alleged discreditable opposition that had been brought forward in some instances on the side of the question which he now supported. He did riot know exactly what was referred to, but he was aware of opposition of a very discreditable kind that had been brought forward on the other side of the question. Not very long ago he had the honour of presiding at a public meeting in the city which it was his privilege to represent, and which contained the largest medical school in the United Kingdom. It was a meeting to hear a lecture on his side of the question, from a very eminent man, Dr. Childs, of London. And what was the discreditable conduct of their opponents? It was that a band of 40 or 50 medical students took possession of conspicuous parts of the room, and shouted, whistled, and stamped, and made every conceivable noise, so that it was impossible for the address to go on. He now spoke of what he saw, and he had then to declare that the lecture could not be proceeded with, and dissolved the meeting. When Dr. Childs was afterwards invited to a meeting held in a larger hall, a much larger body of students appeared at the second meeting than at the first, and effectively prevented the delivery of the address in support of the cause which he had now the honour to advocate. Dr. Childs, on both occasions, was put down by mere physical, brute force, by noise and clamour; and if the word "discreditable" could be used at all, in connection with the discussion of this subject, he said that no proceedings could be pointed to in any part of the Empire to equal the discreditable proceedings that took place on the part of the medical students of Edinburgh in order to prevent the other side of the question from being stated. It was supposed after the first meeting, that the medical Professors would have used their influence to restrain the students, and keep them away from the second meeting; but, so far as his informants had been able to learn, no such efforts were made. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow had referred to the feeling, on this question, of a distinguished surgeon, now no more—Sir William Fergusson. He had not the evidence of Sir William Fergusson before him, which his hon. Friend had stated was to the effect that vivisection had, in certain cases, done good. He would not willingly impugn his hon. Friend's accuracy, because he knew that he would not make any statement which he did not think the evidence would bear out, but he (Mr. M'Laren) had a strong recollection that in reading that evidence, he found Sir William Fergusson declared that he had never known of any important discovery having been made through vivisection. The entire address of his hon. Friend was to the effect that to stop vivisection would be to stop scientific progress, and that the experiments that were made were necessary in the interest of science. He was informed, on very good authority, that in the larger medical classes many experiments were made on living animals, merely for the purpose of showing by observation to the students that things were true which they knew and believed to be true without those exhibitions of cruelty. In a respectable London paper this paragraph occurred respecting one of the Professors in the Medical School of Edinburgh, who was examined as a witness before the Royal Commission— Professor Rutherford has not been allowed to ask to repeat his old frightful experiment on the capillary organs of thirty dogs—an experiment conducted, as the Professor boasted at the meeting of the Royal Society in Edinburgh on 6th March last, without either chloroform or opium, and which Sir William Thomson, one of the most distinguished scientific men in the Empire, afterwards declared, in a letter to The Scots- man of the following day, is not justified by either the objects proposed or the results obtained or obtainable. Now, he knew there were thousands of people whose feelings were harrowed by the cruel experiments, as they considered them, that were made in the medical school of Edinburgh. He knew also that this feeling had gone so far that parties who had subscribed liberally to the new building for extending the medical school had said that if they had known such practices existed they would never have subscribed one farthing. He cordially supported the second reading, but admitted that in Committee a few Amendments would have to be made in the Bill.

MR. FORSYTH,

in opposing the measure, said, he was one of those who bad originally joined heartily in the agitation against vivisection which resulted in the Act of last year, and he entirely sympathized with the motive of those who had brought forward the Bill. We all abhorred cruelty, but there was such a thing as zeal without discretion, and he thought the advocates of the Bill had let their zeal outrun their discretion. He believed that the Act of last year provided sufficient safeguards against further cruelties, inasmuch as it provided that no animal could be experimented upon, unless it was at the time as destitute of feeling as the table before him, with the further condition that it should be put to death before it passed from an insentient to a sentient state. They ought, he thought, to be content with that, without endeavouring to debar the surgeon from the whole field of discovery. He thought it was absurd that experiments should be prevented on living animals, when precautions were taken to absolutely annihilate the pain. If the object of the Bill had been to repeal a Proviso in the Act of last year, allowing vivisection without anæsthetics in cases where their use would frustrate the object of experiment, he should have voted for it. He could not believe that it was right for any scientific purpose to inflict pain on sentient beings. The Bill would not allow the making of even painless experiments with the view of discovering means of removing human suffering. It contained a provision against an infliction of wanton injury upon a vertebrate animal. That phrase included men, birds, reptiles, and fishes, and excluded the whole insect world. I He should like to know on what ground the Bill was limited in that manner? Why was the beetle, for instance, to be excluded? Shakespeare said— The poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. It was the bounden duty of those who supported the Bill to show that, notwithstanding the Act which was passed last year, torture had still been inflicted upon animals, but not a single case had been adduced to-day. The supporters of the Bill had not shown that the Act of last Session had been evaded or was a failure, and as its operation had not yet been sufficiently tested, he should oppose the second reading of the present Bill.

MR. COWPER - TEMPLE

observed that the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) and the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Forsyth) had argued on the assumption of the efficiency of the Act. It was too soon to judge of its results. Although the applications for licences had been few, for experiments in laboratories, where was the security that unlicensed cruel experiments had not been made? The names of the vivisectors were kept secret, and the Inspector must have great difficulty in discovering and proving any evasion of the Act. We knew that experiments were generally conducted in private laboratories; but the Act did not contain any effective machinery by which such evasion could be brought home to those who practised in those places. The Home Secretary did not give the names of the gentlemen who had received licences to make experiments, and the public had no means of ascertaining them. That was a new thing in the administration of this country. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Member for Glasgow as to the administration of chloroform to animals, in order that experiments upon them might be conducted without pain, it should be remembered that in the case of a human being, chloroform had to be frequently administered during a prolonged operation, and the human being could give notice that a fresh dose of chloroform was necessary, but animals could not do so. Again, it was not by any means certain whether the administration of anæsthetics had the same effect on the lower animals which they had on man. The application of anæsthetics was troublesome and expensive, and might often be ineffectual, unless especial care was used. In various parts of Europe lectures on physiology were accompanied by experiments on living animals which frequently involved great suffering and even torture to the animals operated upon. Those experiments were not made for the discovery of some new truth, but for striking illustration of lectures, and to demonstrate the effects and action of pain upon the nerves of sensation. If such a horrible system became the common method of studying physiology, it must tend to harden the feeling of students and make them indifferent to the infliction of pain, and he should like to hear some reason assigned why these most cruel and revolting exhibitions were so indispensably necessary? It was, he thought, creditable to the British nation that it had given more attention to the prevention of cruelty to animals than some Continental nations; but there was a danger of cruel physiological experiments being introduced from abroad which rendered it a matter worthy of serious consideration whether they ought not to have a more efficient and stringent Act on their Statute Book than the one of last Session. He did not say that they ought at once to pass another law on that subject; but he was glad that question had been again brought under discussion, because he feared that a spirit of reckless indifference to animal suffering would become prevalent unless effective means were taken before long to repress the abuses to which he had referred.

DR. LUSH

said, that many of those who supported the Bill were animated by a fictitious, and in some respects factitious, enthusiasm. They spoke as if the Act of last year had not passed, and referred to experiments of a cruel and revolting kind, which could not now take place in this country. He thought that when Gentlemen of calm judgment spoke in that House of exposing to young persons the suffering and palpitating internal anatomy of living animals on the dissecting table, it was evident that people of less balanced minds would be still further carried away by their feelings on that question. He could not understand how the last speaker (Mr. Cowper-Temple), believing in the existence of the horrible cruelties which he said were perpetrated in foreign Universities, could have had the heart to schedule those Universities in a Bill, as he had done, as fit places for the education of ladies. Everything relating to foreign countries, however, was quite outside the sphere of the present debate, and many of the speeches delivered that day would have been more appropriate when the Act of last year was under discussion. It was alleged to be unnecessary that actual physiological experiments should be carried out before persons who in after-life were to have the responsible care of the injuries and ailments to which men were subject; but he thought that if the high character of the British medical Profession was to be sustained, it was absolutely necessary that those who were to be our future practitioners should not be mere phantom physicians and surgeons, deriving their ideas from diagrams and papers only, but must have an opportunity of witnessing life as it existed. With regard to the conduct of the students of Edinburgh University on the occasion of the lectures in favour of the suppression of vivisection, he did not agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren). He had attended many meetings at which young men had been present, and he had always noticed on their part a desire to act with discretion, and he could not help thinking that the hon. Member had cast an undeserved slur upon the beneficent society which existed in the University. The 3rd clause of that Bill would be practically inoperative, because there were many animals which for agricultural and other purposes underwent operations amounting to positive vivisection, and sometimes to vivisection in its grossest and most painful form, from which that clause would not protect them. He further maintained that the Act of last year had not had time to develop its power; while he also denied either that there was any desire on the part of medical men to evade that Act, or that the Home Secretary had shown any unwillingness to carry it into full and fair effect. On the other hand, a false cry of humanity had been raised in favour of the present Bill, which he trusted the House would reject by a large majority.

SIR GEORGE JENKINSON

hoped that the House would adopt the principle of the measure, the details of which, if too drastic and stringent, could be amended in Committee. They could not enforce the law, unless they had a register of all those who were licensed; and he thought the most important provisions of the Bill were those which referred to the registration of places where vivisection experiments were carried on, because they afforded checks for the prevention of malpractices. He believed that if the Act of last Session had been passed in its integrity, it would have satisfied public opinion, and that there would have been no occasion to have brought forward the present measure. That Act, however, was defective in regard to ensuring the use of anesthetics, which should, in his opinion, be made obligatory in all experiments on animals without exception. He trusted that the Bill would be read a second time so that it might be considered and, if necessary, modified in Committee.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON,

speaking on behalf of the Government, said, that while as sincerely hostile as anybody could be to the cruelties complained of, he did not think that a sufficient ease had been made out in favour of the present Bill. When they were told of the tortures inflicted by students experimenting on dogs in England, he must observe that those were the arguments used last year to induce them to adopt the measure on that subject which then became law. He could state from his personal knowledge of that Act that it had been entirely successful in effecting the purposes for which it was passed. It had been said that there was no means of knowing whether there had been any evasion; but he would remind the House that formerly no difficulty had been found in discovering cases in which pain had been inflicted on animals. A further allegation was that it did not provide that the animals experimented upon should be effectually protected from pain by the use of anæsthetics; but the fact was that the Act required the person operating to possess a scientific certificate and also to have the sanction of the Secretary of State, while the animal operated upon must be placed under the influence of some anæsthetic of sufficient power to prevent pain, and if the experiment was one which would cause it to suffer afterwards, the animal must be killed before the effects of the anæsthetic had ceased. Not only had the Act worked as it was intended to do, but his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had found in the whole profession of physiologists and those who practised experiments the greatest readiness and the greatest wish thoroughly to carry out the Act. Not a single instance of its violation or evasion had been adduced, and surely it would be absurd to repeal the Act and pass another which they had refused to accept last year. It had been frequently stated and circulated that the use of anæsthetics under the Act was entirely optional; but no allegation could be more misleading or contrary to the fact than that notion. Every precaution was adopted in respect to those licences, and there was only one instance in which an experiment had been sanctioned without the absolute use of anæsthetics. Any case of evasion, or of the infringement of the conditions of the licence, would soon be discovered. It was not the fact, as his hon. Friend (Mr. Holt) had suggested, that the learned Bodies issued these licences. The Secretary of State, having the opinion of learned and scientific men before him, issued his certificate upon his own responsibility, and no matter who might happen to preside at the Home Office at any time, the public opinion of the House and the country would be a guarantee against any Minister abusing his functions from any feeling in favour of vivisection. He could not consent to the second reading of the Bill, considering that sufficient time had not elapsed to ascertain the practical operation of the Act of last year, and believing that a proposition to repeal an Act of the Legislature within a year after its passing was quite unprecedented. He therefore asked the House to maintain the beneficial legislation it adopted only last Session, and which, while restraining the horrors that were perpetrated in days gone by, yet allowed, with comparative immunity from pain to the lower animals, those advances in medical science to be made which it would be contrary to the public interest to arrest.

MR. HOLT

replied, remarking that if the Act of last year had been passed in the form in which it was originally introduced, the country would have been much better satisfied. Some future Home Secretary might licence experiments of as horrible a kind as any ever performed in this country or abroad; and he objected to a law permitting any man to authorize experiments of that character. He quoted a statement to the effect that young ladies at Girton. College attended the lectures at the University Laboratory, and on reaching the more advanced course of demonstrations might be taken to see experiments in which rabbits were suffocated under the influence of chloral, which he believed, in the opinion of some physiologists, was not an anæsthetic. Was that, he asked, a fit school in which young ladies should study? He hoped that the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) would vote for the second reading of the Bill, and then in Committee move to strike out the word "vertebrate." For himself, he was for protecting invertebrate as well as vertebrate animals, and he had only confined the Bill to the latter, in consequence of a representation that it would in that form better meet the views of the weak brethren.

MR. BROMLEY-DAVENPORT

expressed a hope that next year a Bill would be brought in excluding dogs from the influence of anæsthetics.

Question put, "That the word ' now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 83; Noes 222: Majority 139.—(Div. List, No. 109.)

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put of for six months.