1. Anti-Vivisection Societies
The early history of the anti-vivisection movement is given in a pamphlet by Dr. Leffingwell, of Brooklyn, entitled "The Rise of the Vivisection Controversy"; and in a pamphlet published by the National Anti-vivisection Society, entitled "Dates of the Principal Events connected with the Anti-vivisection Movement." Dr. Leffingwell calls attention to a fact not generally known—that the movement, in this country, was begun by the medical journals. The Medical Times and Gazette in 1858, the Lancet in 1860, and the British Medical Journal in 1861 condemned in a very outspoken way certain experiments made on the Continent, and raised the question whether these or any experiments on animals could be justified. Later, in 1872, the Medical Times and Gazette declared outright that all experiments, from the time of Magendie onward, had done nothing for humanity that could be compared to the discovery and use of cod-liver oil and bark. In 1874, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took proceedings against those who had made certain experiments at Norwich during a meeting of the British Medical Association. These experiments, and the publication of the Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory, roused public comment; and during 1875 the opposition to all experiments on animals took more definite form. On June 22nd, 1875, the Royal Commission was appointed; on January 8th, 1876, its report was dated; and on August 15th, 1876, the present Act received the Royal assent.
At the time when the Royal Commission was appointed, the only anti-vivisection society was that which Mr. Jesse had just started; and if any one will read Mr. Jesse's cross-examination, by Professor Huxley, before the Royal Commission, he will not attach much importance to that society. The National Anti-vivisection Society was founded in November 1875; the Irish Society, the London Society, and the International Association in 1876; the Church Anti-vivisection League in 1889, the Humanitarian League and the National Canine Defence League[45] in 1891, and the British Union about 1898. These dates show that the oldest of these societies came after the Royal Commission, not before it; the first societies and the Royal Commission were alike the expression of a widespread opinion, thirty years ago, that experiments on animals ought either to be forbidden or to be restricted. This same opinion had been favoured, fifteen years before that, by the representative journals of the medical profession. We have seen something of the work of the medical profession; let us now see something of the work of the societies.
The chief anti-vivisection societies in this country are the National Society, the London Society, the British Union, the Church League, and the Canine Defence League. In February 1898, the National Society declared itself in favour of restriction; it set before itself abolition as its ultimate policy, and restriction as its immediate practical policy. Thus, at the present time, these societies are divided into two parties: one asks for restriction, another asks for nothing short of abolition. This division between them, and the tone of the National Society toward the smaller Societies, waste their energy and their funds, and hinder them from working together. The National Society, in its official journal (January 1902), speaks as follows of this schism, in a leader entitled "The Folly of our Subdivisions":—
"Nobody seems to know how many Anti-vivisection Societies there are. A few hundred Anti-vivisectionists divide themselves up into divisions, subdivisions, coteries, and cliques, without order, without discipline, without cohesion. The Anti-vivisectionists between them all contribute but a few thousands a year, and dribble them around among multitudinous antagonistic associations.... The pitiful absurdity of the disunion fostered by some Anti-vivisectionists was illustrated very forcibly last year by the issue of a prospectus of a Society with a world-embracing title, in which its promoters declared that irreparable injury would be inflicted upon our cause if electoral work were not taken up by them.... The accounts of this stupendous organisation showed that its total expenditure for the year was £13, 19s. 4d., out of which ten shillings was devoted to 'electoral work.' ... A much graver injury is done to the cause of mercy by the deplorable waste of money spent in perfectly unnecessary offices and salaries. We say that one office would amply suffice for all the work, and that one office would not need half-a-dozen paid Secretaries. The existence of many quite needless Societies cannot be justified on any grounds of humanity combined with common sense."
Nothing need be added to these very grave admissions, written by Mr. Coleridge himself. He proposes a very simple remedy for these "quite needless" societies:—
"The National Society, as the chief Anti-vivisection organisation in the world, is always ready to put an end to this grievous waste by receiving into its corporation any of the smaller Societies."
But the leaders of smaller societies have two grounds of complaint against Mr. Coleridge's society: they do not believe in his policy, and they will not submit to his "discipline." They call his society "the weak-kneed brethren," and say that its policy is "miserable, cowardly, and misleading"; and they take it ill that he so often accuses them of inaccuracy. He refers again and again (see the official journal of the National Society) to this mode of discipline:—
December 1901.—"I decline to be made responsible for the 'anti-vivisection party.' There happen to be small anti-vivisection associations whose chief occupation is the dissemination of quite inaccurate pamphlets. I have nothing to do with them, and cannot prevent anything they choose to do."
January 1902.—"Time after time has this sacred cause been undermined and betrayed by its professing friends by their reckless habit of making erroneous statements."
March 1902.—"I am quite aware that with many of my opponents in the exclusive total-abolition coterie, the motives that actuate them are far removed from the question of the salvation of the wretched animals, and have their foundation in emotions that seem to me singularly unworthy and petty."
May 1902.—"As representative of the National Society, I have again and again written to the representatives of some of the smaller anti-vivisection societies, protesting in plain terms against their publication of inaccurate statements."
No society could submit to be thus taken to task four times in six months. The Church League writes to him, "What the Church League may or may not think fit to say does not in the very least concern you, who are not a member of the League. Interference in such a matter from an outsider is an obvious impertinence." Such rejoinders are met, in their turn, by angry leaders, "A Stab in the Back," "Stabs in the Back," in the National Society's official journal; and the Hon. Secretary of the London Society, who is a lady, is accused of want of chivalry for Mr. Coleridge. The leader, "A Stab in the Back" (April 1902), is a curious instance of the tone of one anti-vivisection society toward another:—
"The time when a man is assailed by a large section of the press, threatened with violence by laymen, attacked on points relevant by vivisectors and points irrelevant by their supporters, is scarcely the moment that a generous rival would have chosen for hurling a dart; and yet, incredible as it may appear, the Honorary Secretary of another Anti-vivisection Society, seizing an opportunity afforded by an article in the Globe, enters the arena, and, by a letter repudiating any connection with Mr. Coleridge, appears to sanction the unfriendly criticisms expressed in that paper. It needed no chivalry to refrain from writing such a letter. A small amount of good taste would have amply sufficed.... This letter, which will convince the public of nothing but the writer's lack of taste, might well be ignored were it not that it is but one of the many attacks made by members of other societies, either by open statement or innuendo, against the Honorary Secretary of the National Society."
But we cannot wonder at these occasional stabs. For the National Society does not stop at charging other societies with inaccuracy. It makes yet graver charges against them. Here are three made by Mr. Coleridge's society against Miss Cobbe's and Mr. Trist's societies:—
March 1901.—"The February number of the Abolitionist contains a leading article in which allusions are made to subjects that are never discussed by decent people even in private. As the leading organ of the Anti-vivisection movement, we enter our solemn protest against the publication of this unspeakable article, which must inevitably inflict the gravest injury upon our cause."
February 1903.—"It is our duty to inform our readers that Mr. Trist has published the correspondence, but that he has mutilated it, omitting some of his own letters altogether, and excising whole paragraphs of Mr. Stewart's letters."
June 1903.—"Our amiable contemporary, the Abolitionist, is good enough, in a long article in its last issue, to suggest to those preparing the libel action against Mr. Coleridge what are the most vulnerable points in his armour."
Thus divided in policy, and quarrelling among themselves, these societies are still agreed in appealing to the public for approval and for money. Here the London Society's opposition to the National Society comes out clearly. In its annual report (1903) the London Society says:—
"Join a really effective Society with a frank and straightforward policy—namely, the London Anti-vivisection Society, 13 Regent Street, London, S.W. This is a National and International organisation. It has greater medical support than any other. It is the most 'alive' humane organisation in the world.... Get into touch with the society. Write to us. We shall be glad to hear from you and answer any questions."
"If you can provide for the Society's future in your Will, may we beg of you to do so? If you agree, pray do it now. Thousands of pounds have been lost to the Society and the Cause by the fatal procrastination of well-meaning friends. The pity of it! Legacies should be left in these exact words: 'To the London Anti-vivisection Society.' Caution. It is of great importance to describe very accurately the Title of this Society—namely, The LONDON Anti-vivisection Society—otherwise the benevolent intentions of the Donor may be frustrated. Please Note.—Those charitable persons who have left money to the Society would do well to notify the same to the Secretary."
Contrast the tone of this appeal for money with the tone of the Report:——
"Your Society are glad to note that the Christian Churches are becoming alarmed at the pretensions of scientific authority.... The Christian laity has been largely uninstructed or misinformed on this grave question.... Happily, the signs of the times are propitious; not all of the leaders of religious thought in this country have succumbed to the dictation and pretensions of the professors of vivisection ... a base and blatant materialism, a practice which owes its inception to barbarism, and which has developed in materialism of the lowest possible order."
Surely such eloquence should avail to tear the money even out of the hands of the dying, lest the National Society should get it. The National Society, oddly enough, also says: "Caution.—It is of great importance to describe very accurately the Title of this Society—namely, The National Anti-vivisection Society—otherwise the benevolent intentions of the Donor may be frustrated." I do not know which of these two societies is the inventor of this phrase. Still, it is not improbable that the National Society receives more money than all the smaller societies together. Of course, we cannot compare the working expenses of an anti-vivisection society with the working expenses of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The former of these two societies in one year obtained 8798 convictions; in one month alone, 689 convictions; and it paid the full costs of committing 34 of the 689 to prison. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has an equally good record. But an anti-vivisectionist society cannot show results of this kind. Nor can we compare its working expenses to those of a missionary society; for the missionaries give direct personal service to their fellow-men. But we can fairly compare an anti-vivisection society to an anti-vaccination society or a Church of Christian Science. That is to say, it is a publishing body. In 1902, the National Society's expenditure, in round numbers, was £970 on printing and stationery; £1193 on rent, salaries, and wages; £1255 on books, newspapers, periodicals, &c., including the Illustrated Catalogue and the Hospital Guide; £1380 on lectures, meetings, organising new branches, &c.; and about £500 on all other expenses. Let us take, to illustrate these figures, what the National Society says from time to time in its official journal:—
June 1899.—(From the Society's Annual Report): "The whole controversy has been collected and published in pamphlet form by your Society, and more than 10,000 copies have already been issued to the public. Over 200 people have joined your ranks and become members of the Society in consequence of it, while two cheques of £1000 each were received by Mr. Coleridge in aid of the cause."
June 1899.—"We have received more money within the past six months than we got in any two years previously."
June 1899.—"We cannot better employ the funds at our disposal than in securing the constant help of experts to insure the accuracy of all our statements, and in sending well-informed lecturers to every city in the kingdom."
June 1900.—(From the Society's Annual Report): "The receipts of the society from subscriptions and donations show an increase over those of the previous year. This increase in itself, however, would hardly have justified the increase in the expenses which it has been found necessary to incur in almost every department, and especially in the distribution of pamphlets and papers, had it not been for some legacies which fell due, notably one from——, of £6386."
May 1901.—"With heartfelt gratitude we have once more to announce that the National Society has received a gift of a thousand pounds from an anonymous donor. Nothing could be more opportune for the Cause than this munificent support, coming as it does just as the issue of 20,000 copies of Mr. Stephen Coleridge's Hospital Guide has been made at so great a cost to the Society."
June 1901.—"Our editorial table is buried deep in press cuttings from all parts of the kingdom."
March 1902.—"We employ two press-cutting agencies to send us cuttings from the journals of the whole English-speaking world."
July 1903.—"We start branches in various towns, and send lecturers to speak at working men's clubs and debating societies. All this means a very large expense. We very often issue a pamphlet likely to do good by the tens of thousands. Last year we issued 50,000 copies of the 'Illustrated German Catalogue of Vivisectional Instruments and Appliances.'"
The smaller societies, of course, spend their funds in the same sort of way. Thus the National Canine Defence League says that its anti-vivisection work, the most important of all its works, is earnestly carried forward by (1) The Writer's League, in a ceaseless flow of letters to the press; (2) The circulation of lists of hospitals free from the shameful practice; (3) The publication of twenty-one strong leaflets on the subject; (4) The circulation of 300 copies of a book on the subject. This society in two years sent out 650,000 leaflets and pamphlets; but they were not all of them about experiments on animals. Another Society, in a report published in 1902, enumerates the methods which it employs for "the education of the public at large." These include (a) the publication of literature; (b) the holding of public meetings in all parts of the United Kingdom; (c) the delivery of lectures with or without limelight illustrations; (d) participation in debates even with high scientific authorities; (e) inducing the clergy and ministers of all Churches to deliver sermons dealing with the subject; (f) organisation of a press bureau, through which the newspaper press of the country is watched, and correspondence and articles contributed. This Society has also a van, "the only one of its kind in existence. No sooner is our winter and spring campaign concluded than the van takes up the thread of the work and carries it on through the summer, and it may truly be said that the track of the van across country is white with the literature which the van circulates on its educational mission."
It is evident, from these and the like statements, that these Societies, during the last quarter of a century, have published a vast quantity of literature. We must examine the style of that literature during some recent years, and the arguments which it puts forward. But, before we do this, let us consider what attitude is taken by these Societies, or by well-known members of this or that Society, toward certain problems and interests that closely concern them.
I
They do not hesitate to take advantage of all those improvements of medicine and surgery which have been made by the help of experiments on animals. They denounce the work of the present; but they enjoy all the results of the past, and will enjoy all those of the near future. "If anything of value to medicine has been discovered by vivisection, it would be as absurd to reject it on that account as it would be to abandon Ireland because centuries ago we took it by force." And again: "We are no more morally bound to reject benefits acquired by indefensible means than are the descendants of slaveholders bound to abandon wealth originally acquired by the detestable abomination of slavery." And again, the Animal's Friend (November 1903) takes as further instances the benefits derived from body-snatching, political assassination, and the French Revolution. But, in the matter of experiments on animals, it is the very same men and women who denounce these experiments and who profit by them. What should we say of an anti-slavery reformer who was himself drawing a vast income out of the slave trade?
But there is one gentleman, and, so far as I know, only one, who did carry his opinions into practice. He told the story at a debating meeting—how his little girl had a sore throat, and the doctor wanted to give antitoxin, and he forbade it, and the child recovered. "Of course," he says, "it was only an ordinary sore throat." Truly, a great victory, and a brave deed, to make an experiment on your own sick child.
II
The attitude of these Societies toward sport may seem at first sight purely negative; but it is worth study. I have the honour of knowing a very eminent physiologist who will never shoot, because he thinks it cruel—a man much abused by the National Society. And Lord Llangattock, the President of that Society, is well known as an a "ardent sportsman."
This contrast is of some interest. Let us see what the National Society says about sport. Of course, it is not bound to attack sport. But the reasons which it gives for remaining neutral are to be noted.
1. It says, very truly, that it is in great part supported by sportsmen.
2. It says, further, that the cruelties of sport lie outside its own proper work:—
"Our opponents frequently ask us why we do not attack some form of cruelty other than vivisection, which they consider more heinous. Our Honorary Secretary recently summarised this argument in his own amusing manner thus: We must not arrest the man in Tooting for kicking his wife till we have stopped the woman in Balham starving her children, and we must not arrest the woman in Balham for starving her children until we have stopped the man in Tooting kicking his wife." (1901.)
Later (1903) the dramatis personæ are a man in East Islington jumping on his wife, and a woman in West Islington stabbing her husband. But this argument, of course, will not hold. For it is the same men who denounce wounds made (under anæsthetics) for physiology, and who make wounds (without anæsthetics) in sport.
3. It says that the "object" of the sportsman is to kill; but the "object" of the experimenter is to torture:—
"There is a vast difference between the killing of animals and the torturing of them before killing them. The object of the sportsman is to kill his quarry; the object of the vivisector is to keep his victim alive while he dissects it."—Mr. Wood (1903).
"The object of the sportsman is to kill, and the object of the vivisector is to keep his victim alive while he cuts it up."—Lord Llangattock (1901).
"The vivisector is nothing if not a tormentor; the sportsman is not a true sportsman if he seeks to inflict pain on his quarry.... One (the pain of a horse falling on asphalt) is the result of an accident to be deplored, the other (the pain from an experiment) is done of devilish malice prepense."—Leader in the Society's official journal, (1899).
"I am not so mentally and ethically confused as to be unable to distinguish between the entirely different moral acts of killing and torturing."—Mr. Coleridge (1901).
Here are four statements. One is by Mr. Wood, the Society's lecturer; one by Lord Llangattock, its President; one is published in its official journal; and one is by Mr. Coleridge, its honorary secretary and treasurer. That is the sort of thing which seems good enough to the National Society to say to its friends in Parliament; this childish nonsense about the true sportsman and his quarry.
III
The attitude of these Societies toward the medical profession, and toward the Hospitals, must be studied. Let us look through some numbers of the official journal of the National Society, and see the attitude that it sometimes takes toward the medical profession:—
June 1899.—"The charm of this sort of thing is that you are always sure of the post-mortem if of nothing else."
July 1899.—"There is a disease, well known to the vestrymen of London, called 'the half-crown diphtheria.' This is common sore throat, notified as diphtheria because the vestry pays a fee of half-a-crown to the medical notifier."
December 1899.—"The patient died, made miserable by the effect of inoculations which even on bacteriological grounds gave no promise of success, but the scientific physician, nowadays, must inject something in the way of a serum."
March 1901.—"There will always be those who, unable to think for themselves or exercise their independence on therapeutic methods, are prone to bow down before authority which is self-assertive enough to compel the obedience of weak minds. Such men would inject antitoxin though every case died. They administer it not knowing why."
April 1901.—(From "Our Cause in the Press"): "What effort does the medical profession make to make clear to its clients what is well known to itself, that disease is the result of wrong living? Practically none at all. The medical profession as a whole have winked at sin, and have merely sought to antidote its results."
September 1901.—"Some day we shall have our surgeons disembowelling us just to see what daylight and fresh air will do for the stomach-ache."
December 1901.—"The new medicine demands a mere laboratory habit; the patient is nothing, the disease everything. He is a test-tube; such and such reagents are needed to produce a certain result, and there you are. The patient's malady, be it what it may, is due to a microbe, a toxin, or a ptomaine; he must be inoculated with the serum or antitoxin which counteracts his disease, and this must be done not secundum artem but secundum scientiam, and the science means the inoculating syringe and so many cubic centimetres of filth wherewith to poison the man's blood and so cure his disease, though the victims die."
December 1903.—(From "Our Cause in the Press"): "Not only did we see great callousness in the field hospitals in South Africa, but conversation with the class that finds its way into our hospitals in England will reveal that a great deal of refined cruelty is constantly occurring."
Why does the official journal of Mr. Coleridge's society publish these things? For this reason—that it must attack those methods that were discovered by the help of experiments on animals. The medical profession uses these methods. Therefore, that profession must be attacked.
The same reason, of course, helps to explain the National Society's attack on the great Hospitals of London. It would take too long to tell here the whole story of that attack. Three charges were made against the Hospitals: (1) that they maltreat patients; (2) that they promote the torture of animals; (3) that they endow this torture at the cost of the patients. They were accused, to put it plainly, of treachery and fraud; and of course the Council of the King's Hospital Fund got its share of abuse. Mr. Coleridge said on this subject:—
1. (Annual meeting at St. James's Hall, May 1901): "How have Lord Lister, the vivisector, and his Committee distributed the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund? They have so distributed this fund as to make it clear to hospital managers that the more they connect their hospitals with the torture of animals the larger will be the grant they may expect to get from the Prince of Wales's Fund. That fund, therefore, has been used as an insidious but powerful incentive to vivisection."
2. (Annual meeting at St. James's Hall, 1902): "Sheltering itself now in its most repulsive form behind those ancient and glorious institutions, founded and sustained for their Christ-like work of healing the sick, sapping their foundations and smirching their fair fame, malignant cruelty has taken up its position in its last ditch. There it has summoned to its aid vast interests, ancient prejudices, enormous endowments, and under illustrious patronage it has pilfered the funds subscribed for the poor."
With these statements before us (and it would be easy to add to them) we cannot doubt that the plan of campaign against all experiments on animals is also hostile to the Hospitals, whenever that hostility seems likely to be of the very least use to the cause.
Surely there are charities more worthy of subscriptions, donations, and legacies than these Anti-vivisection Societies. They quarrel among themselves; they spend vast sums of money on offices, salaries, press-cuttings, reprints, lectures and meetings, tons of pamphlets and leaflets. Their members denounce all experiments done now, while they enjoy the profit of all experiments done before now; they say that the object of the physiologist is to torture his victim out of devilish malice prepense; they accuse doctors of fraud, and lying, and refined cruelty, and madness, and winking at sin; they blacklist and boycott the best Hospitals. And the whole costly business, these thirty years, has done nothing to stop these experiments; they have increased rapidly. Surely, if a man wishes to help and comfort animals, he had better give his money to the Home for Lost Dogs, or the Home of Rest for Horses.