That was in January 1903. In December 1903, Mr. Wood is still using the same argument; this time it is a lecture at Ashton on Vivisection and the Hospitals:
"Again and again had they defied the so-called scientific world to put their finger on the Registrar-General's returns, and show them a single instance where the death-rate had been lowered by vivisection, and they had not been able to do it. On the contrary, he found that the death-rate had gone up in the last 20 years, despite the thousands of animals that had been experimented upon. The death-rate in diphtheria was 100 per million more than it was in 1878."
Mr. Wood in the provinces, and Mr. Coleridge in the papers, have used this argument hard. Let us look at it well. It has been refuted again and again. Take a thousand cases of diphtheria from any civilised part of the world, in the days before antitoxin; how many of them died? Take a thousand cases now, treated with antitoxin; how many of them die? Why do Mr. Wood and Mr. Coleridge run away from that easy question? There is nothing unfair in it; they have all the reports before them; they know the facts well. We do not find any evidence that they are willing to acknowledge the truth of those facts. Follow Mr. Somerville Wood, from place to place, with his magic-lantern and his stock of lectures. The lantern-pictures are many of them taken from foreign sources, and some of them are of great age; but they include a portrait of Mr. Coleridge, and some comic slides to be shown at the end of the lecture, rabbits vivisecting a professor, and so forth. Certainly, he works hard; 95 lectures in one year; we cannot better employ the funds at our disposal than in sending well-informed lecturers to every city in the kingdom to rouse the just indignation of the people. The year after that, 74 lectures; on two occasions he has spoken when unsupported to over 1000 people, and an audience of several hundreds is quite the rule. Here he is at Windsor, with Bishop Barry in the chair, and he says to them:—
"Unhappily, Pasteur left his microscope and chemicals and took up the vivisectionist's knife. In that he got utterly astray and became nothing more than a mere quack."
Here, with a different audience, at the Mechanics' Lecture Hall, Nottingham, giving his lantern-lecture on Pasteurism to a most respectable audience of working men, their wives, sons, and daughters, and in many cases children.
"The thesis he set out to elaborate and maintain was that Pasteurism produces hydrophobia rather than cures it; that vivisection under any circumstances is both cruel and immoral; and that with special reference to bacterial toxicology and the treatment by inoculation, the preparation of toxins by the Pasteur methods was the most horrible form of repulsive quackery and hideous cruelty."
Here he is at Birmingham, asking for money, and hinting that, unless all experiments on animals are stopped, the poor will be the ultimate victims. Here, at Gloucester, saying that it is silly to experiment at all, and that he is not going to take his views as to right and wrong from any man of science, however learned he may be. Here, at Edinburgh, with the Closed Doors again, and the picture of the rabbit "roasted alive": three grains of opium, he tells them, would be enough to kill the strongest navvy in Edinburgh, but 16 grains can be administered to a pigeon; and the death-rate has gone up every year in spite of vivisection. Here, at a drawing-room meeting, asking for money; here, at a garden party, with a considerable number of persons ranging themselves on the grass, and he tells them that they have on their side all that is best in every department of public life; here, at Blackburn, with the Closed Doors again, calling the law a sham and a farce; here, at Cheltenham, with Bishop Mitchinson in the chair, still quoting the Registrar-General, and saying that he does not think the outlook was ever more promising than it is to-day. All over the kingdom, he and his magic-lantern, year after year, goes Mr. Wood. He is a fluent speaker; he has things in his pocket; they are brought out, if you contradict him; or he "challenges" you, or explains you away, or says that you "are not quite playing the game." Let him alone; to-morrow he will pack up his lantern, and be gone.
Mr. Coleridge, in his use of the death-rate argument, carries it even further than Mr. Wood; for he applies it over a wider range. "Look at myxœdema," he says; "the doctors tell us that they can cure it with thyroid extract, and that the use of thyroid extract was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. Myxœdema is due to some fault in the thyroid gland. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of that gland. See, the death-rate has gone up, steadily, during the last 20 years." Was there ever such an argument? It is only of late years that myxœdema has been generally recognised. Till it was recognised, it was not diagnosed; till it was diagnosed, it was not returned as a cause of death. Again, there are many other diseases of the thyroid gland, including various forms of malignant disease. It is cancer of the thyroid gland that decides the death-rate. The number of deaths from myxœdema, especially since the discovery of thyroid extract, must be small indeed. Moreover, apart from Mr. Coleridge's fallacy of argument, it is impossible to see how he can really doubt the efficacy of the thyroid treatment, both in myxœdema and in sporadic cretinism.
Again, "Look at the diseases of the circulation," he says. "The doctors say that digitalis and nitrite of amyl act on the heart; and that the action of these drugs was discovered by the help of experiments on animals. Very good. The heart is concerned with the circulation. Very good. But here are the Registrar-General's returns of the annual death-rate for all diseases of the circulation. See how it has gone up, from 1371 per million persons in 1881 to 1709 in 1900. Therefore, either these two drugs are never used, or they are useless, or the Registrar-General's returns are false." It is impossible to understand how Mr. Coleridge could bring himself to write thus. Digitalis has a certain effect on the heart-beat; nitrite of amyl diminishes arterial tension. The Registrar-General's returns for all diseases of the circulation include every sort and kind of organic disease of the valves of the heart; include also pericarditis, aneurism, senile gangrene, embolism, phlebitis, varicose veins, and 35,499 deaths from "other and undefined diseases of heart or circulatory system."
Rabies