8. The Home Secretary stated in Parliament on 10th July 1903, that one dog may be used again and again for vivisectional experiment or demonstration—and this without anæsthetics.
Think of the condition of the poor dog between each living-dissection.
Has not the time come for the nation to rise as one man and say—
"This shall not be"?
It is no wonder that even the National Anti-vivisection Society, in a letter to the Times, December 11th, 1903, denounced this leaflet. The wonder is, that Mr. Pirkis, R.N., the chairman of the Canine League, tried to defend it. This deplorable leaflet, said the National Society: It contains a series of grossly false and misleading statements. Let us take it paragraph by paragraph. The first two paragraphs are grossly false. The third suppresses the truth. The fourth is grossly false; the Home Secretary said that neither the starving of animals to death nor the forced over-feeding of animals was included among the experiments authorised or performed. Paragraph five is grossly false. So is paragraph six: not one word was said about any experiments, either by the Home Secretary or by anybody else. The entire number of all dogs and cats together, under Certificates A, B, E, and EE, throughout the whole kingdom, that year, was 344. Paragraph eight is grossly false.
For want of space, it is impossible to consider all the special arguments of the anti-vivisection societies. Of course, among these special arguments, there are a few which have something in them. How could they all of them be utterly false? They go back over thirty years; they are drawn from all parts of the world. This incessant rummaging of medical books and journals, British and foreign; and all this everlasting espionage; the whole elaborate system of a sort of secret service—these methods, year in year out, are bound to find, now and again, a fault somewhere. But I do say, having read and re-read a vast quantity of the publications of these societies, that they are, taken as a whole, a standing disgrace to the cause; that they are tainted through and through with brutal language, imbecile jokes, and innumerable falsehoods; that they have neither the honesty, nor the common decency, which should justify them. Still, here it is that the money goes. There is money in the business; there is milk in the cocoa-nut; and twopence more, and up goes the donkey. These are the phrases used, by the National Anti-vivisection Society, of the bacteriologists, and the men who are working at cancer. But these societies, that spend thousands every year, what have they got to show for it all? They have, with much else of the same kind, the Zoophilist. Truly, a fine result; a high-class official journal, the recognised organ of the anti-vivisection movement in England.
Take, for a final instance, one or two of the things said about anæsthetics. On June 12th, 1897, in the Echo, Mr. Berdoe said that certain experiments, involving severe operations, had been made on dogs under morphia and curare. He based this assertion on the account of the experiments in the Journal of Physiology. On June 18th, Mr. Weir, in the House of Commons, called attention to this assertion; and the Home Secretary promised to inquire into the matter. On July 18th, Mr. Weir asked whether this inquiry had been made; and the Home Secretary answered:—
"Yes, I have made full inquiry into the allegations contained in the letter and statement which the honourable member forwarded to me, and find that they are absolutely baseless. The experiments referred to were performed on animals under full chloroform anæsthesia; the morphia, to which alone allusion was made in the published account of the experiments, being used in addition. Curare was used, but not as an anæsthetic."
It is simple enough. The gentlemen who made the experiments did not know that the National Society buys and ransacks the Journal of Physiology; or did not care. But the National Society called this answer a "Fruitless Official Denial"; and Mr. Coleridge sent an "explanatory letter" to the London daily papers, accusing all the experimenters of "amending their published record so as to make it fit in with the Government report." In 1899, the National Society published that sentence, which has already been quoted, about the Nine Circles, and the "whiff of chloroform possibly administered." In 1900, it said, "The chloroformists of the physiological laboratories are doubtless common porters, with no technical knowledge of their work." In 1901, it said, "Our readers will remember that Mr. Coleridge has had more than one battle with the Home Office on the question of complete and incomplete anæsthesia. We need hardly say that the victory on each occasion rested with our Honorary Secretary." And again, "By many turns of the anti-vivisection screw we have at last extracted (from the Home Office) the admission that pain is not unknown in the laboratories." In 1902, it said, "The blessed word anæsthesia warns off the profane anti-vivisectionist who would rob the altars of science of their victims." Take later instances. In 1903, we find Mr. Wood saying that we may be sure the narcosis becomes profound when the inspectors knock at the door of the laboratory; Dr. Brand, saying that in all experiments, other than inoculations, it is probable that only a whiff of chloroform is given, to satisfy the experimenter's conscience, and to enable him to make humane statements to the public; and Mr. Berdoe, saying that vivisectors, where they use anything except curare, employ sham anæsthetics.