HUMAN VIVISECTION.
• [TO THE EDITOR OP TEE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—There is a curious passage in Sir Gilbert Elliot's Lettere which, as bearing on this subject, you may think worth placing before your readers, in connection with your recent interest- ing article on "The Curiosities of Penal Law," In 1789, the Duke of Portland (nominal head of the Whig party) broke his knee-pan, which was set by Johu Hunter. The great surgeon on this occasion allowed his physiological zeal to get the better of his good-breeding, for he assured the Duke "that he would give anything to have a patient die during the cure," in order to afford him au opportunity of learning how the knee-pan cures itself of a fracture. His patient, who seems to have been extremely entertained by his frankness, did not carry his complying temper (much bewailed by some of his party) so far as to commit suicide iu the cause of science, but "told him, very gravely, that if he should die on this occasion, he (Mr. Hunter) should have him, to do what he pleased with. ' . . . Hunter says," pursues Sir Gilbert, apparently speak- ing of something which his wife, to whom he was writing, Would hear without surprise or horror, "They would have tried the experiment on some capital convicts, but he does not know how to break the knee-pan; it can only be done by accident." Might a convict have really been given up to the hands of the physio- logists only ninety years ago, and. was there any limit to their right of torture ? These question, perhaps, Sir, will be as new to your other readers, as to one of the most constant among
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