PHYSIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—I venture to address to you, as the editor of the only first- class periodical, so far as I know, which vindicates with the noblest constancy the cause of those who cannot plead for themselves. Through the Spectator (if you are good enough to print this), I appeal to all who love nature, asking if nothing can be done to stem the onward current of physiological curio- sity, which bids fair to enter into and to poison some of the best pleasures of our life ? Is there no Might of Right powerful enough at least to stop its farther progress ?
At this moment, I selfishly bewail the fouling of what I believe to have hitherto been a pure spring of most innocent enjoyment. I have just 'laid down a weekly paper, that I have seen regularly and greatly enjoyed for the past two months. -But I have seen my last of it ; henceforth, I shall not dare look into Nature, for fear of the horrors I may again stumble upon in its pages. After reading with delight about the wonders of green suns and beautiful rainbows, &c., my eye suddenly fell upon the records of physical science from Berlin. There exists an old-fashioned book, in which we find it said that "the dark places of the earth are full of cruelty." In these late modern days, we may seek in the abodes of light the dens of cruelty ; for I suppose, intellectually, Berlin may be considered full of light. I wish it were possible for me at once to forget the miserable story that I read in Nature of March 6th, I wish I had not constrained myself to recall it here. Briefly, it is thief: a Professor, by name Munk, "after a long course of starvation, during which it had lost almost all the fat on its body," fed a wretched dog, " for a length of time," on large quantities of rape-seed, with only so much albumen as was necessary for the preservation of life. The dog was at last killed, and with it another dog that had been normally fed. And then the two dead doge were examined. Most important, indeed, were the results ! Dr. Munk was able to demonstrate the presence of erneic acid after this long consumption of rape-seed, and he also found 80 per cent. of sebacic acid in one dog, and only 68 per cent. in the other ; and that was all ! Dr. Munk's opinions would appear to have been disputed; and this "experiment "was but a repetition of others of the same kind, done to prove Dr. Munk right and his opponents wrong. The Professor promises, moreover, another series of the like demonstrations. Yes, for the sake of my own peace of mind, it would be unwise to go on with Nature. I thank God, I am not a scientific man ; and I acknowledge that I never before even heard of those "acids," nor do I know now what they are. But were I the first physiologist in Europe, I ask of what avail. to any human being could I make this conclusively proved fact of the absorption of rape-seed in the body of a starving dog ?' Above all, I protest against these subjects—by which scientific- men make science odious—being brought forward in the once popular and important journals of natural history.—I am,
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