It is quite clear from the correspondence we publish in
another column, that if physiologists are to be allowed to make experiments on living animals at all, the most careful regulation of such experi- ments should be imposed by the Government, to prevent the cruelty and torture which the law already forbids. We do not doubt that the physiologists of England violate the statute 12 and 13 Victoria, c. 92, whenever they either vivisect dogs or cats, without completely chloroforming them, or when they give them a painful disease with the view of watching its pro- gress and experimenting on the remedies. Evidently the power of scientific curiosity is far too great for it to be safe to trust to the humane instincts of all physiologists. The law should provide that no experiments of the kind should be permitted anywhere but in a licensed physiologist's laboratory, and then only in the presence of some inspector appointed for the protection of the lower animals, to take guarantees against the possibility of torture. It might, no doubt, be true that this would limit the progress of scientific discovery, but there is a price for scientific discovery which ought never to be paid. Dr. Brown-Sequard is held up by his friends as the most tender-hearted of physiologists, but Dr. Brown-Sdquard himself describes experiments in which he set living creatures rolling over and over "for hours, and sometimes for days, with but short interruptions," although "sensibility and volition may remain, and there are frequent efforts to resist the tendency to turn or roll." It is childish to punish a carter for goading on his wearied horse, and not to punish such experiments as these.
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