VIVISECTION AND ANZESTHETICS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] Sllt,—In his letter of March 11th, Dr. Hoggan makes several statements regarding me which, I trust, you will allow me space to answer as briefly as possible. These are :-1. That I have recanted my opinions. 2. That I endeavour to neutralise the effect of his criticisms by insinuating that he is ignorant of the action of curare, while his evidence before the Royal Commission shows him to be acquainted with it. 3. That I have made erro- neous suppositions regarding the use he has made of my evid- ence. 4. That I have gravely misstated his published opinions. 5. That I have not read his letters which I pretend to criticise. I trust my letter in the Spectator of February 25th, 1882, is sufficient to prove the error of his first assertion, and to show that I neither recant nor contradict myself. 2. Dr. Hoggan's evidence before the Commission was given on October 30th, 1875. The ex- pression I used on February 25th, 1882, was, "I think Dr. Hog- gan forgets." 3. I am perfectly unaware of having made any sup- positions in my letter of the kind Dr. Hoggan mentions. Your readers have my letter before them, and they can judge for themselves. 4. If I have misstated his published opinions, let Dr. Hoggan show wherein I have done so. Had the space which would be allowed to my letter of February 25th not been limited, he could have had no ground of complaint, for I should have quoted him verbatim. 5. I carefully read every letter of Dr. Hoggan's to which I made any allusion. I have looked through the files of the Spectator, but in vain, for the letter -dated June 12th, 1876, to which he refers in his last. It was not in ignorance that I repeated in my letter the quotations from Bernard which Dr. Hoggan gave in the Spectator of June 12th, 1875, bat for the purpose of supplying the sentences which he then suppressed. These sentences lay between the two which be quoted in proof that anmathetics could not be used in experi- ments on animals, and are to the effect that anzesthesia can be induced even in rabbits, and kept up as long as necessary, in the great majority of cases.—I am, Sir, &c.,
T. LADDER BRUNTON.
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