19 JULY 1879, Page 3

On Tuesday Lord Truro introduced into the House of Lords

-a Bill to abolish absolutely all vivisection of vertebrate animals, —an impracticable and even undesirable proposal, since every vaccination and inoculation is—under the terms of any conceiv- able definition you can propose,—a vivisection ; and it is by no means to be desired, even for the sake of the lower animals them- selves, that experimental inoculation should be abolished. But the excuse for the proposal is that, under the present Act, the Secretary of State has granted licences for some very pro- tracted, very painful, and very inexcusable experiments on dogs without ancesthetics,—and it is very much to be regretted that Dr. Rutherford. did receive the licence for a new series of these most objectionable and cruel experiments. There are men, not only of very high scientific ability, but even strong apologists for vivisection in other cases, who declare that these experiments of Dr. Rutherford's on the effect of certain drugs in stimulating the secretion of bile in dogs, are of very little worth, and assuredly not worth,—even in their eyes,—the an- guish inflicted by them. Lord Shaftesbury's speech on Tuesday was most powerful and convincing, and though it did not, and could not, prove that the Bill advocated was practicable or de- sirable, it did prove most effectually that unless the powers given to the Secretary of State by the present Act are more stringently used, further restriction will be advisable.