The summons brought by the Anti-Vivisection Society against Professor Ferrier
was dismissed by Sir James Ingham, on Thursday, for want of any evidence connecting Professor Ferrier with the mutilation and nervous stimulation of the monkeys attributed to him. The truth seems to have been that the operations performed on these monkeys were performed by Professor Yeo, who had a licence both enabling him to per- form them, and to keep the poor creatures, after their recovery from the chloroform, in their mutilated state. All that Pro- fessor Ferrier did was to take part in the observations made upon these monkeys, at the recent Medical Congress, without, apparently, causing them any fresh pain whatever. Under these circumstances, of course, the prosecution failed. But we think the public will see with dismay that licences are still granted enabling medical men to take away parts of the brain of the higher animals, and then to keep them in that mutilated state for the purposes of psychological experiment.
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