Sir William Gull writes to the Times of Thursday to
announce the division in the Senate of the University of London in favour of whittling away the only really effective provision in the Gov- ernment's Vivisection Bill, which We reported last week. Sir William Gull thinks the limitation of these etperiments to a place where they are liable to be, and will be, under official inspection, most mischievous, on the ground that they will render impossible those experiments suggested by the " rare and fleeting" conceptions of the finer intellects which may strike a distinguished physiologist, in his autumn holiday, when he is far from any laboratory. That is quite true. But Sir William Gull seems wholly unable to see the other side of the question. If nothing is to be sacrificed, nothing can be gained. How is a Home Secretary to distinguish the men to whom he can safely accord Immunity from all inspection ? Apparently the most brilliant physiologists are also the most reckless experimenters. Is, then, the Secretary of State to select the humane men of the profession, and give them this iinmunity ? That would be a still more invidious task than selecting the most brilliant physiologists. No doubt, if this Bill passes, a physiologist on his travels will no longer be able to say, " A thought strikes me !—let me go and vivisect an animal." But neither can he say, though it !night be a great matter for the "rare and fleeting" suggestions of science that he should be able to say, " A thought strikes me !—let me go and vivisect a Man." A slighter limitation than this Bill proposes on a practice liable to the greatest abuses can hardly be conceived.
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