THE SECRETARYSHIP OF THE ZOO
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I do not think your correspondents need worry them- selves. As I was informed by the Council when being inter- viewed as a candidate for the Secretaryship, it is the policy of the Society not only that no animal experiments involving a licence shall be performed in the Zoological Gardens, but also that no official of the Society shall hold a licence for animal experimentation. And to this of course I agreed.
This is not the place to discuss the grave issues of principle involved in the question of vivisection, but it is perhaps worth while reminding your readers that, legally, " vivi- section " covers not only the major surgical operations with which the word is popularly associated, but also every experimental procedure affecting a vertebrate animaL Not only the testing of the beneficial effects of hormones or antitoxins, but even experiments on the relative merits of different diets, come under the scope of vivisection as legally defined, and in point of fact the great majority of experi- ments performed under a licence involve nothing more serious than the prick of a syringe or the drawing of a little blood.
As a matter of interest, I might add that for the majority of the years during which I have herd a licence I have not performed any experiments under it, and that those which I have performed have never involved " operations " in the popular sense of the word, but only feeding on special diets, injection of hormones and antibodies, and such-like physio- logical procedures.
As for the " transformation of one species of animal into another " with which Miss Kidd credits me, I fear that all I achieved was the transformation of a tadpole or larval stage, now habitual with the species, into the original more perfect adult type—surely a laudable performance on moral grounds I However, the main point of this letter is to assure your readers that so far as I am concerned there will be no departure from the established policy of the Society in these matters.—Yours faithfully, JULIAN S. HUXLEY. King's College, London, W.C. 2.
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