There is no evidence as yet how the Government may
be able to deal with the Vivisection Bill, though Mr. Cross appears to have indulged a hope, when replying to a deputation yesterday week, that he should be able to settle the question very speedily. Punch appears to have gone in against the Bill, in its profound reverence for the medical oracles of our British bed-sides. Possibly this arises chiefly from ignorance of what even the most original and distinguished men in that profession think it no cruelty to do in the interests of their favourite science. Take, for instance, the following letter, from John Hunter to Jenner, printed in Barron's "Life of Jenner," London, Colburn, 1838 (vol. i., p. 44),—a letter dated 21st November, 1778 :—" If you could make some experi- ments on the increased heat of inflammation, I should be obliged to you. I have made some, but I am so much hurried that they are but imperfect. To give you an idea of such experiments, I first introduced the thermometer into the anus of an ass, then I injected a solution of corrosive sublimate, above a pint, which it threw out very soon. Some hours after I threw in another, and about twelve hours after I again introduced the thermometer. The same experiment might be made upon a dog. I opened the thorax of a dog, between its ribs, and introduced the ther- mometer. Then I put some lint into the wound, to keep it from healing by the first intention, that the thorax might inflame, but before I had time to try it again (from the hurry of business) my dog died, which was on the fourth day If these experiments will amuse you, I should be glad they were made, but take care you do not break your thermometer in the dog's cheat." Note the expression "amuse," the cynical haste with which experiments of the most terrible kind are tried, though they end fruitlessly from "the hurry of business "in the midst of which they are knocked off, the anxiety for the thermo- meter, and the indifference about the dog. Yet Hunter's and Jenner's are two of the greatest names in physiological science. This is the sort of scientific "moving on" which Punch thinks so much more important than moving on in sympathy and humanity. These are the "fine and fleeting" suggestions of genius to which Sir William Gull thinks a great physiologist should be allowed, without let or hindrance, to devote himself in his holiday rambles.
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