Dr. Ferrier, the Professor of forensic medicine at King's Col-
lege, in his address the other day at the opening of the session, made a rather eccentric remark on the strong objection enter- tained by many,—by us amongst the number,—to the practice of painful vivisection and other painful pathological experiments in the interests of science. He said :—" There had been some danger that the progress of scientific medicine should be dis- couraged by the outcry of a certain class against what they called the inhumanity and cruelty of physiological investigators But he strongly objected to the conduct of those who, professing to have such delicate sensibilities, pryed into what was not written for them, merely for the purpose of misrepresent- ing and vilifying in the public prints those who might be actuated by as high principles of humanity as themselves." Now, if Dr. Ferrier really knows of the existence of any such persons as these, he is quite right in condemning them. But we know a good many of the opponents of vivisection, and never came across one liable to Dr. Ferrier's censure. It is not of the distress caused to our own sensibilities that we complain, and we trust that we have never misrepresented the motives of those of whose conduct we complain. But how are we to protect the poor victims without making ourselves acquainted with the facts of their sufferings ? If Dr. Ferrier would show us any way in which the dumb victims could escape the torture as easily as we could escape the knowledge of it, he would never hear of our com- plaints again. But to entreat us not to trouble ourselves about their pangs, is not to the point. Dr. Ferrier would do better to urge his own side of the case,—the force of which we recognise, though we think it greatly inferior to that of ours,—and not make himself almost ridiculous by inventing freely a class of opponents who are simply the wildest chimaeras ever generated by his prolific brain.
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