THE COWARD SCIENCE.*
WE suppose that it is essential for controversial books of this kind to have aggressive titles, by way of calling public attention -to their aggressive character,—and this is the justification for Mr. Adams's rather warlike cover and title.page. He does not mean to say, we suppose, that physiology is necessarily the science of cowards, but only that those who have recently defended the experimentation on living animals as essential to physiology, have not shown either courage or manliness in their methods and procedure. So far, at least, as Professor Owen is concerned, to whose publication on " Experimental Physiology,"—reviewed, not very long ago, in our own columns,—this little book is a Tho Coward Science. Oa' Answer to Profsaror Oren. By Charles Adam, 'Paid Secretary" to the Vietoria•Street Society for tho Protection of Animals' from Vivisection. London Hatehards.
reply, Mr. Adams makes out his case fully enough, and., though not without a good deal of acrimony, certainly with much less than Professor Owen had himself exhibited, and with a good deal more fairness to his opponent,—for Mr. Adams shows how recklessly Professor Owen manipulated the passages quoted.
from his antagonists, while Mr. Adams himself quotes all the critical passages from Professor Owen in full. We regard Professor Owens work, indeed, with more and more surprise, the longer we consider the subject. It is wholly unworthy of his own great scientific reputation. It is wholly unworthy of the "Association for the Advancement of Medi- cine by Research," in whose interest it was written. Indeed, it will do nothing but harm to the cause which it represents. It was natural and right that the Association established for the protection of animals from Vivisection should reply to that manifesto ; and for its controversial purpose, no reply more effective than that of Mr. Adams could have been made. It is certain that not only on questions of evidence, but on several questions of physiology itself, he has caught Professor Owen tripping, and even gained for himself that most convincing of all admissions, that he was in the right and Professor Owen in the wrong, which is conveyed by his bitter antagonist's silent acceptance of an important correction, and the embodi- ment of that correction in the recast of his former statements: This is a kind of success which we should have no right to ex- pect from the Secretary of a popular Association of this kind, and we may add that Mr. Adams deserves the highest credit for the terseness and lucidity of those of his pages which deal with physiological questions, like those concerning Hunter's and Harvey's discoveries. He knows where common-sense may venture, and where technical knowledge is really requisite, and deals himself only with questions of the former kind, leaving those of the latter kind to the treatment of such eminent experts as Mr. Lawson Tait,—whose very powerful exposure of the false credit gained for vivisection in surgery by some of its advocates we should like to see pondered and replied to, if it admits of any reply, by Sir James Paget. It seems to us, indeed, that Mr. Lawson Tait traverses directly some of the most important assertions made by Sir James Paget a year ago, and that Sir James owes it to himself to consider, and reply to, the very remarkable pamphlet so freely quoted by Mr. Adams in this book.
The chapter which we like least in this book is the one which has the same name as the book itself, The Cloward' Science. It is, we think, a little flashy and overdone. But that the author has fair ground for asserting that some of his most active opponents do constantly show moral cowardice in their evasions of plain responsibility, for doing what they, at least, boast of as not only their right, but their duty, no one who reads the
account of the prosecution of Professor Ferrier for an evasion of the Act of 1876, or the following account of the deliberate suppression of a paper read. before the Medical Congress, can for a moment doubt :—
"Take another case—the case of Dr. C. S. Roy. I had private in- forMation in plenty about the nature of the paper read by this pro- mising young Vivisector before the Physiological Section of last year's Medical Congress. There are more men lathe Medical profession than, from its general attitude on the question, might be supposed, with both feeling to appreciate the atrocities of the Vivisection claims, and wit to recognjeo their futility. But the courage to risk profes- sional prospects and face the open ' boycotting ' which awaits a medical Anti-Vivisectionist is comparatively rare. Nor inua we be too hasty with our blame. 'Boycotting' may but too possibly mean ruin. And ruin affects not only a man hiinself, but those dear to and dependent on him. Hence my information on this, as on many similar points, though perfectly full and accurate, was of-a kind on which no action could be taken, inasmuch as no authority could be produced. And the Physiological Section—true to the character- istic instinct which so wisely shuns the light of day—had re- solved that, in view of the dangerously general interest attach- ing to the proceedings of the Congress, the papers read before it should be made a solitary exception to the general rule of the proceedings, and kept back from publication. The report of the Sectional 'Proceedings' was itself out down to the narrowest possible limits ; the whole subject of Physiology—the one subject, as the whole Congress proclaimed in chorus, of absolutely paramount importance--occupying, out of the 2,552 pp. of the Report, just eighty- seven pages. The 'papers' had discreetly retired altogether from the pdblic view. At last I ascertained that Dr. Roy's paper had been published in a certain Journal of Physiology, oirculatieg only in 'safe' quarters, and published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. I sent my clerk at once to Messrs. Macmillan to buy me a copy. Bat Messrs. Macmillan and Co. only published the Journal. They did not sell it. Did not in fact know anything about it. Could not help me in any way. How was it to be expected that they shonld—being only the publishers ? I had better write to Cambridge. So to Cambridge I wrote. Receiving in due course the reply that mingle numbers were
not sold—nothing less than the entire volume. So I wrote again. Offering to buy the volume—any number of volumes—and requesting to be set down as a subscriber to the publication. And received, as I had anticipated, no reply. The Physiologist's Journal is not for profane eyes like mine l"
Of course, the physiologists may say that they are justified in pursuing secretly investigations which they consider right, seeing that a law which they condemn might render them liable to pun- ishment for pursuing them openly. Well,if they would but say so, we should be perfectly satisfied. It would be a very important fact in the case to know that the professional physiologists think the restrictions established by law on painful investiga- tions so utterly mischievous, that they are prepared to refuse their obedience to the law, in all cases in which they think themselves able to evade the discovery of their disobedience.
But they will not give us the advantage of this admission, At the first meeting of the Association for the Advance-
ment of Medicine by Research, the chief members of that Association professed their intention of working under the law, with the view of testing its operation, and the modifi- cations which in their view the law might need. And if Dr C. S. Roy is acting in the same spirit, he ought to welcome the criticism of his paper by the Societies opposed to Vivisec- tion, in order that it may be fairly discussed whether what he did was legally dune, or not ; and if not, whether the law does or does not need amendment, so as to render it possible in future that what he did should be legally done. Instead of this, however, he appears to be raising a presumption against himself that he is evading the law, by refusing to let his proceedings run the gauntlet of hostile criticism. Nothing can more effectually excite the dis- trust of the public than such conduct as this, or, as we think, more justly. It is obvious that vivisection is a subject on which the popular conscience is at issue with the professional conscience of the vivisecting class. It is perfectly certain that the latter cannot reasonably hope to convert us to their view without perfect frankness, without letting us know exactly what they do and why they do it, and exhibiting all their motives in full. If they adopt the policy of secrecy and evasion, they will only add to the odium in which their proceedings are held, and raise up against them an exaggerated conception of the cruelty of their own actions and principles, Yet this is the tone which, so far as we can judge, they are adopting; and we apprehend from it anything but a diminution of the aversion in which vivisection is held ;- probably, indeed, a disposition to credit them with cruelties of which they themselves would be ashamed. And very many of them, we hope, would be much ashamed of some of the practices of their Continental colleagues, in spite of the tendency which has recently shown itself to extenuate even these horrors. Few people are aware that there are now no fewer than 143 physiological laboratories in Europe, of which 32 belong to the United Kingdom.
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