We need hardly say that the violent Vivisection controversy, which
has been going on during the last three weeks, has been to us a very painful one, because it is impossible to deny that those with whom our own sympathy is the deepest, have been culpably careless in the statement of facts. We have never believed that the English Vivisectionists have been nearly as indifferent about anwsthetising the creatures on which they operate, as the Victoria Street Society allege. So far as anwsthetics can be given consistently with their scientific ends, we believe them to be perfectly honest in sharing the desire of all humane men to spare all the pain they can to the creatures on which they experiment, and we have no doubt that Mr. Victor Horsley especially has been per- sonally conscientious in that matter, though he evidently feels no sort of scruple about inflicting very acute pain on the feelings of human beings whom he accuses of intentional fraud,—of which they are quite as incapable as he himself is. But he has certainly made out his case against the very gross inaccuracy of some of his opponents, and, in spite of all our deep sympathy with, and profound respect for, Miss Cobbe, we profoundly regret that the mention of the administration of anwsthetics was so often carelessly omitted from the evidence cited to prove charges which she herself well understood to be of the gravest character. Of course, what Mr. Victor Horsley says of her is due either to mere temper or to a deliberate design to get an action for libel brought against him. It will be well, we think, for him if he can congratulate himself on as stainlessly sincere a character as hers. Still, prejudice must have very seriously blinded both her and her coadjutors before they could have fallen into so many errors of omission or confusion as have been made good against them. To confound experiments on living animals with the dissection of corpses, as appears to have been twice done, is culpable carelessness.
Previous page
