PHYSIOLOGY AT OXFORD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—A decree will, on Tuesday next, June 5th, be submitted to Convocation at Oxford authorising the expenditure of £10,000 from the University Chest on the erection of a labora- tory, working-rooms, and lecture-room for the Waynflete Pro- fessor of Physiology, and in providing fixtures, &c., for the -same. If this should be carried, it will convey an expression on the part of the University of approval of extended Vivisection. Hitherto, little of this, I believe, has been done in the museum. When it was under the direction of the manly and humane Rolleston, the amount of vivisection is thus summarised at page 343 of the Report of the Royal Commission :—" Half a -dozen frogs used annually, and occasionally, but not regularly, small birds and mammals; but in all cases in which any pain can be supposed to be likely to be caused, anesthetics are -employed."
I must express my fear that a more extended class of experi- ments is in contemplation now ; the evidence of the present Waynflete Professor, pp. 115-123, 138-148, shows that he regards the matter from a different point of view to that of which you are the advocate. His words leave a doubt at least on the mind whether he feels the utter abhorrence of painful experiment which Rolleston used to express. In his evidence, no doubt, as in that of most of the physiologists and of the physicians examined by the Commission, there is implied, if not always strongly expressed, a dislike of the callousness of thought on the subject which is said to exist in certain Continental labora- tories, and which in the last century excited the scorn of Voltaire. But, on the other hand, the Professor stated that be thought that any amount of pain might lawfully be inflicted, for the purpose of arriving at an important result. And this is the fallacy of physiologists. Other men acknowledge, or are compelled to acknowledge, certain limits set about the objects of their pursuits ; but again and again physiologists .set up the claim of being only a law to themselves, and they -dislike the interference of lay opinion.
It is this which causes many to dread the extension of Nisi- section,—and as regards Oxford, though this, I acknowledge, is a mere matter of sentiment, in the very playground of the Uni- versity,—outside, cricket and little children at play ; inside the museum walls, wilfully-inflicted suffering, perhaps of the dog who was their companion and guard yesterday.
I have been compelled, since the Waynflete Professor's name is mentioned in the decree, to speak of him, and so it would not be becoming for me to write anonymously ; but I am far from imputing to him any carelessness as to pain. His own words .are that "it should be made as small as possible." But whether -there are limits which man's moral sense should set to the amount of pain he would inflict for any presumably sufficient object, is the point on which he and his critics differ.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Charlbury, May 30th. C. F. C. WEST. [We understand the Waynflete Professor's view to have been deliberately expressed that there is no limit to the torture which -may be, and ought to be, inflicted, for a sufficient purpose, provided only that no " unnecessary " pain is inflicted. There is certainly nothing. to show that any scientific purpose would be considered by him insufficient, solely on account of the pain which the experiments made to fulfil it might involve.—En.
Spectator.]
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