"THE MODERN RACK."
[To THE NOME or THE " 871.CTLT011.”J
SIR,—In the kind review which you have been good enough to give of my little book above named, there occurs a remark which I cannot allow to pass unnoticed. You say that "a short review does not appear a good opportunity for going into questions of misstatement," and that you will "merely allude to two facts brought forward in this volume which seem to need explanation." One of these facts is the strange denouement of the Ferrier case in Bow Street ; the other, Sir William Harcourt's denial in Parliament of the existence of Clause 3, See. 1, of the Vivisection Act. It is really desirable, I think (quite independently of the question of the reliability of my little book) that both these matters should be plainly laid before the English public ; and that if any explanation be forthcoming (as you seem to expect), it should be given with- out further delay.
The story of the Ferrier case is easily verifiable. The Lancet, October 8th, 1881, reported that at the great Medical Congress of that year, "Professor Ferrier was willing to exhibit two monkeys which he had operated upon some months previously." The British Medical Journal, August 20th, 1881, reported that "the members [of the Congress] were shown two monkeys a portion of whose cortex had been removed by Professor Ferrier."
The Home Office having replied to the inquiries of the Committee of the Victoria Street Society that Professor Ferrier held no licence authorising these experiments, the Committee prosecuted that gentleman at Bow Street Police- 'Court in November, 1881. When the case came for hearing, the editor of the British Medical Journal, Mr. Ernest Hart, 'produced his reporter, Dr. Charles Smart Roy, who, in answer to the question of the counsel for the prosecution, "By whom was the operation [upon the two monkeys] performed P" replied in the witness-box, "By Professor Yeo."
The editor of the Lancet stated that his reporter was Professor Gamgee, and the counsel for the defence (Mr. Gully) announced : "We have communicated with Professor Gramgee, and I know very well that he will say precisely what was said by Dr. Roy."
Thus the prosecution was foiled. The two reporters to the two leading medical journals in the Kingdom had (apparently) made the egregious mistake of calling, from beginning to end of their long reports, Dr. Yeo by the name of Dr. Ferrier ! With this hypothesis the prosecutors had perforce to content themselves for four years, and to hear Mr. Cartwright twit them in Parliament for having pro- ceeded "without a tittle of evidence." The elaborate reports of the Lancet and the British Medical Journal did not, it seems, afford that "tittle of evidence" to a plain matter of fact ! At last le mot de l'enigne was afforded in no less dignified a quarter than the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" for 1884. Therein appeared a paper "by David Ferrier, M.D., and Gerald Yeo, M.D.," with a prefatory note which stated that "the facts recorded are partly the result of researches made conjointly by Drs. Ferrier and Yeo, and partly of a research made by Dr. Ferrier alone." Among the former—distinguished by an asterisk—are detailed the experiments on the two monkeys exhibited to the Congress.
We are now in a position, thanks to this avowal, to see exactly what had occurred in 1881. Two biologists had conducted a series of experiments conjointly, one being licensed, the other not licensed. The latter was so far the most prominent of the two that his name alone appeared in either of the published accounts of the exhibition to the Con- gress; and even in the "Transactions" it is still placed fore- most by themselves. Nevertheless, when this unlicensed vivisector was prosecuted, the editors-of the two great medical journals and their reporters combined to put forward the licensed vivisector, and (so far as Dr. Roy was concerned) swore in the witness-box that the experiments were performed by him.
The second fact which you justly say needs explanation, is this. Mr. George Russell, speaking in support of the second reading of Mr. Reid's Bill, April 4th, 1883, referred to the evil effects of vivisections employed as demonstration to students ; but was roughly and vehemently interrupted by Sir William Harcourt, who said : "Under the Act demonstrations are forbidden." (See Times' report of debate.) Now, in this Act (39 and 40 Viet., cap. 77) demonstrations are not only not forbidden, but in Clause 3, Sec. 1, there is elaborate provision for the granting of certificates to perform them ; and sixteen such certificates had that year been granted by Sir William -Harcourt as Home Secretary, ac- cording to tbe returns of the Inspector. What explanation, then, shall we adopt of Sir W. Harcourt's interruption of Mr. George Russell on this occasion ? Did he—an able lawyer, having the duty as Home Secretary of carrying out that par- ticular Act, and going down to the House prepared for a debate concerning it—really know nothing of its provisions, and imagine that it forbade precisely what it permitted? And did he likewise forget all his own sixteen certificates ? I think itmust be admitted, in view of these and many other facts which might be cited, that it is difficult for us to contend with the advocates of vivisection as if they were loyal opponents.—
I am, Sir, &c., FRANCES POWER COBBE. Hengwrt, Dolgelly, August 201h.
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