the prince of the devils, by saying, 'If Satan is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?'

The second point to be insisted upon is that all healing of spirit, soul and body is Divine. The doctor provides treatment and medicine to the best of his knowledge, but he knows that the actual healing is from some higher power. The specialist in mental cases can offer suggestion, but the working of the cure is from above. So the spiritual healer knows that any benefit he is the means of bringing is directly attributable to the Divine Healer, who always works through human agency. When the two Apostles SS. Peter and John had healed the man that had been lame from his birth and were asked By what power or in what name have ye done this?' they said in their reply that it was in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and in none other is there' salvation (i.e., healing of body, soul and spirit) (Acts iv. 12). Lastly, in accordance with the suggestion in the Report of the Archbishop's Committee, p. 17,

We are of opinion that much good might be done by the appointment of a permanent committee of clergy, doctors and psychologists to advise the authorities of the Church on these matters.

Surely something practical might result. What we want is corporate action by the Church as the body of Christ. In every rural deanery there might be appointed a small body of clergy and laity who are specially interested in this revival, and who would encourage and instruct all who need help. In every parish there might be an intercessory service weekly for the sick and suffering, and all should be encouraged to apply to the parish priest for special prayer and ministration. If all were properly instructed, individual sufferers would be more prepared to ask for the special sacramental ministry of 'laying on of hands or unction.' These two means of grace should never be used without special desire and careful preparation. The clergy are not forward or pushing in their wish to make use of these outward forms. They themselves are shy, and shrink from the responsibility and perhaps from the trouble involved. They should be encouraged to prepare themselves as well as those to whom they minister, that, by a deeper knowledge and clearer insight into the purposes of God, a greater reality may be infused into the work of the Church on earth.

The cry comes from all sides that the Church in this land is discredited. Our churches are often empty; the chief service of all is terribly neglected. May not the spiritual healing be sent as a means of revitalising all that seems so dead, and making our Church what she should be, a living representative of her Lord, doing His work in bringing all to Him, and the channel of the bestowal of His gift of health to spirit, soul and body?

C. H. PRICHARD.

THE VIVISECTION OF DOGS

A REJOINDER TO MR. STEPHEN PAGET

IN so far as the 'reply' by the Vice-Chairman of the Research Defence Society in the March issue of The Nineteenth Century can be discussed seriously, it reminds me strongly of the Bourbons, who had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing' in their years of exile; and, even still more forcibly, of Rip Van Winkle.

To consider seriatim his' criticisms.' He allows that the word 'vivisection' is revolting; and goes on to remark: 'But another word, “anti-vivisection," is more revolting. And here surely Dr. Snow agrees with me.' Dr. Snow assuredly does nothing of the kind. Having devoted his life for the past twenty years mainly to the laborious study of vivisectional practices and of what they consist, he is naturally filled with loathing for them and would gladly see them ended. They materially impede the progress of Science, and retard Civilisation. So far as his halting words of execration may be deemed to possess any weight of authority, he would remark that they are uttered by a man who has carefully studied, not merely one, but both sides of the great question at issue.

But unpopularity and public dislike of an unpleasant topic do not tend to bar the use of the word 'anti-vivisection,' or to cast odium on those who support the cause whereof it is the recognised symbol. Very much to the contrary. The term connotes high honour to those reasoning men and women who have taken the trouble to study the subject-who have learnt to recognise the truth, who strive strenuously to make that truth prevail throughout the world. That 'anti-vivisection' denotes the simple truth-from every really scientific point of view, as well as from the moral and evolutionary side-is a fact beyond all controversy.

And on the supposed odium attaching to those persons who are proud to call themselves 'anti-vivisectionists,' and lose no opportunity of denouncing root and branch that objectionable and futile practice, I would point out that the world only manages to acquire knowledge on points most vitally concerning it by

very slow and gradual degrees indeed; as for example, in the very early centuries of Christianity.

'Lawson Tait's dog not bleeding to death when its hind-leg was amputated.' On this I am accused of constructing a false theory that a dog's arterial system is profoundly distinct from our own.' Where is the falsehood? The fact is undisputed. Its correctness is universally admitted by all experts with the requisite knowledge, and those persons whose eyes are not blinded by the current vivisectional prejudices of the era. It should not be forgotten, by the way, that Lawson Tait was by far the most original and daring surgeon of the nineteenth century, and that the greatest weight attaches, both scientifically and practically, to his lightest utterance on most things. Mr. Paget strangely belittles his own profession in casting a stone at Lawson Tait.

Then we get to poisons, and the striking discrepancy in their effects on man contrasted with the sub-human animals, as also among these animals themselves. These well-proven and indisputable facts conclusively demonstrate to every reasoning mind the futility of applying to human beings the asserted conclusions resulting from animal-experimentation.

Whenever Mr. Paget meets with an argument he cannot evade, he terms it a cliché,' or, intending to be more opprobrious still, ‘an anti-vivisection cliché.' So my remark about these poisons is duly stigmatised as an old anti-vivisection cliché.' Nevertheless, just as Galileo said on a certain notable occasion, e pur si muove'-the facts remain—and, were true science only in the ascendant, would immediately put a stop to a huge volume of so-called 'research' experiments. The worst of this is that, as Mr. Paget so very aptly and ingenuously expresses the point, nobody takes it seriously.'

'The dog dies under chloroform almost immediately.' Again, of course, we find this old cliché.' But he does. The fact is vouched for by numerous competent veterinary surgeons-I think, indeed, by almost all. It does not rest on the unsupported evidence of a single witness before a Royal Commission, as Mr. Paget appears to imagine. Let him ask any competent veterinary surgeon he knows. Space will not permit me to cite authorities.

'Dr. Crile's atrocious experiments on fourteen dogs in Professor Victor Horsley's laboratory at University College.' Mr. Paget says that the only thing which matters here' is the fact that Lord Lambourne (then Colonel Lockwood) told the House of Commons that the Royal Commission (of which he was a member) believed they were painless.

I disagree very emphatically. The point which ranks in my mind as most important by far-there are others, but I cannot dwell on them now-is that the Royal College of Surgeons,

eventually, at the Medical Congress of 1912, made Crile one of its Honorary Fellows. That shows the unfortunate trend of medical opinion in these degenerate days of ours, and its overwhelming prejudice in favour of animal experimentation, or, on the other hand, its deplorable subservience to the decrees of the autocratic manufacturing chemist, who now rules with a rod of iron my once noble and independent profession.

I

I stated that science has shown rabies and hydrophobia to be antiquated superstitions and no more.' Mr. Paget, with striking courtesy, asks: What is the good of answering this sort of rubbish?' It is a pity that he is so profoundly ignorant of the extensive literature on this topic, both in England and America, whose conclusions, as above expressed, remain uncontradicted. would refer him to Mrs. Hedley Thomson's Béchamp or Pasteur? chap. xvii.; to the Reminiscences of Sir Henry Smith, late Commissioner of the City of London Police; to the remarks of Dr. Charles W. Dulles, Lecturer on Historical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, published in the Journal of Zoophily, March 1914; and to the article 'Mad Dogs and Worms,' by Arnold F. George, in The Open Door, April 1915 (New York).

The great Sir Frederick Treves is quoted as complaining in a letter to The Times that a certain statement of his (given in extenso by me) had been wrongly adopted as evidence against vivisection in general. Here is a sentence from that letter, as given in full by Mr. Paget: 'I said that I had found that operations on the intestines of dogs were useless as a means of fitting the surgeon for operations on the canine bowel.'

In face of Sir Frederick's own admission here, we may leave the point as it stands. So far as I know, no one ever took it any further, or tried to apply it to the whole field of vivisection pursuits. But Sir Frederick was plainly unhappy ever after he had made it, and was continually making efforts to wriggle out of the necessary conclusions it involved. Nobody could ever suspect a man in his position of setting himself to oppose vivisection in the schools.

On the question of anæsthesia and animal experiments involving pain we learn, to our surprise and sorrow, that' Here, after much floundering in "platform facts," Dr. Snow ventures on a desperate assertion, which nobody can hold for true, unless it is somebody profoundly ignorant of the administration of the Act.' I said that the whole anesthetic business is very largely a sham— dust thrown in the eyes of a credulous public, and very little more. Anybody who has at all gone into the question knows this is actually the case. For one thing, numerous licences are issued which exempt the licensee from obligation to use an anæsthetic which would defeat the object of the experiment. VOL. XCVII-No. 578

For another, the suffering and pain only supervene, in many instances, at a much later stage. For another, the 'researches ' take place in secluded laboratories, and the inspectors supposed to ensure perfect humanity are appointed from the ranks of the vivisectors themselves. Therefore they necessarily see eye to eye with these, and cannot be held for a moment to be judicial or impartial. For another, no prosecution for cruelty can take place without the Home Secretary's leave, and practically after the lapse of six months. For yet further reasons, chloroform can hardly ever be administered to dogs because it so quickly kills them-morphia only stupefies; frequently any anæsthesia at all would preclude the aim of the research in question.

I surely need say no more in support of my 'desperate assertion,' as my opponent terms it. Talk of Billingsgate, forsooth! That savoury locality is not in it with a thorough-going vivisection advocate.

I pointed out that morphia is not an anæsthetic, and in support of my position quoted Sir Henry Morris's answer to the Royal Commission. Mr. Paget now disputes this. But why invoke high authority, titled or otherwise, at all? Ask any medical student of a year or two's standing. There must be few such who have not undergone sundry hypodermic injections of morphia - for experimental purposes,' of course.

It is hardly necessary to follow Mr. Paget in his reference to the somewhat archaic attack on Miss Frances Power Cobbe by Victor Horsley at the Church Congress in 1892. Enough to say that probably reached the highest watermark in personal abuse and angry vivisectional vituperation. As at the time expressed, a comparatively unknown 'young man assailed an eminent literary lady, old enough to have been his mother, with such pleasant and playful epithets as "rankest imposture," abyss of mendacity and immorality," et iis similia. I would only suggest that Miss Cobbe's grand work against scientific folly, cruelty, and unscrupulous wickedness has well stood the test of time; that now, after long years, it seems to be well-nigh attaining its proper fruit.

Anent Lord Banbury's Bill, Mr. Paget says with conspicuous acumen, 'We may feel fairly sure that the Bill, if it is to come again before Parliament, needs better support than it had in past years.' Rather a case of the obvious, is it not? But we will let that pass. Then he continues, ' Parliament has had enough, and more than enough, of old instances already disproved, of unfounded assertions, and of mere abuse.'

I am not aware that Parliament has ever had to encounter even one of these evils. Has it ever seriously discussed a single anti-vivisection principle or proven fact, such as the few set