PHYSIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—Yon were good enough some time ago to allow me a little space in the Spectator for a protest which was headed " Physio- logical Equipment." Will you repeat the kindness ? In that short protest I tried to find words, though words are weak, for the horror with which many—I trust most—regard the investi- gations of " science, falsely so called," in violating the rights of Nature and the House of Life, rushing in where angels fear to tread, and coming out again no wiser than before. The particular form of cruelty which I then sought to denounce consisted in the long-continued torture of a dog or dogs by feeding them solely upon grains of linseed, for the purpose of, after their death, examining the condition of their stomach. The ingenuity of science seems now to have devised a new form of torture for dogs suggested by the folly of men. An account of it, entitled "Fasting Dogs," appeared in the daily papers of Wednesday, the 5th inst. There is a kind of ghastly levity in the manner of recounting this "interesting experiment," which apparently took place in France. One fails, however, to understand in what way it can be supposed to throw some light on the complicated problem of Merlatti's prolonged fast. The mere fact of the dog who survived the forty days of his enforced starvation, making afterwards a hearty meal of meat and soup without any inconvenience, would alone prove to the non-scientific mind how empty of all result is such a trial, if meant to be parallel with the same as undertaken by a man. Such inhuman cruelty practised upon the dog, who, although ungifted with human speech, is yet possessed of almost human intelligence, proves something, however. It shows how the professors of science more and more permit to themselves the indulgence of a useless and unwholesome curiosity, prying for its satisfaction into Nature's most sacred chambers. So wide, and at the same time secret, is the growth of this evil, that one can scarce, in these days, hear the words " physiology," 4‘ pathology," or " biology," without a shudder. We hold fast as yet to one slender reed of comfort,—it is, that the Channel must be crossed if any seek openly to verify for themselves the worst of these cruelties. How soon the reed may break in our hands cannot be foreseen. But that acts which are now dealt with in England by English law, may, under the pretence of physiological research, become free to all is a possibility one dare not contemplate. Meanwhile, the blunt honesty of the comment which accompanied a cutting from the Morning Post containing an account of " Fasting Dogs" speaks for itself. My correspondent (an officer in her Majesty's service) writes,- " I wonder whether you have read the enclosed ; it is too horrible; the man ought to be had up for murder." That is the feeling of English gentlemen when they read about fasting dogs, and how the French Biological Society listened to the " interesting " description of the experiment during which a dog, weighing 31 lb., died after twenty days' starvation, weighing 4 lb. only (may the shadow of that unhappy dog weigh 100 lb. weight for ever upon the soul of his murderer !) ; and how the other dog lived on water only for twice the time, and did not die. That is the feeling of all of us who are outside the pale of " Science," and who can respond to the thought of the poet of "Sixty Years After," when he muses— Are we devils P Are we men ?
Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he wore here again, He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers Sisters, brothers—and the beasts—whose pains are hardly leas than oars."
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