Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/33

 pig is of more value than many babies, and that operations on the lower animals, no matter how carefully and painlessly they be donc, if done for the purposes of research, diagnosis, or relief, and not with the object of making mutton tender, pigs fat, or horses quiet, are to be denounced as atrocities. With such as these it i useless to argue. But, seeing that many honoured members of our profession have themselves been vivisected by the envenomed tongues and sharp pens of a few noisy people, it may be well to point out that no conviction for cruelty or breach of law has ever been obtained, and that hearsay and the misinterpretation of physiological writings is not evidence, at least on this side the Channel. The money collected by these strange apostles of mercy is not spent in the Law Courts, where mutual cross-examination would be possible, but in attempts to institute a sort of medical excommunication, and in efforts to dam the stream of charity by sophistical utterances.

Meanwhile, it behoves the medical profession to bear a wary eye lest fanatics should seek to impose immoral tests upon applicants for hospital appointments, tests, be it remembered, which would have excluded Harvey from the service of St. Bartholomew's.

No hospital Governor who coquets with tests of this kind can possibly command the respect of our College, nor can we admit that such an attitude