Some of his demonstrations were doubtless unproductive of pain, but in view of the fact that in other experiments no anaesthetic was employed, it may be questioned whether his second "rule" was always very strictly observed. In one lecture he referred to his demonstration "as the first time that we have applied electrical stimulus to a nerve," and explains that when the experiment is made on an animal paralyzed with curare, the effect is more complicated when a sensory nerve is irritated, since then "the arteries all over the body contract, because the brain is in action."[1] No plainer confession of the existence of sensibility could be made, yet for obvious reasons the lecturer carefully avoids admitting the presence of pain. During the following year there appeared articles describing "the teaching of practical physiology in the London schools." At King's College in London, for example, demonstrations were made by the lecturer, but "experiments on animals are never given to the ordinary student to do; Professor Rutherford's experience on this point is that such attempts result only in total failure."[2] On the other hand, at University College, the Continental method of teaching was to be found. "Student perform experiments on animals. Frogs, curarized or chloroformed, are given them, and the experiment which has been fully explained and demonstrated by the professor, is performed by them as far as practicable."[3] Here, then, we find introduced into England (and perhaps there existing in secret for some time before), that vivisection of animals in illustration of well-known facts, which, but a few years earlier, every leading medical journal of Great Britain had so emphatically reprobated and denounced. [1] Medical Times and Gazette, June 17, 1871. [2] Ibid., July 20, 1872. [3] Medical Times and Gazette, July 27, 1872. The Continental school of English physiologists seemed confident of victory. But the leading exponents of English ideals in medicine were not inclined to surrender at once; now and then we find them vigorously maintaining their ground, and disposed to contrast the science gained in the laboratory with that gathered by experience and fortified by reflection. Some extracts from a leading editorial in the Medical Times and Gazette are extremely suggestive of the conflict of opinions: