It may be objected that a tiny puncture has to be made in the vein to introduce the chloralose into the circulation; but this puncture is really such a trifle that it would be sheer childishness to pay any attention to it. What doctor would hesitate to make a puncture in the skin of his patient for the injection of a solution of morphia? However, if sentimentality be pushed to such a degree as to shrink from touching the vein of a dog in order to put him to sleep, even this tiny puncture can be avoided by mixing the chloralose with the food of the animal to be experimented upon. In half an hour or three-quarters of an hour after the mixture is given he is in a state of perfect anæsthesia. For these reasons, vivisection with anæsthesia seems to me to be quite legitimate. As soon as it is recognised that man has the right to kill the animal, he has the right to kill him as he pleases, provided he spares him all suffering. Let us also reflect a little on this point: an animal has to die just as much as we ourselves. Now, natural death would certainly be for him a long and cruel agony, lasting several hours, several days, perhaps several weeks. Well, then, we replace hideous old age, the agony of prolonged tortures due to disease, by a dreamless sleep, which at once plunges the animal into nothingness, without his passing through the intermediary stage of necessary suffering. Is this what is called being inhuman? For my part, I shall regret on my death-bed that no physiologist will be found whose conscience will permit him, or, if so, who would have sufficient courage to help me to pass away under the influence of chloroform, ether, chloralose, morphia, or chloral, thus saving me from the throes of the final struggle, and bestowing upon me a peaceful death and an easy termination of all suffering. FOOTNOTES: [6] In England, the Vivisection Act expressly states that curare is not to be regarded as an anæsthetic, and this proviso has been loyally accepted by English physiologists. On those rare occasions when curare is used, and the occasions are very rare indeed, and year by year they become rarer, a volatile anæsthetic such as chloroform or A.C.E. (alcohol, chloroform, ether) mixture is administered at the same time in sufficient amount to render anæsthesia absolute. One should add that since Claude Bernard's work on curare, physiologists have seen reason for doubting whether it leaves sensibility intact, as Bernard thought. But as there is doubt on the question, and the available evidence in favour of its lulling sensations is small, it is still considered advisable to retain Bernard's views, and act as though it is not an anæsthetic at all.--(W. D. H.) CHAPTER IV CONCERNING EXPERIMENTATION OTHER THAN VIVISECTION