Friends of animals : an address delivered at North Berwick, East Lothian, on March 19th, 1910 / by J.L. Marjoribanks.

  • Marjoribanks, James Leslie, 1874-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Friends of animals : an address delivered at North Berwick, East Lothian, on March 19th, 1910 / by J.L. Marjoribanks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    10/16
    1005 1907. “ Well,” some of you may say, “ surely such a triumph should convince the most determined disbelievers in experimental science that good can come out of experiments on animals.’’ No, it does not convince them. One must remember that this idea, that no good can come out of experiments on animals, is a very old one, and has become a sort of cult; and that some of the leaders of the anti-vivisection societies are elderly men, men whose ideas on the subject had become fixed many years before bacteriology had developed in these wonderful ways. As one can see by a survey of their literature, their way of disposing of each fresh discovery is either to refuse to believe in its value, or to deny the share that experiments had in the discovery, whichever position seems the less untenable. Seeing how skilfully these gentlemen had disposed of one scientific discovery after another, to their own personal satisfaction, I hunted, out of curiosity, in their literature, to see how they would get over the fact of the extinction of Malta fever. I found their explanation of its extinction in the literature of an anti-vivisectionist society which collects, by the way in this county. The improved sanitation in the harbour.of Valetta! It was nothing to them that the Royal Society had had at its command the best scientific intellect in the country, from which to choose the Commission that had done the work ; it was nothing to them that Malta fever is worse inland, in villages that are miles away from the harbour of Valetta, as pointed out by the Commission long before it traced the infection to the goats of the island. The disease had been stamped out, but this could not have had anything to do with experiments on animals. It is hardly credible, but it is a fact, that this dogma about the uselessness of experiments on animals is so firmly held, that a member of the House of Commons rose in the House, and actually asked the Secretary of State for War to order the re-issue of the goat’s milk to our soldiers!