Baltimore Evening Sun (5 September 1911): 6.

From the second canto of the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society’s protest against my polite suggestion that it confine itself to facts and let theosophy and flapdoodle alone:

Another point that you seem to have overlooked, or at least failed to mention, is the fact that the opinions in, the leaflet entitled “What Some Eminent Physicians Have Said in 1909 re Vivisection” are of very recent date (1909). You refer slightingly to “reprints of orthodox attacks upon vivisection” and make prominent the fact that Dr. Berkley’s experiments were performed 14 years ago, but you fail to mention that the experiments reported at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Rockfeller Institute have been made since 1907. Your reference to the fact that these experiments are attested to by “former janitors, animal keepers and other such persons” brings to mind the lines of Robert Burns*:

Prince and lords are but the breath of kings, And honest man’s the noblest work of God.

Are we to infer that you think any profession--the medical, for instance--has a monopoly of honesty? You say some of it (the matter attested to) is true. If any of it is false, the burden of proof rests with you, and we should be grateful to you for pointing out the false.

Strange as it may seem, I actually hold, and openly admit it, that when it comes to matters medical and vivisectional, I am inclined to take the unsupported word of Dr. Simon Flexner against the affidavits of all the janitors, animal keepers and charwomen in the United States–not because I think these menials are less honest than Dr. Flexner, but because I think they are infinitely less able to formulate sound opinions. The complaint against Dr. Flexner and his associates, in the pamphlet of “evidence” here referred to, is that their experiments upon animals are useless--that they engage in tortures wantonly and without reason or result. In other words, we have here an expression of opinion upon a purely technical question--the question, to wit, whether the said experiments are or are not cruel and useless. Dr. Flexner says they are not, and in support of his opinion there is not only his undoubted professional skill, his supreme capacity for judging, but also a great body of definite results, the able fruits of his work--for example, the meningitis serum. The janitors, animal keepers and charwomen, however, venture to dissent; they remain unconvinced that the meningitis serum is worth 20,000 stray dogs. As for me, I prefer to follow Dr. Flexner, and 99 per cent. of all sane human beings, I am convinced, are with me.

The actual evidence of these hewers of wood and drawers of water--one of them presents a certificate, from the superintendent of the Rockefeller Institute, showing that he is “exceptionally handy at painting and carpentering and has had experience with laundries and steam heating”–is often amusingly naif. In one place, for example, the process of inoculating horses, apparently in the manufacture of diphtheria antitoxin, is described in detail, and much is made over the sufferings of the horses--their reluctance to be bled, their subsequent weakness and their general mental anguish. And yet the witness ingenuously confesses that the average horse under this treatment lasts four years! Certainly there can be nothing very agonizing about experiences which take four long years to kill.

Now for the next stanza of the society’s letter:

You ask why the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society gives countenance to the charge that experiments upon animals are invariably cruel and invariably useless. By “experiments upon animals” we presume you mean vivisection. We define animal vivisection as the infliction upon animals of experiments which entail suffering in the operation or in the consequences. It is plain that such experiments are undeniably cruel. As to their uselessness, we refer you to the statements of physicians and surgeons whose position and knowledge give them authority on the subject. You will find the following quoted in the leaflet we are sending:

Mr. Stephen Townsend, Dr. George Wilson,
Dr. J. H. Thornton, Dr. Forbes Winslow,
Dr. Thomas Wilson, Dr. F. S. Arnold,
Dr. I. D. Buck, Dr. James N. Payne,
Dr. Ira D. Brown, Dr. J. S. Harndall.

The opinions of Dr. Courmelles, Dr. Laurent and Dr. E. Lucas Hughes are in the pamphlet you already have.

Well, let us examine these stupendous toreadors of anti-vivisection, these world-famous authorities, these arch-physicians and super-surgeons. Who is Stephen Townsend? A distinguished man of science? Not at all. As a matter of fact, he is an actor--and such fame as attaches to him was won, not by contributing anything to medical knowledge or to any other sort of knowledge, but by playing roles in “Sowing the Wild” and “Slaves at the Ring!” Certainly a notable “authority”! And who is Buck? A man of 73 years, graduated from a homeopathic college in 1864, ex-president of the Theosophical Society in America, author of “Mystic Masonry,” “Why I am a Theosophist” and “Browning’s Paracelsus.” Has he ever made any serious contribution to medical knowledge? Is he, in point of cold fact, an “authority,” in any intelligible sense of the word? I have no evidence that he is. Even in his autobiography, in “Who’s Who in America,” there is no mention of a single book, or even paper, of professional importance. His main interest seems to be, not in medical research, but in theosophy.

Of the other “authorities,” the two Wilsons, Arnold. Brown, Payne, Courmelles, Laurent and Hughes are so “distinguished” that they are not even mentioned in the reference books. “Who’s Who” lists every living British medical man of any importance whatever. Sir Almroth Wright is in it, Major Ronald Ross is in it, Dr. Oster is in it, Sir Patrick Menson is in it. But the two Wilsons, Hughes and Arnold, though they are Englishmen, and according to the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society “authorities,” are not in it. And in the same way, “Who’s Who in America” overlooks Brown and Payne, and “Wer Ist’s,” the great Continental authority, overlooks Cournelles and Laurent, though it gives liberal notice to Ehrlich, Kossel, Lorenz, Metchnikoff and all other important Drs. med.

This leaves us Thornton, Winslow and Harndall. Harndall is a horse doctor and Winslow is a psychiatrist--an assiduous expert witness at murder trials. They may be learned and honorable men, but on the special subject under discussion I prefer the opinion of Dr. Flexner. Thornton remains. Who is he? An ancient who was born in 1834 and went to the Far East at 23, remaining there for 35 years and winning distinction, not for his contributions to science, but for his gallantry in battle! His sole publication is a book of war reminiscences!!

Tomorrow the third canto, which deals, so my secretaries tell me, with Dr. Berkley and his doings at Bayview.

*These lines were not written by Robert Burns, but by Alexander Pope. They appear (though not consecutively) in “The Essay on Man.” But let it pass. One scarcely looks to anti-vivisectionists for accurate quotations.