Description

The first edition of this book was published in 1900. For twelve years it had been my business, as Secretary to the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research, to know something about experiments on animals, and to follow the working of the Act of 1876; and to give facts and references to a very large number of applicants. Believing that an account of these experiments, and of the conditions imposed on them by the Act, might serve a useful purpose, I proposed to the Council of the Association that I should write a book on the subject. The Council accepted this proposal; and decided that the book should be written for general reading, that it should not be anonymous, and that it should be published without reserve. It was, of course, a doubtful and embarrassing task. But, from twelve years' experience of the things said by the chief opponents of all experiments on animals, I knew that there was only one way of doing it to give the original authorities, the plain facts, the very words, chapter and verse for everything.