DAILY PRICES OF STOCKS, FROM OCT. 27, TO NÓV. 25, 1815, BOTH INCLUSIVE. 3 per Ct. 3 per Ct. 4 per Ct. 5 per Ct. Long Redu. Consols. Cons. Navy. Oct. 27 242 24259 61 603 74 73 90 89 15 15 14 pr. 178 177 4 61 6074 90 90 15 15 144 pr. 178 4 Nov. 1 241 60 593612 727 1744 100克 154 14 pr. 3 4 par. #61 904 90 15층 15. pr. 179 177 5 15% 15 pr. 65264 59 60 5 33 5 1 pr. 62 pr. 5 7 240 239604 5961 1743 91 90 15, 15 15 pr. 179178 5 1 #61 8 239 60 61 75 743 91 91 15 115巷 pr. 65 9 240 602 61 91 91 15 pr. 6 5 1 61 15 pr. 180 60 5 1 61 75 74 91 151 15 pr. 7 5 5 1 62 61 75 74391 16 154 pr. 7 5 2 *62 612 pr. 61 8 7 6 2 62 92492 162 pr. 60 17 6 2 *62 16 240 240 60 62 61 75 7492 91 9090 16 16 pr. 60 616 5 5. 2 62614 pr. 61 6 5 5 462 62 75 62 617 36262 60 62 62 75 92 913 29121319 92 91 15, 15, 15 3 per Cent Consols for Account, Nov. 24, 1815. +3 per Cent. Consols for the Opening, Jan. 19, 1816. All Exchequer Bills, dated prior to the month of October, 1814, have been advertised to be paid off, and the Interest thereon has ceased. N. B. The above Table contains the highest and lowest prices, taken from the Course of the Exchange, &c. originally published by John Castaign, in the year 1712, and now ublished, every Tuesday and Friday, under the authority of the Committee of the Stock Exchange, by JAMES WETENHALL, Stock-Broker, No. 7, Capel court, Bartholomew-lane, London, On application to whom, the original documents for near a century past may be read. 16 6 pr. 6 [ 476 ] METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER. Kept by C. BLUNT, Philosophical Instrument-maker, 38, Tavistock-st. Covent-Gardes. Moon. Day. Wind. Max. Min. Mean. Max Min. Mean. PREVAILING WINDS-N 13-NE 3-E 6-SW 3-W 6-NW 1 wind at N In answer to the numerous enquiries relative to the best channel for transmitting the New Monthly Magazine to Ireland and Foreign countries, we beg leave to state that it is regularly delivered by the Postmasters in all parts of Europe at Two Guineas per annum, or Öne Guinea for six months, if orders are given, and payment made To Mr. AUSTIN, General Post Office, London, for Ireland. To Mr. COWIE, General Post Office, for France, Germany, and Holland. To Mr. WILLIAM SERJEANT, General Post Office, for the Countries bordering on the Baltic and the Mediterranean, and for Portugal and the Brazils. To Mr. THORNHILL, General Post Office, for the West Indies, Bahama, Madeira, Bermuda, and Nova Scotia. To Mr. Guy, of the East India House, for the Cape of Good Hope, and all parts of India, Printed by J. Gillet, Crown Court, Fleet Street, London. THE NEW MONTHLY No. 24.] JANUARY 1, 1816. [VOL. IV. MONTHLY MAGAZINES have opened a way for every kind of inquiry and information. The in telligence and discussion contained in them are very extensive and various; and they have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the nation, which in a certain degree hath enlarged the public understanding. HERE, too, are preserved a multitude of useful hints, observations, and facts, which otherwise might have never appeared.- Dr. Kippis. Every Art is improved by the emulation of Competitors.---Dr. Johnson, MR. EDITOR, ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HOWEVER questionable the morality of practising experiments upon living animals may be, its utility can be doubted by none but the ignorant; by whom, at least as far as concerns the present subject, I mean not simply the great mass of mankind, but all such as, however well informed otherwise, are utterly ignorant of the animal economy. Two communications addressed to your excellent miscellany, the one contained in the eighteenth number, signed Castigator, the other in the twentieth subscribed J. which vehemently declaim against such experimentalizing, appear to be dictated with more excess of zeal and false sensibility, than sound sense and knowledge of the subject: in other words, to be more creditable to the heart than to the head of your correspondents Cas'igator in the super-abundance of his humanity quotes a passage from Samuel Johnson, a man of invincible prejudices, at any rate altogether unqualified for deciding on a question which none but medical philosophers can with propriety discuss or determine. Had Castigator been writing with equal enthusiasin against the wickedness of card-playing, which, after all, many people of good sense, morality and religion pronounce to be no more than an agreeable and innocent pastime, he might with like exultation have quoted a philippic of the same author on that subject, in which, in equally smooth and well rounded periods, but in terms of unwarrantable acrimony, the enormity of this recreation, so general among all ranks is gravely dilated upon and inveighed against! It is an easy matter for a man of talent and education, and by whom, from his continual literary habits, like those of Dr. Johnson, correct and almost mellifluent composition upon nearly every subject, has been reduced to a species of mechanism, to NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No, 24. write with plausibility and elegance in the denunciation of any amusement or pursuit, which may have happened to incur his groundless aversion. But, however fine-spun the whimsical lucubrations of ingenious authors on such subjects may be; however artfully they may display their mechanical adroitness in literary composition; it will in the end be found that, be the authority quoted what it may, it is a gross abuse of talent to write against that truth which, when impartially investigated by those who are competent to the task of judging of it, must be pronounced to be selfevident. Castigator by selecting for his purpose a few of the quaint sentences of the most morose and surly of moralists, seems to be perfectly satisfied that his opinion is fortified beyond all attack; for this unqualified admirer and follower of such a literary colossus would naturally argue with himself, that no man living could have the hardihood to oppose the ipse dirit of so redoubted a writer and champion of all that is amiable in human nature! the believer in ghosts and hobgobblins! a man whose very writings in favour of virtue are gloomily impressed on the mind of his reader as to do more harm than good to the cause he espouses! But let us hear what this stupendous genius has asserted on the subject in question, that it should be so vauntingly cited by Castigator. He observes, with his usual te imperance, that the wretches, (a delicate terin,) who disgrace themselves by cruel experiments on dumb animals, are exclusively the inferior practitioners in the profession! Common sense, however, not to say great genius, ought to have suggested to him that the inferior or despicable part of the rofession, whether in medicine or surgery, totally iguorant of every thing relating to the animal economy, and unambitious of acquiring useful and reVOL. IV. 3 Q 478 On the Utility of Experiments upon Living Animals. spectable knowledge, never harbour the bare idea of going out of their way to perform a physiological experiment; but, on the contrary, in a grovelling and ignominious manner do all they can to fill their coffers at the expense of the health and lives of the misguided people who submit to their treatment, altogether regardless of those experiments, their knowledge of which might other wise have been of such importance to the safety of their patients. Before advancing so hardy an assertion, he ought to have known that the individuals who, in consequence of successfully pursuing the experiments on animals, which he so bigotedly deprecates, have promoted our knowledge of physiology to its present eminent station, have been men whose names are justly entitled not only to the gratitude, but veneration of posterity. The catalogue would not be very long, but here unnecessary: among others, the distinguished names of Haller, Boerhaave, Baglivi, Hoffman, both Monros, Spallanzani, &c. &c. men equally great and good, may for the present suffice.Among the discoveries which reflect such merited honour on the memory of their authors on both sides of the Tweed, none it is presumed ranks higher than that of the circulation of the blood by the illustrious Harvey. But I should beg leave to ask Castigator, had this great man been restrained by a mistaken tenderness of heart, or more properly speaking, chicken-heartedness, from practising experiments on living animals, would he ever have arrived at the sigual discovery which he achieved? Lastly, do such umpostors as Dr. Br*d*m, the sagacious S**m*n, the great Co*p*r of Blackfriars-road, the Messrs. Cir*e, a par nobile fratrum, that grand luminary, Dr. Clf of Tower-hill, so renowned for his successful treatment of the winne ral, men who are the wretches of the profession in the strictest sense of the word; do these, I say, devote themselves by day and by night to the torturing of animals for the sake of advancing our knowledge of anatomy and physiology? No, good souls! these are matters with which they never interfere, perfectly satisfied with being personally visited by their very wise patients, or consulted by letter, in which only a single pound note is modestly required to be inclosed, as a douceur for the solicited response from their Delphian oracles! To point out how inconsistent with the fact Castigator's sweeping assertion is, in "defy"ing any surgeon to prove that from such 66 [Jan. 1, experiments, the slightest benefit has "ever resulted by analogy, to the human subject," would be alike idle and derogatory to the common sense of civilized mankind. If Castigator, in short, be not as ignorant of the Roman language, as of physiology, I should be disposed to take leave of him here by making an application to him of the Latin phrase, Ne sutor ultra crepidam; a phrase which is of infinitely more extensive application than even such a censor morum as be may be aware. Castigator has found a most zealous abettor in your correspondent J.; who betrays such exquisitely morbid and congenial sensibility with that of Castigator, the theme of his eulogy. But however beholden the brute creation may be to the good iutentions of those benevolent gentlemen, I really am humbly of opinion that the luckless race of frogs, mice, cats, and dogs will continue to the end of the chapter to be as subject as they ever have been to the experiments to which they have already in instances innumerable been wantonly doomed by such monsters as John Hunter, Monro, both the father and son, cum multis aliis both at home and abroad. And long may they continue so, say I, for the good of mankind, to whose benefit the inferior animals alive, and their own species when dead, ought always to be made subservient. J., in the plenitude of his enthusiasın, has supposed a case which from its absurdity is truly ludicrous; to wit, the possibility or even probability of a human being who owes his life to his dog, repaying such obligation by subjecting the faithful animal who has probably rescued him from a watery grave, or from the hands of the midnight murderer, to the refined tortures inflicted in the dissecting room! This would literally "beat cock-fighting;" is certainly a bold conception, hatched in no common head, and conveys a very high idea of human nature in general! I am so much tickled with this supposition of John, James, or Jeffery's, that I consider myself as bound in gratitude to furnish him with the following true narrative, which, I hope, may afford him some amusement, if it do not excite his amazement; at any rate, it may tend to remove his prejudices. An ingenious gentleman, serving in the capacity of surgeon in the navy, a man of some research, considerable learning, and zealous in the prosecution of his profession, not long ago performed with complete success, an experiment, the devising of which did credit to his in 1816.] On the Utility of Experiments upon Living Animals. vention, and proved extremely beneficial to his messmates. They happened to be stationed in a warm latitude, during the summer season, and from circumstances of perpetual occurrence in the naval service, were for a length of time reduced to live almost entirely on salt junk, maggotty biscuits, and semi-putrid water, at length so far in the progress of spontaneous recovery from actual putridity, the state in which by some accident, it had been put on board of the ship in the Thames. It seemed a hard necessity to subsist on such sorry and hurtful fare, while they had on board upwards of half a dozen of well-thriven, good-sized pigs, which had been purposely reared with great care for the gun-room table. On the other hand, all acknowledged that for the sake of about only six pounds of one of these grunters, a reasonable allowance for a dinner among as many hungry youths who composed, or as properly might be said at times discomposed the gun-room mess-it would be a sad waste to give to a saucy ship's company, as all ship's companies are, and thereby make them by such indulgence still more so, or commit to the sea ten times that quantity; the pigs being each of them from seventy to eighty pounds in weight, for either from the heat of the weather, or state of the atmosphere, or both these causes combined, newly killed pork neither could be preserved fresh for four and twenty hours together, nor could it by any attention be made to take the salt. In this unhappy dilemma, one day when they were unusually sharp-set, the debate was revived among them: "Whether it were more advisable for them to save themselves from perishing by immediately devoting a pig to death, even on the disadvantageous terms already stated; or, by prudently reserving the pigs for future use, in the mean time themselves die of hunger, and probably become a prey to the pigs their survivors?" For the question seemed to amount to nothing less. This little community, until then happy in itself, was fairly divided on the occasion; three of them vociferating for the immediate slaughtering of the pigs, opposed by the like number as vehemently contending for the procrastina tion of their doom, and all the horrors of civil discord so fatal both in great and small states were likely to ensue; when the seasonable and judicious interposi tion of the surgeon, after some slight op 479 position at first given to his suggestion, produced the happiest effect by restoring its former peace and harmony to the society. He proposed, in short, that as a single fore or hind leg was all they required at one time," instead of actually killing one of the pigs, he should formally set about AMPUTATING one of their limts, and afterwards conduct the patient through the cure in the usual manner, and with the usual precautions." This he advised with regard to one and all of them in regular succession at stated intervals; so that supposing two of them to suffer amputation weekly, as there were eight of them in all, at the expiration of eight weeks, or a lunar month, the pig whose limb had been first amputated, providing it were not of a very scrofulous habit, or no very untoward symptoms occurred, would so far recover as to be in a perfectly fit condition to admit of the removal in like manner of another; and and so on of the rest. He contended that they might all of them without danger be subjected to this process, should it be found to be absolutely necessary, even to the loss of all their four extremities. Nay, he went farther; for he affirmed that after losing their four great extremities, without sustaining any permanent injury to their general health, constitution, or more properly speaking, as applied to pigs, condition, the tail, ears and tongue were still in reserve, and admitted of the same easy and safe mode of removal. [Here he made a strong appeal to them all with respect to the estimation in which pig's-tailf was held by them.] They were wonderfully struck with the novelty of the suggestion, and unanimously applauded its ingenuity and proposed end, but they were no less shocked at the inhumanity of inflicting such repeated torments on these ill-fated animals, however unclean; and were greatly averse to sanction a proceeding, the transpiring of which among the world at large would necessarily entail on them the opprobrium of being little better than barbarians and a disgrace to the British name. For by the way it may be remarked, that officers in the navy, though considered by the over-refined and pampered part of the community, as being in point of manners, blunt, * Scrofula (the King's Evil) signifying in Latin literally a little pig. + Twisted tobacco leaf for chewing, so called by seamen |