Coleridge.

The Very Rev. the Dean of Christ Church, Vice-Chancellor, Oxford.

At this distance of time it is probable that the present Dean of Christ Church may not fully realise the sort of person Professor Sanderson, whom the University preferred to Ruskin, was: I therefore think he may like to see a letter I wrote at the time to the papers which has fortunately been preserved:

Sir,—I hope you will find room for an answer to the remarkable letter of Professor Acland in your issue of the 9th, and to “F.R.S.’s” attack on Miss Cobbe in that of the 10th of March.

Professor Acland says:—

“I have to say to English parents that everyone at home and abroad, who knows anything of biological science in England, will think them fortunate if their children being students of medicine, fall under the elevating influence of Professor Sanderson’s scientific and personal character.”

And “F.R.S.” says:—

“I was a very constant attendant at Dr. Sanderson’s private laboratory during the last ten years of his professorship at University College, and during the whole of that time I never witnessed a single operation involving pain.”

Now, are we not justified in estimating Professor Sanderson’s nobility of disposition by his books?

He was joint author and editor of the “Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory,” the publication in which of the tortures of animals roused a feeling in the country that led to the appointment of the Royal Commission to inquire into these practices.  And is he not now one of the editors of the Journal of Physiology, which continually details to the world experiments involving terrible torments?

In his “Handbook of Physiology” we find such descriptions as the following:—

Page 319.  “(109).—Asphyxia by complete Occlusion of the Trachea.—For this purpose a cannula must be fixed air-tight in the trachea, the mouth of which is of such form that it can be plugged with a cork. . . . The phenomena as they present themselves in the dog. . . .  First minute.  Excessive respiratory movements in which at first the expansive efforts of the thoracic muscles, afterwards the expulsive efforts of the abdominal wall, are most violent.  Towards the close of the first minute the animal becomes convulsed.  Second minute.  Early in the second minute the convulsions cease, often suddenly; simultaneously with the cessation the expiratory efforts become indistinguishable.  The iris is now dilated to a rim; the eye does not close when the cornea is touched, nor does the pupil react to light; all reflex reaction to stimuli has ceased.  All the muscles except those of inspiration are flaccid, and the animal lies in a state of tranquility which contrasts in the most striking way with the storm which preceded it . . . Third and fourth minute.  As death approaches the thoracic and abdominal movements which are entirely respiratory become slow and slower as well as shallower. . . . In the spasms which accompany the final gasps of an asphyxiated

animal the head is thrown back, the trunk straightening or arched backwards, and the limbs are extended while the mouth gapes and the nostrils dilate.  They are called by physiologists stretching convulsions.”

Page 320.  “(110).—Asphyxia by Slow Suffocation.—When an animal is allowed to breathe the same quantity of air repeatedly and continuously out of a bag, the process being of much longer duration, the phenomena can be studied with greater facility.”

After this, is it “ill-natured or ill-mannered” to think that parents will not be fortunate if “their children fall under the elevating influence of Dr. Sanderson’s scientific and personal character”?

We want to know how medicine is advanced by the agonies of these suffocated animals?

It may be true that Professor Sanderson at present holds no certificate, nor does Dr. Michael Foster, who occupies a similar position at Cambridge, but Dr. Michael Foster has “assistants” who hold from time to time certificates, and quite lately, “under his guidance,” a lady, Miss Emily Nunn, has been poisoning frogs till their skin comes off.  There is nothing to prevent Professor Sanderson from employing assistants.  The mind may be the mind of Professor Sanderson, but the

knife may be the knife of such a man as Dr. Klein, who was his former assistant at the Brown Institution, and who has publicly declared that “he has no regard at all for the sufferings of the animals.”

Your obedient servant,
Stephen Coleridge.

12 Ovington Gardens, London,
      March 13th, 1885.

On the publication of this letter the Dean of Christ Church of that day, Dean Liddell, wrote to me a long rambling letter which I could not then, and cannot now, publish because it concludes with these words:—

I have written this not for publication.  I will not engage in newspaper controversy.  I write to you, out of respect for the name you bear,—not in anger but in sorrow.

To this I replied:

To my letter in the Press you have no word to offer.  In it I quote verbatim Professor Sanderson’s own description of one of the many wanton torments that he has inflicted upon the good creatures of God.  I ask how medicine is advanced by

the agonies of the dogs he has slowly suffocated, and I get no answer (though I have sent the letter to him and some twenty other vivisectors) but this expression from you of sorrow that the name I bear should be ranged on the side of this man’s opponents.

Sir, I am a young man, unskilled in polemics and unpractised in the art of advocacy, no match for one of mature age, ripe experience, and stored learning; but if an enthusiasm for mercy, a belief that human life itself is not fitly bought by the torturing of the helpless, an amazement that any Christian, nay that any man should call one of these tormentors “friend,” be sentiments the holding of which by one of my name fills you with sorrow if not with anger, it without doubt is plain that our name is but a name to you, and that your respect for it should have been withdrawn when it first came into prominence.

I do not believe you know what things these men have done; it is a terrible task for any man to read their literature; if you had done so I do indeed believe that not your sorrow only but your anger would be deeply roused, but—not against me.

I remain, Sir,
Faithfully and Respectfully yours,
Stephen Coleridge.

It gives me peculiar pleasure to bring up this letter from the now distant past; thirty-two years have not made me wish to withdraw or change a word of it.

CHAPTER VII: DR. JOHNSON

Of all the Masters of letters that have adorned and elevated the speech of our race Dr. Johnson is in many ways the most lovable.  The son of a poor bookseller in Lichfield