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this year a medical colleague of the President stated that a great
many doctors were "just on the edge of going over to antivivisection."
This may or may not be true as regards animal
experiments; it is entirely untrue as regards the movements supported
under cover of the so-called anti-vivisection campaign such
as support of what is termed by those societies "medical freedom,"
which, in some respects, is regarded with good reason by the medical
profession as support of charlatanism.
The President of the Clapton and District Anti-Vivisection
Society is rightly proud of his prominence in the Medical Practitioners'
Union and, having held the offices of Vice-President,
Vice-Chairman of the National Health Insurance Section, Member
of the Council, Member of the Executive Committee and, as stated
in a letter addressed to a former Mayor, Chairman in two consecutive
years of the Executive Committee, he can be regarded as
prominent in that Union of medical men. I do not know the official
views of the Medical Practitioners' Union as regards the use of
animals. A number of reprints from the Medical World," the
official Journal of the Union, have been circulated by "anti"
societies with permission from the "Medical World." In the
Journal of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society,
" Progress To-day," July/September, 1936, there appears an
article entitled "Animal Experiments" with the following
comment by the Editor of " Progress To-day":—
"The following article, which appeared in the 'Medical
World' of August 28th, 1936, is reproduced here by kind permission
of the Editor of that Journal. The 'Medical World'
is the weekly Journal of the Medical Practitioners' Union.
We are grateful to the 'Medical World' not only for this
important leading article, but for the independent and critical
attitude which that Journal has maintained in regard to the
present fashion of regarding experiments on animals as
indispensable to medical research and knowledge of the action
of drugs.—Editor, 'Progress To-day.' "
Even though the "Medical World" may be opposed to the
experimental use of animals, the fact that that Union is undoubtedly
in favour of diphtheria immunisation and, in fact, approved
the sending of a circular letter to local authorities in September,
1935, calling for an extension of this service provides a still stronger
argument to the anti-vivisection societies' untruthful campaign in
opposition to diphtheria immunisation. The following is an
extract from that letter:—
"At the recent Annual General Meeting of this Union the
question of immunisation against diphtheria was discussed and