Dr. Walter Robert Hadwen's works.

  • Walter Hadwen
Date:
1896-1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Walter Robert Hadwen's works. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Mr. Paget has referred to the harbour. The harbour has been the despository of sewage for centuries. With better sanitary precautions in the Island of Malta, Malta Fever began to go down at the beginning of ipo6, and other fevers which had nothing to do with this germ, declined during the same period showing that there was a common cause which was reducing all the fevers in the island and that that common cause could be nothing else than the better condition of sanitation. (Hear, hear.) And this is what I say is one of the most serious matters in connection with vivisection, that it takes the eye off the real remedy for zymotic disease, viz., removing their causes, when the effects will cease. Further let me say I consider it monstrous to suppose that a great and a good and all-powerful God has so arranged the plan of the universe as to make our freedom from disease depend upon the torture of these poor helpless and sensitive creatures who cannot defend themselves against those who are stronger, than they. (Hear, hear, and applause). I am here to plead on behalf of those poor creatures that cannot plead for themselves. Those creatures are dependent upon us, we have no right because we are more powerful to adopt the cowardly course of holding a sanguinary inquisition upon the living bodies of fellow creatures as sentient and as sensitive as ourselves There were cries of time from the medical men present, and Dr. Hadwen sat down amid vociferous cheers. Mr. Paget: May I move an amendment ? I think it is very important that we should separate experiments under the Act from other experiments. The Chairman: I think it is out of order. [A good deal of excitement and confusion occurred when the vote was taken, many of the local doctors standing up in the front row facing the audience, and a large portion of the audience refrained from voting. The Chairman subsequently announced that the resolution was defeated by about 30 votes. Dr. Hadwen moved a vote of thanks to the Chairman, and Mr. Roberts, replying, said he did not think they had ever had such an intensely interesting debate in Shrewsbury for at least 14 years, and he thought it had been conducted in a very fair way.] 1
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