Sir,

As you are perhaps aware there is considerable agitation going on in Germany & especially here for the suppression of Vivisection, and as Leipzig has a University of 3,000 students opinions are very divided & violent.¹ The Vivisectionists say that no one but a medical man can judge of the question at all, that all medical men of any name are of opinion that Vivisection is desirable & that science has profited greatly by it & that every one who asserts the contrary is a blockhead. Anti Vivisectionists on the contrary assert that medical science has gained next to nothing by it, that opinions among medical men are very divided & that notably you, Sir. W. Fergusson & many other eminent men have declared themselves decidedly against Vivisection.² Not being a medical man myself I will not give my opinion, but I am very certain that the disgusting cruelties practised by such men as Prof. Goltz & Prof. Schiff who on their own assertions (printed) bore holes in Dogs’ heads, take out their brains & keep them in this state for months, without even attempting to prove that anything has been gained thereby,—that such proceedings are a disgrace to any nation & to man generally & I wish to assist as much as I can in stopping it.³ It would very materially assist the, as I think, good cause, if you would give your opinion on the question which I should have printed here & circulated. I hope you will excuse my troubling you with this matter, but if, as is asserted you have said “die Vivisection ist der Abscheu’s inne Verdammung merkt”⁴ I venture to hope that you will be glad to assist in stopping the practice.

Your’s obed^t. servant, | Albert Payne

my address is

Albert Payne

c/o A. H. Payne, Publisher

Leipzig.

Ch. Darwin, Esque

P.S. To prevent the possibility of my intentions being misunderstood I would mention that I have no interest in the question beyond that of common humanity. I do not publish any books on the question & my motives therefore are quite free from business considerations. I hate cruelty & I think that an educated man who practises it under pretence of assisting science (if this is the case, or, at least, very often) is more to be condemned than a butcher or carter who is very often worked up into a rage by the frequent obstinacy of the animals he has to do with.