Henry Hill Hickman

“ The experiments were necessarily made upon living animals, but they were confined to animals previously condemned to death; and as their lives were preserved, and their suffering very slight, (certainly not so great as they would have sustained if their lives had been taken away by any of the ordinary methods of killing such animals) I venture to hope that they, in the aggregate, rather received benefit than injury. ”

“ The facility of suspending animation, by carbonic acid gas, and other means, without permanent injury to the subject, having been long known, it appears to me rather singular that no experiments have hitherto been made with the object of ascertaining whether operations could be successfully performed upon animals whilst in a torpid state; and whether wounds inflicted upon them in such a state would be found to heal with greater or less facility than similar wounds inflicted on the same animals p. 8whilst in possession of all their powers of feeling and suffering. ”

“ At the particular request of gentlemen of the first rate talent, and who rank high in the scientific world, it is, that the author of the following letter is induced to lay it before the public generally, but more particularly his medical brethren; in the hope that some one or other, may be more fortunate in reducing the object of it beyond a possibility of doubt. ”