Scientific Slaughtering

Abstract

THE problem of the humane slaughtering of animals for food is one which has exercised many members of the medical and veterinary professions. It is of direct concern to men of science, first because certain relevant facts which are in dispute can only be settled by rigorously scientific experiment, and secondly, because the ethical principles involved have received a much enhanced significance from the work of Darwin and other zoologists. The discussion recently opened at King's College, London, by Profs. McCunn and Smythe, of the Royal Veterinary College, under the chairmanship of Prof. Julian Huxley, affords an occasion for putting before the readers of NATURE the more important of the facts relating to the slaughterhouse.