Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1912 — TO KILL AN OYSTER, EAT HIM [ARTICLE]

TO KILL AN OYSTER, EAT HIM

London Professor Says This Is Most Humane Way to Snd Bivalve's Life. New York.— Scruples of tenderhearted epicures, who have maintained that the eating of live oystert inflicts pain upon the tender bivalves and should therefore be prohibited by law, are set at rest by a statement from the professor of physiology at the London Medical school. Commenting on an announcement that a “prevention of cruelty to oysters” campaign is to be inaugurated by the president of the Alabama oyster commission, the professor says: “The oyster has a certain nervous structure, and undoubtedly has a certain amount of nervous sensibility. It is impossible, however, to say 'whether its nervous sensibilities are of a sufficiently high development to enable it to exercise pain. In any case, it would be hard to find a more sudden or a more merciful way of killing an oyster than by eating him.”