ur fathers, due to physiological researches, is not
sustained by the only impartial authority to which science can appeal
for evidence of results.

[A] Even Japan, a country we are apt to consider as somewhat
benighted, has far better statistical information at hand
than the United States of America.

* * * * *

What then is the substance of the whole matter? It seems to me the
following conclusions are justified by the facts presented.

I. All experiments upon living animals may be divided into two general
classes; 1st those which produce pain,--slight, brief, severe or
atrociously acute and prolonged; and 2nd, those experiments which are
performed under complete anaesthesia from which either death ensues
during unconsciousness, or entire recovery may follow.

II. The majority of vivisections requisite for purposes of teaching
physiological facts _may_ be so carried on as to take life with less
pain or inconvenience to the animal than is absolutely necessary in
order to furnish meat for our tables. Those who would make it a penal
offense to submit to a class of college students the unconscious and
painless demonstration of functional activity of the heart, for
example, and yet demand for the gratification of appetite the daily
slaughter of oxen and sheep without anaesthetics, and without any
attempt to minimize the agony of terror, fear and pain--may not be
inconsistent. But it is a view the writer cannot share.

III. Prohibition of all experiments may be fairly demanded by those
who believe that the enthusiastic ardor of the scientific experimenter
or lecturer, will outweigh all considerations of good faith, provided
success or failure of his experiment depend on the consciousness of
pain. In other words, that the experimenter himself, as a rule,
_cannot be trusted to obey the law, should the law restrict_.

This also is an extreme position.

IV. Absolute liberty in the matter of painful experiments has produced
admitted abuses by physiologists of Germany, France and Italy. In
America it has led to the repetition before classes of students of
Magendie's extreme cruelties,--demonstrations which have been
condemned by every leading English physiologist.

V. In view of the dangerous impulses not unfrequently awakened by the
sight of pain intentionally inflicted, experiments of this kind should
be by legal enactment absolutely forbidden before classes of students,
espe