0-16,782.

Perhaps the question asked may have implied somewhat more of influence
on the part of the medical journals named than actually belonged to
them; but these periodicals certainly initiated that exposure and
condemnation of cruelty in vivisection--which in England led to an
agitation for reform. Sir William Osler's replies, however, suggest
something more than mere word-fencing; he was evidently surprised to
hear it intimated that medical journals like these could ever have
been found attacking vivisection in any way. Of the strong attacks
which appeared in these organs of medical opinion less than forty
years before, he had apparently never heard. Now, when men like
these, leaders in the formation of public opinion on medical matters,
are thus ignorant of history, ought one really to wonder at the lack
of knowledge on the same subject betrayed by the new generation of
physicians in active practice to-day--men not only of lesser
influence, but of more restricted opportunities for gaining
information? Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the physicians
engaged in medical instruction in England and America probably would
have replied to the questions asked Sir William Osler to the same
effect--"It is news to me." Sitting at their feet, how can pupils be
expected to do otherwise than to absorb both their prejudices and
their learning? How can any medical student distinguish between them?
We are all inclined to give implicit faith to men whose abilities in
any direction we admire and reverence. It is only with the advance of
years and the test of experience that men come to learn the distrust
of authority, the wisdom of doubt, and the value of personal inquiry
concerning every great problem of life.

Suppose, then, that we look into this question. Was Professor
Bowditch correct in assigning the beginnings of criticism concerning
vivisection to Dr. Fleming's essay published in 1864? Or was its
origin long before? Were the professors of the Medical School accurate
of statement when they practically denied that cruelty in vivisection
was a historic fact, and endorsed a reference to authenticated
instances as "long lists of atrocities THAT NEVER OCCURRED"? Is it a
fact--although Dr. Myers of Cambridge and Sir William Osler of Oxford
apparently never heard of it--that it was the MEDICAL journals of
England whose indignant condemnation of vivisection cruelties led up
to its attempted regulation by law? The public as