h case, suffered by the animal, is suffered in
vain.... Pain so inflicted is manifest CRUELTY."

If we compare this statement with any recent expression of the
Journal's views, we shall see how far this organ of medical opinion
has strayed in fifty years from the conservatism of Sir Charles Bell
toward the unrestricted freedom demanded by the apologists of Magendie
and Brachet. Six months later, another pronouncement appears in its
editorial columns. In the issue of June 11, 1864, we read:

"Far be it from us to patronize or palliate the infamous practices,
the unjustifiable practices, committed in French veterinary schools,
and in many French Medical schools, in the matter of vivisection. We
repudiate as brutal and cruel all surgical operations performed on
living animals. WE REPUDIATE THE REPETITION OF ALL EXPERIMENTS ON
ANIMALS FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF ANY ALREADY WELL-DETERMINED
PHYSIOLOGICAL QUESTION. We hold that no man except a skilled
anatomist and a well-informed physiologist has a right to perform
experiments on animals."

It is unnecessary to state that these excerpts from the editorial
columns of medical journals are not quoted by way of criticism. On
the contrary, they seem in the highest degree creditable to the
medical periodicals in which they appeared. They voiced a
condemnation of scientific cruelty which then found a universal
response. In the awakening of public apprehension regarding the
growing abuses incident to vivisection, their influence cannot be too
highly esteemed. There can be no question that these exposures of
physiological methods, these repeated and emphatic denunciations of
cruelty, proceeding from the leading medical journals of England,
contributed more than anything else to arouse the general public to
the acknowledged existence of abuse, and to the necessity of some
legislation regarding the vivisection of animals. AND YET NO ADVOCATE
OF UNRESTRICTED VIVISECTION IN OUR DAY EVER REFERS TO THEM. Sir
William Osler tells the Royal Commission that "it is news to him."
Professor Bowditch, the leading physiologist of Harvard Medical
School, refers with contempt to "blood-curdling stories" in the
pamphlet of Dr. Fleming as the "first serious attack" upon
vivisection--without the slightest reference to all this earlier
criticism, this exposure of infamous cruelty by the leading journals
of the medical profession! But the worst and most regrettable result
of such ignorance on