of the physiological laboratory as "a grave and profound mistake,"
adding that "if there be necessary secrecy, there is wrong." No more
significant condemntation of present-day methods has ever been
uttered.

An eminent London physician, Dr. Greville Macdonald, wrote not long
ago in favour of that publicity of vivisection, or rather of that
knowledge of its methods which should precede any attempt at
legislation. The question of interference is one that the State must
decide, though the dangers and advantages of vivisection can only be
arrayed in intelligible order by one who understands the subject. "But
the public, HAVING HEARD THE EVIDENCE, must decide whether or no the
State shall more willingly sanction cruelty in the secret laboratory
than in the highway.... I most reluctantly admit, it is almost
impossible to get evidence upon such points, and for the reason THAT
THE THINGS WHICH WE FEAR ARE PRACTISED IN SECRET PLACES.
Nevertheless, it is just because of this secrecy that the public have
a right to make trouble. But for John Howard's crusade against the
horrors of the prisons, the public had never known the truth, their
infamies had never been remedied; and the public have now as much
right to question the physiologist's repudiations as they had then to
doubt the denials of the gaolers. The evidence is sufficient to
justify, in my own mind, a large measure of sympathy with the
antivivisectionists, though I am not of them."

What lines of procedure in the direction of reform would Dr. Macdonald
advocate? He admits that "to prohibit vivisection altogether would be
to invite its performance in such secrecy as no system of espionage
could unearth. Legislation can seldom do more than compromise,
because it cannot essay the impossible." He admits that "no Act of
Parliament can eradicate the spirit that makes cruelty possible." But
there are some things that may be done, and upon four points
Dr. Macdonald believes legislation is desireable. "The first is that
vivisection ought to be prohibited for the purposes of teaching,
because it is often misleading and always demoralizing. The second is
that the inspection of the physiological laboratories should be
carried out more systematically and always unexpectedly, and that the
inspectors should largely be increased in number. Thirdly, I would
prohibit all dissections, with or without anaesthetics, upon live
horses and dogs. Fourthly, I would make the administrati