statemnet"
has ever been issued by any American laboratory, so far as I am
aware. Even if thus issued it would not go far enough. Such reports
should be attested under oath by each individual experimenter, exactly
as the officers of a bank are required by law to make reports
regarding its financial standing. Every experimenter should therefore
be required to state what he has done during the three preceding
months; to give the number of animals of each species which have been
delivered to him, the object of each experiment, and the cases in
which curare was employed. Especially should a careful distinction be
drawn between original investigations made in private and experiments
made before students or by students themselves, solely for the
illustration of well-known facts. An outline of a report that would
cover these facts will be found in the appendix.

And yet this is hardly enough. It is not sufficient to have the
results of individual experience; we should have a summary of all
experimental work made upon the higher animals in each laboratory
given us by the responsible head of that institution. An outline of a
report that would give us the information desired is not difficult to
devise.[1]

[1] See Appendix.

There is little doubt but that violent objection will be made to any
such reports. But in the opinion of very many persons the truth about
a vivisection laboratory is quite as desirable as the truth about a
country bank. Verification in either case implies the same. It would
mean that the statement was not made carelessly, but with a due
appreciation of the solemnity of an oath. Any gross misstatement on
the part of a bank cashier would almost certainly subject him to a
rigid examination, and to the penalty of dismissal. It should be the
same with a laboratory. If gross missatements should be made with
apparent design to hide something that should have been made known, it
seems to me that those who thus offend should have their licences
suspended or revoked. We cannot forget that Society is here dealing
with a peculiar institution, where secrecy is regarded as a virtue.
If one could imagine a bank or an insurance company, where every
official or employee, from the president down to the scrub-woman, was
seeking in every way to keep its affairs hidden from the general
public, we should in one respect have the counterpart of the
physiological laboratory of to-day.

On the other hand, when th