e law asks for the truth, whether it be of a
bank or a laboratory, under penalties for concealment that cannot be
easily disregarded, we may be very certain that in the vast majorty of
instances compliance will be accorded to its demands. Instances of
attempted concealment will, of course, occur; the cashier who has
speculated with the funds of the bank will endeavour to conceal his
crime, and the vivisector who has carried his private experiments or
his demonstrations before students to cruel and unwarrantable lengths
will seek by all possible means to prevent revelation of his
transgression. In both cases there will be occasional success. But
as regards vivisection, it cannot be questioned that whenever in
future the law makes a demand for such reports as are here outlined, a
vast amount of information, now carefully concealed from the
possibility of public judgment, will become known. We shall obtain
it, too, withut crossing the threshold of a single laboratory, without
hindering in any way whatever the least important investigation of a
single scientific inquirer.

Ought we not to go beyond this and require reports to state the facts
regarding anaesthetics? Eventually such information should undoubtedly
be required. So far as the immediate present is concerned, it would
seem perhaps the wiser course not to complicate the inquiry in this
way. There are vivisectors who would declare that "anaesthetics are
always used" when ether or chloroform has been given in quantity and
in time absolutely insufficient to secure for the vivisected animal
immunity from pain. Sometimes we shall ask how many animals and of
what species are subjected to mutilations and observations that last
for days and weeks, and how many, if any, have had "nerves torn out by
the roots," as one American physiologist connected with a medical
school tells us he has repeatedly done. Into the thousand and one
phases of experimentation Society must one day make inquiry. But may
it not be best to wait till some knowledge of the leading facts are
secured? A report regarding anaesthesia might be utterly useless,
except to keep hidden the very facts we wish to know. What some of
these facts are may be indicated hereafter, but it would seem best not
to include them in any present demand.

What may we conceive will be the attitude of the laboratory interests
toward any attempt to secure information concerning the practice, not
by State inspection, bu