t by and through reports made by themselves? If
the popular conceoption of physiological investigation were true,
should we not be sure of the hearty approval of all physiologists
regarding any measure so calculated to remove misunderstanding and
distrust? Here would be the wished-for opportunity to demonstrate the
vast importance of the problems pursued, and the wonderful results
attained compared with the small cost of animal life, the humane and
ever-present solicitude of the experimenter, the immunity from
suffering. Here, too, we should have that "organized, systematic, and
absolute frankness" in regard to the practice of vivisection, for
which one of its greatest American defenders once appealed. But, on
the other hand, suppose that the laboratory in England and America
dare not permit the whole truth to be known? Suppose that it would not
willingly permit the general public to know even the number of animals
which are now sacrificed in the demonstration of well-known facts?
Then assuredly the laboratory interests will unite to prevent any
legislation that could tend to destroy the secrecy that now exists, or
to bring the facts of vivisection to the light of day. Which
hypothesis is the true one, some day will reveal. We shall then
discover whether the laboratory will yield to a demand for publicity,
or whether, contending for continued secrecy, faithless to Science, it
will resist every attempt to make known the whole truth, and cling to
the ideals and traditions of the Spanish Inquisition of three hundred
years ago.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WORK OF REFORM SOCIETIES

It is necessary to make a distinction between societies aiming to
destroy animal experimentation, root and branch, and those which hope
only to prevent abuses and cruelties. Antivivisection societies have
been organized in different States. Of their activities it is not
necessary here to speak. But another kind of organization has made
its appearance, societies aiming solely at the prevention of abuse and
the restriction of the practice within limits compatible with humane
ideals.

The first society in America organized for the express purpose of
prevention of cruelty in animal experimentation appears to have been
the American Antivivisection Society, founded at Philadelphia in
1883. The object of the society, as defined by its first charter, was
"the restriction of the practice of vivisection within pr