opinion that, even if their ideals are beyond present
possibility of attainment, the constant, persistent, and unwearied
protest of these societies against the cruelties and abuses of
vivisection have helped, more than anything else, to keep the question
a living issue.

In 1896 was organized the first society having for its object solely
the repression of abuse, the American Society for the Regulation of
Vivisection. Its object was distinctly stated in its title, and its
work was confined almost entirely to the publication of literature.
In 1903 the Vivisection Reform Society, organized to advance the same
moderate views, was incorporated under United States laws, and the
earlier society became merged therein. The president was Dr. David
H. Cochran of Brooklyn, a distinguished educator, and the secretary,
upon whose shoulders fell nearly all the work of the organization, was
Sydney Richmond Taber, Esq., a member of the legal profession. Among
its supporters were Cardinal Gibbons, Professor Goldwin Smith, Senator
Gallinger, Professor John Bascom, ex-President of the University of
Wisconsin, Professor William James of Harvard University, and men of
standing and influence in the medical and legal professions. For
several years its work was carried on with efficiency and enthusiasm,
chiefly by the propaganda of the press. It has always seemed to me
that the name of the society was especially felicitous, for it
expressed tersely the object of the organization, not the abolition of
all scientific utilization of animal life, but the repression and
elimination of abuse. A year or two later there was incorporated at
Washington the National Society for the Humane Regulation of
Vivisection, the objects of which were identical with those of the
earlier societies. For many reasons it did not appear expedient to
keep in activity two societies with precisel the same objects, and
into the new organization the Vivisection Reform Society was finally
merged.

Another American society which has done particularly good work is the
Vivisection Investigation League of New York. The object of this
association is fairly expressed by its name; it seeks to investigate
the practice, so far as inquiry is practicable, and to make known from
the writings of experimenters themselves exactly what is done in the
name of scientific research. In this direction the League has already
done work of exceptional value and interest.

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