on which more than any other has distinguished itself for
persistent, unwearied, and vigorous attempts to secure reform by legal
enactment is the Society for the Prevention of Abuse in Animal
Experimentation, organized in Brooklyn, New York, in 1907.[1] From the
first it repudiated the suggestion that it was opposed to scientific
experimentation upon animals under all circumstances; it has never
denied that some benefits have accrued through animal experimentation,
even though such benefits have been exaggerated, but it has bent all
its energies toward securing such legislation in the State of New York
as should limit the practice to competent men, place it under such
legal control, render its abuse a misdemeanour, and all unnecessary
and wanton cruelty a legal offence. Bills were therefore introduced
for the appointment of a Commission of inquiry regarding the extent
and nature of the practice at each annual session of the Legislature.
Some of these Bills were reported out of the Committee, and one
reached debate in the Senate. But investigation of the practice was
precisely what the supporters of the modern laboratory do not seem to
desire. They were strong enough to influence the Legislature against
such inquiry, and their attempts to open the laboratory have so far
failed. Will it be possible for ever to maintain this secrecy? That
is the question for the future.

[1] To the discriminating and energetic work of Frederic P. Bellamy,
Esq., the counsel of the society, and of Mrs. William Vanamee, the
secretary, the success of this society is particularly indebted. In
the public journals, on many occasions, they have definitely and
comprehensively outlined the aims of the organization, and in this
respect there has been no excuse whatever for any misunderstanding or
misstatement.

In its early efforts to secure investigation an attempt was made by
this society to secure the co-operation of members of the medical
profession, and in union with a large number of persons belonging to
various professions over seven hundred physicians in the State of New
York signed a petition in 1907-08 in favour of a measure that would
have tended to elicit the facts. As soon as the Medical Society of
the State of New York became aware of this endorsement, it sent out to
each of these physicians a request that he would withdraw his name.
What Dr. William James called "the power of club influence to quell
independence of mind" could