If we compare this statement with any recent expression of the Journal's views, we shall see how far this organ of medical opinion has strayed in fifty years from the conservatism of Sir Charles Bell toward the unrestricted freedom demanded by the apologists of Magendie and Brachet. Six months later, another pronouncement appears in its editorial columns. In the issue of June 11, 1864, we read:

"Far be it from us to patronize or palliate the infamous practices, the unjustifiable practices, committed in French veterinary schools, and in many French Medical schools, in the matter of vivisection. We repudiate as brutal and cruel all surgical operations performed on living animals. WE REPUDIATE THE REPETITION OF ALL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF ANY ALREADY WELL-DETERMINED PHYSIOLOGICAL QUESTION. We hold that no man except a skilled anatomist and a well-informed physiologist has a right to perform experiments on animals."

It is unnecessary to state that these excerpts from the editorial columns of medical journals are not quoted by way of criticism. On the contrary, they seem in the highest degree creditable to the medical periodicals in which they appeared. They voiced a condemnation of scientific cruelty which then found a universal response. In the awakening of public apprehension regarding the growing abuses incident to vivisection, their influence cannot be too highly esteemed. There can be no question that these exposures of physiological methods, these repeated and emphatic denunciations of cruelty, proceeding from the leading medical journals of England, contributed more than anything else to arouse the general public to the acknowledged existence of abuse, and to the necessity of some legislation regarding the vivisection of animals. AND YET NO ADVOCATE OF UNRESTRICTED VIVISECTION IN OUR DAY EVER REFERS TO THEM. Sir William Osler tells the Royal Commission that "it is news to him." Professor Bowditch, the leading physiologist of Harvard Medical School, refers with contempt to "blood-curdling stories" in the pamphlet of Dr. Fleming as the "first serious attack" upon vivisection—without the slightest reference to all this earlier criticism, this exposure of infamous cruelty by the leading journals of the medical profession! But the worst and most regrettable result of such ignorance on the part of those who teach is its effect upon those who, as students, follow their guidance, accept their prejudices, and, unconscious of their ignorance, give to their statements implicit trust.

We shall perhaps be told that although the facts are as stated, yet these medical condemnations of cruelty are the outgrown opinions of the Past. Are the foundations of morals so unstable? Can lapse of years transmute cruelty into benevolence and righteousness? Are we now to be asked to approve the conduct of Magendie and of Mantegazza and Be'rnard, and send to the lumber room of "past opinions" the expressions of horror and repulsion which their acts once excited throughout the English-speaking world? The science of the modern school of physiologists gives that implication: "LET ALL THAT PASS," is their cry to-day. With this we cannot for a moment agree. Rather let us believe that in the whirl and conflict of opinions that marks the social evolution of Humanity, there are some principles which are stable and some landmarks that cannot be altered. Cruelty is a vice that should never be condoned. What was regarded as infamous in the laboratory of fifty years ago should be considered equally infamous to-day.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ATTAINMENT OF LEGAL REGULATION

The awakening of a nation to the existence of a great evil is only accomplished after years of persistent agitation. We have seen that some of the strongest denunciations of cruelty in biological experimentation were due to that large element in the medical profession which refused to condone cruelty under the guise of utility. Gradually public opinion began to be thoroughly aroused. In the year 1864 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals offered a prize for the best essay on these questions:

"Is vivisection necessary or justifiable for purposes of giving dexterity to the operator (as in veterinary schools)?

"Is it necessary or justifiable for the general purposes of science, and, if so, under what limitations?"

The committee which decided the merits of the essays submitted included some of the most distinguished scientists of England, among them Professor Owen (better known as Sir Richard Owen), and Professor Carpenter, physiologists of eminence and experience. The first prize was accorded to Dr. George Fleming, the leading veterinary authority in Great Britain for many years, and a second prize was given to Dr. W. O. Markham, F.R.C.P., one of the physicians to St. Mary's Hospital of London, and formerly lecturer on Physiology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School.