The final report of the Royal Commission occupies a volume. The long period over which the inquiry extended, the generally apparent desire to permit every phase of opinion to have a hearing, all tended toward views which, if not unanimous, at any rate indicated a desire to be fair. Taken as a whole, the evidence and the final decisions of the Commission constitute an important contribution to the literature of animal experimentation which has appeared during the present century. The conclusions of the Commission are almost, yet not quite, unanimous. All of the eight members signed the final report, three of them, however, making their assent subject to a qualifying memorandum that in certain respects indicated a considerable divergence of opinion. The following are the conclusions of the Commission, the words in italics and parentheses being the qualifying additions of one of their number, Dr. George Wilson. "Altogether, apart from the moral and ethical questions involved in the employment of experiments on living animals for scientific purposes, we are, after full consideration, inclined to think-- "1. That certain results, claimed from time to time have been proved by experiments upon living animals, and alleged to have been beneficial in preventing and curing disease, have, upon further investigation, been found to be fallacious or useless. (INDEED, THE FALLACIES AND FAILURES ARE, IN MY OPINION, FAR MORE CONSPICUOUS THAN SUCCESSFUL RESULTS.) "2. That notwithstanding such failures, valuable knowledge has been acquired in regard to physiological processes and the causation of disease, and that (SOME) methods for the prevention, cure, and treatment of certain diseases (OTHER THAN BACTERIAL), have resulted from experimental investigations upon living animals. "3. That, as far as we can judge, it is highly improbable that, without experiments made upon animals, mankind would by now have been in possession of such knowledge. "4. That in so far as disease has been successfully prevented, or its mortality reduced, suffering has been diminished in man and the lower animals. "5. That there is ground for believing that similar methods of investigation, if pursued in the future, will be attended with similar results." (FAILURES PLENTIFUL ENOUGH STILL, BUT SUCCESSFUL RESULTS FEWER AND FEWER AS THE FIELD OF LEGITIMATE RESEARCH MUST BECOME GRADUALLY MORE AND MORE RESTRICTED.) Other conclusions appear to be as follows: "We strongly hold that limits should be placed to animal suffering in the search for physiological or pathological knowledge." How far interference with experimentation should extend appears to have been a matter of divergent views. Five of the Commissioners took the following position: