CHAPTER XII VIVISECTION OF TO-DAY If the reform of vivisection may only be hoped for, when the secrecy concerning it shall have been dispelled, the beginning of the present century is not propitious of any changes. Against all intrusion upon its rites, the physiological laboratory in England and America maintains as successful an opposition as ever characterized the Eleusinian mysteries of the pagan world. No laboratory--so far as known--dares to invite inspection at any hour, even from men of the highest personal character, and leave them free to reveal or to publicly criticize whatever in the experiments upon animals there conducted seems worthy of caution or reproof. Silence and concealment, so far as the outer world is concerned--these are yet the strange ideals of modern vivisection. Within the realm of scientific literature, however, this reticence is not maintained. Experiments may be there described in terms so abstruse and technical, that, while clear enough to the professional reader, they convey little or no meaning to the man in the street. There would seem to be a growing tendency to state certain facts in carefully shrouded phraseology, in complete confidence that the full meaning will not be discerned. Within the past few years, therefore, a large number of vivisections have been described in full-- vivisections which half a century ago would have aroused the horror and execration of the English-speaking world--without exciting any very general condemnation beyond the circle of those who ask for reform. Experimentation of this kind, exhibiting the practice as it is carried on to-day, seems worth of a somewhat careful examination. It will not be necessary to go beyond the work of a single vivisector who has made his name a household word wherever experiments upon animals are discussed in England or America.