Vivisection, we must always remember, is an exceedingly complex practice. It is a means of demonstrating well-known facts; it is also a method of original research. How many animals in any given laboratory are used in each of these phases of experimentation? No one can tell us. If the laboratory keeps no account, it is unlikely that the information could be given by anybody else. A strong impression exists that "original research" for any object of conceivable utility to mankind is vastly more infrequent than vivisection for the repetition--painful or otherwise--of facts perfectly well known. We need to have the question settled with an accuracy upon which as much reliance may be placed as upon the oath of the cashier of a bank. "Every laboratory," said Dr. George M. Guld, in an address before the American Academy of Medicine, "should publish an annual statement setting forth plainly the number and kind of experiments, the objects aimed at, and, most definitely, the methods of conducting them." This wise suggestion, however, bore no fruit. No such "annual statemnet" has ever been issued by any American laboratory, so far as I am aware. Even if thus issued it would not go far enough. Such reports should be attested under oath by each individual experimenter, exactly as the officers of a bank are required by law to make reports regarding its financial standing. Every experimenter should therefore be required to state what he has done during the three preceding months; to give the number of animals of each species which have been delivered to him, the object of each experiment, and the cases in which curare was employed. Especially should a careful distinction be drawn between original investigations made in private and experiments made before students or by students themselves, solely for the illustration of well-known facts. An outline of a report that would cover these facts will be found in the appendix. And yet this is hardly enough. It is not sufficient to have the results of individual experience; we should have a summary of all experimental work made upon the higher animals in each laboratory given us by the responsible head of that institution. An outline of a report that would give us the information desired is not difficult to devise.[1] [1] See Appendix.