I. Any intelligently devised experiment upon an adult human being, conscientiously performed by a responsible physician or surgeon solely for the personal benefit of the individual upon whom it is made, and, if practicable, with his consent, would seem to be legitimate and right. In the practice of medicine, there must always be a "first time" when a new method of medical treatment is tested, a new operation performed, a new remedy employed. Whether the procedure pertain to medicine or surgery, so long as the amelioration of the patient is the one purpose kept in view, IT IS LEGITIMATE TREATMENT. The motive determines the morality of the act. II. Now human vivisection is something quite different. It has been defined as "the practice of subjecting to experimentation human beings--men, women, or children, usually inmates of public institutions--by methods liable to involve pain, distress, injury to health, or even danger to life, without any full, intelligent, personal consent, FOR NO OBJECT RELATING TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL BENEFIT, BUT FOR THE PROSECUTION OF SOME SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY." The distinction is a perfectly clear one. Under the term "human vivisection" only those experiments are included which have some of these characteristics: 1. THE OBJECT IS SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION, AND NOT THE PERSONAL WELFARE OR AMELIORATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL UPON WHOM THE EXPERIMENT IS MADE. 2. The experiment is liable to cause some degree of pain, discomfort, distress, or injury to the health, or danger to the life of the person upon whom it is performed. The defence often made that no real injury resulted from the experiment, cannot palliate the offence against personal rights. 3. The experiment is performed without the intelligent, and full consent of the individual experimented upon. Such legal consent of course is impossible to obtain from children, from the feeble-minded, or from lunatics in public institutions. It is the purpose of this chapter to demonstratte that such experiments upon human beings have been performed. Naturally, it will be impossible to quote the cases in full. Enough, however, will be given to prove that the charge of human experimentation is not the exaggeration of ignorance or sentimentality; that such methods of research have been practised upon the sick, the friendless, the poor in public institutions, without their knowledge or intelligent consent; that they are in vogue even in our own time; and that hospitals and institutions, founded in many cases, for charitable purposes, have lent their influence and aid in furnishing either victims or experimenters. Commenting upon certain human vivisections in Germany, the British Medical Journal declared in its editorial columns: