"We will venture to suggest that these restrictions should be well and clearly defined; that some high authority like Dr. Sharpey himself should lay down certain rules on the subject, and for the purpose of preventing, if possible, any needless suffering from being inflicted experimentally on the lower animals. All of us must be well aware that many needless experiments are actually performed, and until some clearly defined rules on this head are laid down, we venture to think such needless suffering will still continue to be inflicted on animals. If, for example, it were publicly stated by authorities in the profession that experiments of this nature, made for the mere purpose of demonstrating admitted physiological facts, are unjustifiable, a great step would be gained, and a great ground of complaint cut from under the feet of the enthusiastic antivivisection societies. The very fact of an authoritative sanction to the legitimate performance of such experiments...." The denunciations of cruel vivisection by the British Medical Journal extend over a considerable period. Occasionally the Journal quotes the opinions of some of its medical contemporaries in Paris, admitting the need for reform. For instance, in its issue of May 2, 1863, in its editorial columns, the Journal presents us with a quotation from L'Union Me'dicale of Paris, suggesting distinctions that should be made in the selection of vivisection material: "Vivisection is often useful and sometimes necessary, and therefore not to be absolutely proscribed; but I would gladly petition the Senate to forbid its performance on every animal which is useful to, and a friend of, man. The mutilations and tortures inflicted upon dogs are horrible. The King of Dahomey is less barbarous than these merciless vivisectors. HE cuts his victims' throats, but without torturing them; while THEY tear and cut to pieces these wretched dogs in their most sensitive parts. Let them operate on rats, foxes, sharks, vipers, and reptiles. But no; our vivisectors object to the teeth, the claws, the beaks of these repulsive animals; they must have gentle animals; and so, like cowards, they seize upon the dog--that caressing animal, which licks the hand, armed with the scalpel!" Think of a such quotation in the columns of the British Medical Journal--a periodical which to-day rarely ventures to criticize any phase of animal experimentation. The following summer, on August 22, 1863, the Journal find space in its editorial pages for yet other quotations from French medical periodicals concerning the "enormous abuses" of vivisection. "We are very glad to find that the French medical journals are entering protests against the cruel abuse which is made of vivisection in France. L'Abeille Me'dicale says: