"And in the second place, we would say that only those persons are justified in experimenting upon living animals who are capable experimentalists.... All experiments made by inexperienced and incapable observers are unjustifiable, and for an obvious reason. The pain in such case, suffered by the animal, is suffered in vain.... Pain so inflicted is manifest CRUELTY." If we compare this statement with any recent expression of the Journal's views, we shall see how far this organ of medical opinion has strayed in fifty years from the conservatism of Sir Charles Bell toward the unrestricted freedom demanded by the apologists of Magendie and Brachet. Six months later, another pronouncement appears in its editorial columns. In the issue of June 11, 1864, we read: "Far be it from us to patronize or palliate the infamous practices, the unjustifiable practices, committed in French veterinary schools, and in many French Medical schools, in the matter of vivisection. We repudiate as brutal and cruel all surgical operations performed on living animals. WE REPUDIATE THE REPETITION OF ALL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF ANY ALREADY WELL-DETERMINED PHYSIOLOGICAL QUESTION. We hold that no man except a skilled anatomist and a well-informed physiologist has a right to perform experiments on animals." It is unnecessary to state that these excerpts from the editorial columns of medical journals are not quoted by way of criticism. On the contrary, they seem in the highest degree creditable to the medical periodicals in which they appeared. They voiced a condemnation of scientific cruelty which then found a universal response. In the awakening of public apprehension regarding the growing abuses incident to vivisection, their influence cannot be too highly esteemed. There can be no question that these exposures of physiological methods, these repeated and emphatic denunciations of cruelty, proceeding from the leading medical journals of England, contributed more than anything else to arouse the general public to the acknowledged existence of abuse, and to the necessity of some legislation regarding the vivisection of animals. AND YET NO ADVOCATE OF UNRESTRICTED VIVISECTION IN OUR DAY EVER REFERS TO THEM. Sir William Osler tells the Royal Commission that "it is news to him." Professor Bowditch, the leading physiologist of Harvard Medical School, refers with contempt to "blood-curdling stories" in the pamphlet of Dr. Fleming as the "first serious attack" upon vivisection--without the slightest reference to all this earlier criticism, this exposure of infamous cruelty by the leading journals of the medical profession! But the worst and most regrettable result of such ignorance on the part of those who teach is its effect upon those who, as students, follow their guidance, accept their prejudices, and, unconscious of their ignorance, give to their statements implicit trust.