Such an outcome of the deliberations of the Royal Commission must have seemed to American vivisectors almost a certainty. During the past twenty years, repeated attempts have been made in New York, in Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, and in the city of Washington, to obtain some legislation regulating the practice of animal experimentation to the extent which obtains in England. At "hearings" before various legislative and Senate Committees, all such attempts have been vigorously combated by representatives and defenders of the physiological laboratories, and their strongest argument has always been the exceedingly detrimental effect of the English Act of 1876 both upon medical education and upon the progress of medical science. Professor Bowditch once said: "The amount of mischief which may be produced by the English law depends very much on the good judgment of the Home Secretary.... In general, it may be said that the system of licensing and Government inspection is UNDER THE MOST FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS a source of serious annoyance to investigation." We shall have reason hereafter to see the inaccuracy of this statement, so far as may be evinced by the opinions of English physiologists and teachers. Upon the secrecy now maintained in English laboratories, a vivid light is thrown by the evidence given before the Commission. Quite as strong as in America have been the precautions taken in England to prevent any knowledge of the methods of vivisection from coming before the general public except through the assertions of the experimenters themselves. In America, where we have no legal limitations to experimentation, such secrecy occasions no surprise; but that in England the laboratory had secured so complete a degree of security from criticism by concealment of that which we are told needs no concealment gives reason for questionings. One of the Government inspectors--a Dr. Thane--insists that although a physiological laboratory is open to the visits of medical students at any time, it would hardly be possible to permit a similar privilege to physicians not in sympathy with experimentation. "I see no way of doing it," he declares. He does not seem to be certain that one of the Royal Commissioners before whom he was giving evidence could be admitted. Dr. George Wilson asks him the question in regard to seeing the various operations which are open to medical students. "I can go and see them? I suppose I would have no difficulty?" Dr. Thane's reply was by no means assuring. "I do not see how it could be done," he replied. He could not see how one of the most distinguished physicians of England could secure the legal right of admission to a physiological laboratory!