Afghan war has been variously stated between ten and fifteen thousand. In either case animal suffering must have been on a colossal scale. Now the point one would like to see cleared up is, why this almost boundless field of animal suffering is ignored and the relatively minute amount of it produced in the dissecting-rooms of biologists so loudly denounced. But what I wish particularly to call attention to is the practice of vivisection as exercised by our graziers and breeders all over the country on tens of thousands of animals yearly, by an operation always involving great pain and occasional death. In a review intended for general circulation the operation I refer to cannot be described in detail, but every one will understand the allusion made. It is performed on horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowls. With regard to the horses the object is to make them docile and manageable. The eminent Veterinary-Surgeon Youatt, in his book on the Horse (chap. xv.), speaks of it as often performed “with haste, carelessness, and brutality:” but even he is of opinion “that the old method of preventing hæmorrhage by temporary pressure of the vessels while they are seared with a hot iron _must not perhaps be abandoned_.” He objects strongly to a “practice of some farmers,” who, by means of a ligature obtain their end, but “not until the animal has suffered sadly,” and adds that inflammation and death frequently ensue. With regard to cattle, sheep, and pigs, the object of the operation is to hasten growth, to increase size, and to improve the flavor of the meat. The mutton, beef, and pork on which we feed are, with rare exceptions, the flesh of animals who have been submitted to the painful operation in question. In the case of the female pig the corresponding operation is particularly severe; while as to fowls, the pain inflicted was so excruciating in the opinion of an illustrious young physiologist, whom science still mourns, that he on principle abstained from eating the flesh of the capon.