The following extract from records of the Belgian Academy of Medicine illustrates this subject: ‘Researches on the inoculability of cancer ought to be encouraged. The numerous experiments made on animals are still contradictory in results. Drs. Francotte and De Rector have in the years 1891-92 inoculated mice under the skin of the shoulder. The inoculations were carried on from June, 1891, to May, 1892, when the following appearances were presented: The whole region of the shoulder was inflamed; there was necrosis of the corresponding upper extremity, which dropped off from dry gangrene; the stump left was indurated, hard, and painful, whilst the lymphatic glands in connection with the part were enlarged. The examination of the tumour disclosed nothing very particular. The bones were the seat of osteoporosis, and the arteries showed arteritis. The investigators believe the tumours were cancerous, but this statement must be received with caution.’ Such long-continued torture, even of a mouse, is morally degrading, and, as if in retribution, is doomed to be useless. A Chinese medical author, Tuan Mei, writing in the last century, 1716 to 1797, lays down a true medical axiom when he marks the difference between death and torture as follows: ‘Living creatures are for our use, and we may put them to death. But we may not make death a boon, and then withhold it from them.’ CHAPTER VIII _What is Scientific Research?_ The apparent opposition between popular and medical judgment in relation to certain methods of biological research which claim to be scientific, necessitates a clearer knowledge of what science is, and a recognition of the methods of research which can alone be called scientific. It is certain that knowledge of truth must reconcile varying but honest opinions, and furnish plans of investigation that neither shock the humane development of our nature nor hinder our intellectual progress towards truth. The terms ‘science’ and ‘scientific’ are constantly used and abused. They are often applied to the accumulating of facts or of phenomena; but such accumulation is not necessarily science, and may even hinder science. For although the collecting of facts may bring together valuable materials essential for future use, it may also bring together rotten or sham materials, which will interfere with sound work. A faulty method of endeavouring to obtain facts may seriously destroy the value of the phenomena thus observed.