punishing criminals, and then add: "Criminals are to be punished by branding, or beating, or tying up, and, in capital cases, by spearing or decapitation; but the old punishments of tearing to pieces and boiling to death are not to be used." Torture was finally legally abolished in Japan only as late as 1877. It has already become quite clear that the prevalence of cruelty or of humanity depends largely upon the social order that prevails. It is not at all strange that cruelty, or, at least, lack of sympathy for suffering in man or beast, should be characteristic of an order based on constant hand-to-hand conflict. Still more may we expect to find a great indifference to human suffering wherever the value of man as man is slighted. Not until the idea of the brotherhood of man has taken full possession of one's heart and thought does true sympathy spring up; then, for the first time, comes the power of putting one's self in a brother's place. The apparently cruel customs of primitive times, in their treatment of the sick, and particularly of those suffering from contagious diseases, is the natural, not to say necessary, result of superstitious ignorance. Furthermore, it was often the only ready means to prevent the spread of contagious or epidemic diseases. In the treatment of the sick, the first prerequisite for the development of tenderness is the introduction of correct ideas as to the nature of disease and its proper treatment. As soon as this has been effectually done, a great proportion of the apparent indifference to human suffering passes away. The cruelty which is to-day so universal in Africa needs but a changed social and industrial order to disappear. The needed change has come to Japan. Physicians trained in modern methods of medical practice are found all over the land. In 1894 there were 597 hospitals, 42,551 physicians, 33,921 nurses and midwives, 2869 pharmacists, and 16,106 druggists, besides excellent schools of pharmacy and medicine.[O]