A Society for the Defence of Research has been established this year (1908) with the Earl of Cromer as its president. The Society has issued some valuable pamphlets showing what improvements in medical knowledge have been recently effected by means of inoculations and other experiments in which animals have been used though subjected to as little pain and discomfort as consistent with the enquiries made. Ignorant opponents of medical research assert that the scientific study of the processes of life and disease in laboratories has not helped in the great progress in medical practice which marks the last fifty years. But the medical men who are the leaders of their profession unanimously assert, and prove by detailed accounts of the discoveries made, that such study has been essential to the progress established, and is essential for further progress. Lord Lister, who by his antiseptic method of treating surgical wounds has saved more pain to present and future generations of men than all the torturers of the Inquisition ever inflicted or dreamed of inflicting, has been the leader in declaring the inestimable value to humanity--in fact, the absolute necessity--of physiological experiments on animals. Whose judgment on this question can be considered of greater value than his? The anti-vivisection agitators, for the purpose of exciting the emotions of those who listen to them, use the word “torture” as describing the action of such men as Pasteur and Lord Lister. To torture is to inflict an ever-increasing amount of pain, with the view of “extorting” a submission, a confession, or treasure from a victim. To suggest that scientific and medical men apply pain in this way, and to spread the word “torture” among the ignorant, emotional public, in connection with their inquiries, is dishonest as well as ungrateful. One valuable result of the work of the present Royal Commission on what is called “Vivisection,” but should be called “the use of animals in the discovery of means of controlling disease and alleviating pain,” is that it is made quite clear that there is very little pain at all inflicted in this beneficent work, owing to the fact that anæsthetics and narcotics are administered to the animals when anything which might cause pain is done. I do not hesitate to say that there is in this country less pain caused in a whole year in all the laboratories where this great work for the public good is carried on than in a single day’s rabbit-shooting.