[A] Flint: "Text Book on Human Physiology" (page 641). [B] Dalton's "Human Physiology" (page 466). [C] Flint (pages 639-40). Testimony of individuals, indicating the extent to which vivisection is at present practiced in this country might be given; but it seems better to submit proof within the reach of every reader, and the accuracy of which is beyond cavil. No legal restrictions whatever exist, preventing the performance of any experiment desired. Indeed, I think it may safely be asserted that, in the city of New York, in a single medical school, more pain is inflicted upon living animals as a means of teaching well-known facts, than is permitted to be done for the same purpose in all the medical schools of Great Britain and Ireland. And _cui bono_? "I can truly say," writes a physician who has seen all these experiments, "that not only have I never seen any results at all commensurate with the suffering inflicted, but I cannot recall a single experiment which, in the slightest degree, has increased my ability to relieve pain, or in any way fitted me to cope better with disease." In respect to this practice, therefore, evidence abounds indicating the necessity for that State supervision which obtains in Great Britain. We cannot abolish it any more than we can repress dissection; to attempt it would be equally unwise. Within certain limitations, dictated both by a regard for the interest of science and by that sympathy for everything that lives and suffers which is the highest attribute of humanity, it seems to me that the practice of vivisection should be allowed. What are these restrictions? The following conclusions are suggested as a basis for future legislation: _I. Any experiment or operation whatever upon a living animal, during which by recognized anaesthetics it is made completely insensible to pain, should be permitted._ This does not necessarily imply the taking of life. Should a surgeon, for example, desire to cause a fracture or tie an artery, and then permit the animal to recover so as to note subsequent effects, there is no reason why the privilege should be refused. The discomfort following such an operation would be inconsiderable. This permission should not extend to experiments purely physiological and having no definite relation to surgery; nor to mutilation from which recovery is impossible, and prolonged pain certain as a sequence. _II. Any experiment performed thus, under complete anaesthesia, though involving any degree of mutilation, if concluded by the extinction of life before consciousness is regained should also be permitted._