The question of vivisection is again pushing itself to the front. A distinguished American physiologist has lately come forward in defense of the French experimenter, Magendie, and, parenthetically, of his methods of investigation in the study of vital phenomena. On the other hand, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made an unsuccessful attempt, in the New York Legislature last winter, to secure the passage of a law which would entirely abolish the practice as now in vogue in our medical schools, or cause it to be secretly carried on, in defiance of legal enactments. In support of this bill it was claimed that physiologists, for the sake of "demonstrating to medical students certain physiological phenomena connected with the functions of life, are constantly and habitually in the practice of cutting up alive, torturing and tormenting divers of the unoffending brute creation to illustrate their theories and lectures, but without any practical or beneficial result either to themselves or to the students, which practice is demoralizing to both and engenders in the future medical practitioners a want of humanity and sympathy for physical pain and suffering." How far these statements are true will be hereafter discussed; but one assertion is so evidently erroneous that it may be at once indicated. _No_ experiment, however atrocious, cruel and, therefore, on the whole, unjustifiable, if performed to illustrate some scientific point, was ever without "any beneficial result." The benefit may have been infinitesimal, but every scientific fact is of some value. To assert the contrary is to weaken one's case by overstatement. Leaving out the brute creation, there are three parties interested in this discussion. In the first place, there are the professors and teachers of physiology in the medical colleges. Naturally, these desire no interference with either their work or their methods. They claim that were the knowledge acquired by experiments upon living organisms swept out of existence, in many respects the science of physiology would be little more than guesswork to-day. The subject of vivisection, they declare, is one which does not concern the general public, but belongs exclusively to scientists and especially to physiologists. That the present century should permit sentimentalists to interfere with scientific investigations is preposterous.