Behind these stand the majority of men belonging to the medical profession. Holding, as they do, the most important and intimate relations to society, it is manifestly desirable that they should enjoy the best facilities for the acquirement of knowledge necessary to their art. To most, the question is merely one of professional privilege against sentiment, and they cannot hesitate which side to prefer. In this, as in other professions or trades, the feeling of _esprit de corps_ is exceedingly strong; and no class of men likes interference on the part of outsiders. To most physicians it is wholly a scientific question. It is a matter, they think, with which the public has no concern; if society can trust to the profession its sick and dying, they surely can leave to its feeling of humanity a few worthless brutes. The opinion of the general public is therefore, divided and confused. On the one hand, it is profoundly desirous to make systematic and needless cruelty impossible; yet, on the other, it cannot but hesitate to take any step which shall hinder medical education, impede scientific discovery, or restrict search for new methods of treating disease. What are the sufferings of an animal, however acute or prolonged, compared with the gain to humanity which would result from the knowledge thereby acquired of a single curative agent? Public opinion hesitates. A leading newspaper, commenting on the introduction of the Bergh bill, doubtless expressed the sentiment of most people when it deprecated prevention of experiments "by which original investigators seek to establish or verify conclusions which may be of priceless value to the preservation of life and health among human beings."