was really purposeless." Was this repetition of the experiment which I have described worth its cost? Was the gain worth the pain? Let me instance another and more recent case. Being in Paris a year ago, I went one morning to the College de France, to hear Brown-Sequard, the most eminent experimenter in vivisection now living--one who, Doctor Carpenter tells us, has probably inflicted more animal suffering than any other man in his time. The lecturer stated that injury to certain nervous centers near the base of the brain would produce peculiar and curious phenomena in the animal operated upon, causing it, for example, to keep turning to one side in a circular manner, instead of walking in a straightforward direction. A Guinea-pig was produced--a little creature, about the size of a half-grown kitten--and the operation was effected, accompanied by a series of piercing little squeaks. As foretold, the creature thus injured did immediately perform a "circular" movement. A rabbit was then operated upon with similar results. Lastly, an unfortunate poodle was introduced, its muzzle tied with stout whip-cord, wound round and round so tightly that it must necessarily have caused severe pain. It was forced to walk back and forth on the long table, during which it cast looks on every side, as though seeking a possible avenue of escape. Being fastened in the operating trough, an incision was made to the bone, flaps turned back, an opening made in the skull, and enlarged by breaking away some portions with forceps. During these various processes no attempt whatever was made to cause unconsciousness by means of anaesthetics, and the half-articulate, half-smothered cries of the creature in its agony were terrible to hear, even to one not unaccustomed to vivisections. The experiment was a "success"; the animal after its mutilation _did_ describe certain circular movements. But I cannot help questioning in regard to these demonstrations, _did they pay_? This experiment had not the slightest relation whatever to the cure of disease. More than this: it teaches us little or nothing in physiology. The most eminent physiologist in this country, Doctor Austin Flint, Jr., admits that experiments of this kind "do not seem to have advanced our positive knowledge of the functions of the nerve centers," and that similar experiments "have been very indefinite in their results." On this occasion, therefore, three animals were subjected to torture to demonstrate an abstract fact, which probably not a single one of the two dozen spectators would have hesitated to take for granted on the word of so great a pathologist as Doctor Brown-Sequard. Was the gain worth the cost?