CHARLES W. ELIOT 3 



the calf, that we may have the milk intended for it. What 

 infinite liberties we take with animals in depriving them 

 not only of life but of their natural happiness ! Our liber- 

 ties with animals in this way are so prodigious that this 

 particular liberty to which your attention has been so 

 urgently called seems infinitesimal. 



The progress which has been recently made in medical 

 research is one of the most extraordinary achievements of 

 the nineteenth century. Such research is absolutely the 

 most humane of human occupations, because it has pre- 

 vented human suffering and death on a great scale, and 

 because it promises to achieve in the future still greater 

 triumphs over pain and death. 



We know what has been done in regard to smallpox and 

 diphtheria, and we have great hope beyond - - the hope 

 of being able to deal with meningitis, pneumonia, cancer, 

 yellow fever, consumption, and the plague. These enemies 

 we have not yet learned how to defeat. The study of these 

 problems is the most humane application that can be made 

 of human skill, thought, and imaginative insight. 





