This method of investigation also has advantages as well as many 

 disadvantages. For the most part, such investigations are carried out 

 upon volunteers, since no one could be forced to undergo any such 

 experimental treatment except as a punishment for crime. In the sec- 

 ond place the intelligence of the human animal may also be utilized in 

 the study of the effects produced. Symptoms which the lower animals 

 might have of distress or malaise, when in the incipient stage, might 

 escape notice altogether, whereas similar symptoms in a man would be 

 described. Further, it must be admitted that animals under confine- 

 ment, as is necessarily the case when experiments are made with them, 

 are not wholly in a' normal state, whereas the man who volunteers for 

 an experiment of this kind would not chafe or become restive under 

 confinement. Again, it must be considered that as the object of the 

 investigations above outlined is necessarily applicable to the digestion 

 and health of man, it is evident that the experiments made upon man 

 would be the most decisive in all cases. 



The one great disadvantage of experiments of this kind is the inability 

 to absolutely control the experimentee. Where a large number of per- 

 sons is to be considered and the experiment is to extend over a long 

 period, it is evidently impracticable to secure a direct personal control 

 of every action of each one during the whole time. In the present case 

 the young men selected, who volunteered for the experiment, continued 

 their usual vocations^ They were simply placed upon their honor and 

 neither watched nor confined. The data which are obtained in this 

 way are, therefore, open to the objection, in some cases, that the rules 

 and regulations set for the conduct of the experiment may have been 

 transgressed without the knowledge and consent of the observer. While 

 this is a valid objection and should have full consideration, it must not 

 be forgotten that among the twelve young men upon whom the experi- 

 ments were conducted, it is not likely that the violations of their pledge 

 of honor would be sufficiently numerous to affect in any marked degre 

 the results as a whole. Further, it must be remembered that the greater 

 number of those upon whom experiments were made were young men 

 of approved character, many of them had college training, and a large 

 majority of them were engaged in scientific pursuits. All these facti 

 are of more or less importance in considering the character of the data 

 secured. It would be unwise to claim that among so many persons, 

 and amid so many temptations, no violation of the pledge took place J 

 yet it must be admitted that upon the whole we can be reasonably cer-l 

 tain that the obligations voluntarily assumed were discharged faithfully) 

 and conscientiously. Any departures from the set rules of conduct 

 which might occur would not be made with any design of affecting the 

 data, and, therefore, as a whole, the errors which might arise from thisl 

 source would, according to the doctrine of probabilities, be largely com-j 

 pensatory. Thus, while in any individual case the data might be rendered 



