342 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 739 



ton himself." It had been discovered in the 

 Benton beds of Kansas and is stated to con- 

 sist of some fragmentary ribs and a part of a 

 himierus. The species is supposed to be 

 related to Protostega, but here again no name 

 was imposed on the specimen. Dr. Williston 

 pays me the compliment of regretting that I 

 did not describe these materials, with which 

 he could do little himself. 



Olivee p. Hay 

 Washington, D. C, 

 January 7, 1909 



QUOTATIONS 



AMMUNITION AGAINST THE ANTI-VIVISECTIONIST 



As antagonism to vivisection is a form of 

 incurable insanity, those who suffer from it 

 are whoUy indifferent to argument or facts, 

 and their delusional convictions urge them 

 irresistibly to constant repetition of the same 

 mad acts, quite regardless of consequences to 

 themselves or others. Hence is it that year 

 after year these unfortunate people renew 

 their efforts to secure legislative interference 

 with or prohibition of the experiments with 

 living animals upon which the progress of 

 medical science depends and without which 

 medical practise would be reduced to blind, or 

 at least dim-eyed, empiricism. 



That the anti-vivisectionists always find 

 somebody to introduce their bills is a sad com- 

 mentary on the intelligence of legislators, but 

 this year, as so often before, the battle with 

 well-intentioned ignorance must be fought 

 again. There are now a few more triumphs 

 over disease with which to confront the wild 

 assertions and accusations of the agitators, but 

 dependence must still be placed on arguments 

 the adequacy of which has already been proved 

 a hundred times — so often, indeed, that many 

 of the same people whom they long since con- 

 vinced have half forgotten essential parts of 

 the evidence upon which the animal experi- 

 menters rely as a defense from the hampering 

 restrictions that unreasoning sentimentalists 

 would impose upon one of the most unselfish 

 and successful classes of workers for the com- 

 mo!i good. 



' Kansas Univ. Quarterly, I., 1902, p. 247. 



There is danger in this forgetfulness, and to 

 meet it the Committee on Experimental Medi- 

 cine of the New York State Medical Society 

 has begun the publication of a series of leaflets 

 setting forth clearly and briefly the scientiflc 

 and medical side of the vivisection controversy. 

 One by Dr. E. L. Trudeau deals with " Animal 

 Experimentation and Tuberculosis," another 

 by Dr. James Ewing takes up with cancer 

 research, and a third by Professor F. S. Lee 

 treats of " The Sense of Pain in Man and the 

 Lower Animals." Dr. Simon Flexner's con- 

 tribution tells what vivisection has accom- 

 plished in the war against infectious diseases, 

 and Dr. S. J. Meltzer discusses " The Func- 

 tion of the ThjToid Gland — an Lnportant 

 Chapter of Modern Medicine." A leaflet of a 

 different kind is one giving eminent lay opin- 

 ions, among those quoted in it being ex-Presi- 

 dent Eliot, of Harvard; President G. Stanley 

 Hall, of Clark University; President E. H. 

 Capen, of Tufts College; Bishop William 

 Lawrence, of Massachusetts, and Dean Hodgea, 

 of the Cambridge Theological School. Dr. 

 William H. Park takes up the great subject 

 of " Diphtheria," the disease which would still 

 be slaying its thousands had it not been abso- 

 lutely conquered through vivisection alone. 



Copies of these and other leaflets can be ob- 

 tained upon application at the Academy of 

 Medicine, 17 West Forty-third Street. They 

 are intended especially for physicians, but 

 they are full of ammunition which anybody 

 can use in answer to silly talk about the 

 cruelty or the uselessness of a method of in- 

 vestigation which is neither the one nor the 

 other, but is, on the contrary, one to which 

 animals and men alike are incalculably in- 

 debted for relief from pain. — New York Times. 



AN IDLE CHALLENGE 



This characteristic communication comes to 

 us from the president of the Anti-Vivisection 

 Society : 



To THE Editor of The Evening Sun — Sir: Re- 

 garding your editorial attack in The Evening Sun 

 of January 27 upon a leaflet issued by this society, 

 I would say that I should be glad to have you 

 attempt at our mass meeting (to be held at Car- 



