1897.] Editor’s Table. 899 
But revenons á nos moutons. Is it not possible for some of our 
smaller local societies to become affiliated with the American Associa- 
tion in such a way as to be productive of mutual assistance? Cannot 
the association act as a medium of intercourse and of exchange of 
ideas? Cannot the members of these societies have conferences simi- 
lar to those which take place in England? We are aware that what 
have been termed “ affiliated societies” meet with the American Asso- 
ciation, hut these societies are not the ones to which we refer. We are 
also aware that the Society of Naturalists started out with a somewhat 
similar idea. It was dropped by that organization, not because there 
was no need of it, but for other reasons. 
Again, the British Association annually appropriates large sums 
(this year $7,750) in aid of various scientific investigations. Our asso- 
ciation has recently entered upon a similar course, but so far its appro- 
priations have been small. To the statement that it appropriates all 
that it can, there is a ready reply. Look at the annual report of the 
expenditures. of the association and you will find chances for economy. 
Read through one volume of the “ Proceedings ” and you will conclude 
that that portly annual volume could be reduced in size without the 
slightest loss to science. The money saved by this could be very ad- 
vantageously used in other ways, and it would not be insignificant in 
amount. 
Where all the addresses were so good it seems somewhat invidious 
to select one as especially noteworthy, but the review of thirteen years 
Progress in physiology by Professor Michael Foster, seems to the non- 
physiological writer as, perhaps, the most striking and suggestive. We 
call it up however, not for the purpose of making any comparisons, but 
for the purpose of quoting from it,one portion which seems especially 
timely after the recent attempts to get Congress and the Legislatures 
of Massachusetts and other States to pass anti-vivisection laws. When 
one knows the misstatements and perversions—to use no harsher term 
—of the advocates of these bills, it is a pleasure to be able to quote a 
direct reply to one of their deliberate misrepresentations. In his con- 
cluding remarks Professor Foster said : 
“ And I will be here so bold as to dare to point out that this devel- 
“pment of his science must, in the times to come, influence the attitude 
of the physiologist towards the world, and ought to influence the atti- 
tude of the world towards him. I imagine that if a plebiscite, limited 
‘ven to instructed, I might almost say scientific men, were taken at the 
Present moment, it would be found that the most prevalent conception 
of physiology is that it is a something which is in some way an appen- 
