THE VIVISECTION ACT. 
433 
in the lecture was the description of the way in which inor¬ 
ganic matter varied in different plants, and the practical value 
of the knowledge of this fact in agricultural botany. The 
rotation of crops depended on this alone. Other illustrations 
of the subject must be left unnoticed, and they may be left 
safely, as the summer session is even now commencing, and 
soon students will be able in the Gardens of the Regents Park 
to hear about absorption, circulation (a term of which the 
Professor disapproves), respiration, and assimilation. Through¬ 
out the lecture the strongest prominence was given to the 
doctrine that nothing whatsoever can be absorbed in an undis¬ 
solved condition. The report, therefore, of diatoms discovered 
in the organism must be treated as a myth. Secondly, Pro¬ 
fessor Bentley enlarged upon the paramount importance of 
light. The grand compensating effect between the absorbing 
and respiratory influences of animal and plant life cannot go 
on without light. Diminish this solar agency and those 
changes which tend to purify the atmosphere, to fertilise the 
soil, and to regulate the rainfall, are injured or arrested. 
Plants want light, and in this humanity resembles the vegetable 
creation. We want light, too, both physical and intellectual. 
THE VIVISECTION ACT. 
The report of Mr. G. Busk, the inspector under the Vivi¬ 
section Act, showing the number of experiments performed on 
living animals during the year 1878, has just been issued. The 
total number of licences in force during any part of the year 
1878 was 45; but as, of these, it would seem that 18 were not 
acted upon, the number of licencees who need be specified is 
reduced to 27, a list of whom is given, together with a list 
of those licencees who do not appear to have performed any 
experiments. The total number of experiments performed 
under these 27 licences and the certificates, according to the 
returns received from each licencee, was about 481. Of these, 
317 were performed under the restrictions of the licence alone, 
and the remainder under special certificates. Upon full con¬ 
sideration of all the experiments, and the mode in which they 
were performed, the inspector is of opinion that the extreme 
number of cases in which an amount of suffering worth notice 
was inflicted could not have exceeded 40. In 24 of these cases 
the animals did not suffer from the actual experiment, but, as 
in the experiments instituted for the investigation of certain 
epizootic diseases, from the after consequences only. In 16 
lii. 31 
