110 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
Against abuses, which are of a nature to offend public 
order and morals, the intervention of authority armed with 
the law which is an honour to the name of Gravimant, 
in every instance amply suffices. As to the abuses of the 
laboratories and amphitheatres devoted to science, public 
opinion, controlled by the judgment of the authorities of the 
Academy, the professors, the Nestors of the faculty of 
medicine, and, the directors of the schools, would in all 
cases ensure a prompt and easy repression. 
At the next sitting the subject of vivisection was suc¬ 
cessfully defended by M. J. Beclard, who showed how illu¬ 
sory it was to propose to restrict the experiments insti¬ 
tuted for the discovery of new facts exclusively, as many 
discoveries have been the result of simple verifications of 
known facts; by M. Piorry, who had no trouble in de¬ 
monstrating the necessity of experimentation in medicine; 
and finally by M. Bouley, who specially undertook the de¬ 
fence of the operative surgical instructions at the veterinary 
schools, these having been more particularly attacked by the 
adversaries of vivisection. He insisted on the necessity of 
the practice of these operations, in order to familiarise the 
veterinary pupils with the dangers of the resistance of the 
horse. M. Jules Beclard had in his speech made a reserve 
at this part, and condemned the operations being made on 
living animals, as practiced in our schools, by drawing atten¬ 
tion to an abuse which had been reported of allowing the 
animals subjected to them to starve, from motives of economy. 
It was not difficult for M. Reynal, who took the parole at 
the next sitting, to answer this gratuitous assertion, which, 
indeed,refutes itself by the impossibility of the administration of 
the schools preserving the animals if they were not properly 
fed. But in this sitting the vivisections were ably advocated 
by M. Bouvier, who, far from condemning the practice of 
operating on live animals, as practised in the veterinary 
schools, showed the advantage surgeons would derive from 
familiarising themselves with the performance of these opera¬ 
tions. Mi\J. Yernois and Gosselin, taking the parole in 
their turn, showed the necessity of the Academy formally re¬ 
pelling, by a decided motion, the accusations made by mis¬ 
taken philanthropy. The Academy, adopting that opinion, 
decided unanimously on the following answer to the Govern¬ 
ment:—The Academy declares that the complaints made by 
the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
have no just grounds, and that they ought not to be taken 
into account. Further, that it is expedient to leave as here¬ 
tofore the vivisections and the surgical operations, as practised 
at the veterinary schools, to the wisdom of men of science. 
