cardiac surgery and organ transplantation as examples of treatments that could not have been developed without animal experimentation. There are many additional boundaries within which we must live. Our ambient temperature must be maintained within a very narrow band of the extant range. We must breathe oxygen continuously to sustain life; lack of it for a matter of minutes is fatal. We cannot ascend in altitude nor descend below sea level without apparatus to maintain our near sea level environment. Our body chemistry requires that components such as sodium, potassium, chloride, glucose, pH (the measure of acidity), and many others must be maintained within very narrow concentrations or ranges. Homeostasis is the word that describes the body's ability to maintain these acceptable ranges. Death can await violation of those boundaries And there is some humor as well as cause for humility in the conditions of our existence. We must excrete the waste products of our daily lives a reminder of our fragility. We must urinate several times each day we must defecate every day or so, and we must pass flatus. Part of being civilized" is to do these things privately. But do them we must whatever our station in life may be, from the most exalted to the most destitute among us. Who does not see cause for humility, and some humor n these necessary functions that bind us all? The thought of the mightiest among us passing noisy, malodorous emissions is enough to remind us that all the wealth and status in the world does not make us much different, as animals, from any of our fellow men, nor, for that matter from other forms of animal life And then there is the awe. Man, the animal, although sharing much common with all vertebrate animals, has a unique ability that differentiates him from all other living things that procreate, eat and drink, urinate and defecate and pass flatus, and move their limbs and bodies. He can think. And because he can think, he can conceptualize. He can build things and do things that no other life form can. He has taught himself to speak and to write. He has learned te manipulate his environment. As I write these words, I am listening to the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven. Music. An invention of man. And what a glorious invention! Man learned to appreciate pitch and rhythm, he developed musical notation, and he taught himself to make instruments to make musical sounds, and to sing. The symphony orchestra playing the Beethoven symphony has instruments made of metal and wood and animal tissues. The metals had to be mined from the earth the wood taken from trees that had to be felled, and the tissues taken from animals that had to be slaughtered. The instruments had to be crafted by men of great skill, and now played by men also of great, but different skill. Andcardiac surgery and organ transplantation as examples of treatments that could not have been developed without animal experimentation. There are many additional boundaries within which we must live. Our ambient temperature must be maintained within a very narrow band of the extant range. We must breathe oxygen continuously to sustain life; lack of it for a matter of minutes is fatal. We cannot ascend in altitude nor descend below sea level without apparatus to maintain our near sea level environment. Our body chemistry requires that components such as sodium, potassium, chloride, glucose, pH (the measure of acidity), and many others must be maintained within very narrow concentrations or ranges. Homeostasis is the word that describes the body’s ability to maintain these acceptable ranges. Death can await violation of those boundaries. And there is some humor as well as cause for humility in the conditions of our existence. We must excrete the waste products of our daily lives, a reminder of our fragility. We must urinate several times each day, we must defecate every day or so, and we must pass flatus. Part of being “civilized” is to do these things privately. But do them we must, whatever our station in life may be, from the most exalted to the most destitute among us. Who does not see cause for humility, and some humor in these necessary functions that bind us all? The thought of the mightiest among us passing noisy, malodorous emissions is enough to remind us that all the wealth and status in the world does not make us much different, as animals, from any of our fellow men, nor, for that matter, from other forms of animal life. And then there is the awe. Man, the animal, although sharing much in common with all vertebrate animals, has a unique ability that differentiates him from all other living things that procreate, eat and drink, urinate and defecate and pass flatus, and move their limbs and bodies. He can think. And because he can think, he can conceptualize. He can build things and do things that no other life form can. He has taught himself to speak and to write. He has learned to manipulate his environment. As I write these words, I am listening to the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven. Music. An invention of man. And what a glorious invention! Man learned to appreciate pitch and rhythm, he developed musical notation, and he taught himself to make instruments to make musical sounds, and to sing. The symphony orchestra playing the Beethoven symphony has instruments made of metal and wood and animal tissues. The metals had to be mined from the earth, the wood taken from trees that had to be felled, and the tissues taken from animals that had to be slaughtered. The instruments had to be crafted by men of great skill, and now played by men also of great, but different skill. And