HAROLD C. ERNST 135 



rebuked by the present Speaker of the House with so 

 severe a reprimand that even the person who made it was 

 overcome with shame, and that would have been as severely 

 rebuked this time, Mr. Chairman, we are confident, if you 

 or the members of the committee had understood the 

 allusion. 



There was no excuse for that reference, sir, except that, 

 as we have since been taught, the counsel adopted the 

 methods of the criminal court to secure what he supposed 

 would be an advantage for his side at any cost of respect 

 or fair dealing. 



Of the same nature was the introduction of the experi- 

 ments of Dr. Wentworth, with the interpretation put upon 

 them. 



Dr. Wentworth's experiments on lumbar puncture 

 have been emphatically condemned by the medical 

 profession as violations of a fundamental principle of 

 medical ethics. 



" No harm was done to the patients by these experi- 

 ments, and the demonstration of the harmlessness of 

 the operation which they afforded has justified prac- 

 titioners in resorting to it for diagnostic and thera- 

 peutic purposes; but this gain to the practice of 

 medicine does not excuse the performance of the 

 operation as an experiment. 



" Dr. Wentworth entirely agrees with the opinion 

 here expressed, and has long regretted that his enthu- 

 siasm for the advancement of medicine led him to 

 ignore the means by which it was to be obtained." 



This happened six years ago. While explaining to the 

 committee the differences between House Bills 855 and 

 856, counsel stated that section I of Bill 855, which was 

 directed against human vivisection, had been omitted from 

 Bill 856, because in his opinion the statutes already existing 



