52 ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION 



and effect of the tubercle bacillus in tuberculosis of the 

 gcnito-urinary passages, and how can such infections be 

 prevented or overcome? (The single subject of the ex- 

 perimental study of tuberculosis in general justifies an 

 army of workers in the field of experimental pathology.) 



(d) The physiological functions of the spleen, and the 

 influence of the spleen upon the blood ; of the blood upon 

 the spleen. The possibilities of health after removal of 

 the spleen all these questions demand the aid of the 

 physiologist. 



(c) Finally, although there are many other questions, I 

 may mention the possibilities in the surgery of the pan- 

 creas. In the acute diseases of the pancreas there is at 

 present practically no hope from medical or from surgical 

 treatment. Acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis, for example, 

 is almost invariably fatal. Animal experimentation has 

 shown how this disease may be artificially produced. 

 May it not show also how in its inception it may be arti- 

 ficially cured? 



A vast number of similar questions are coming up every 

 day. All branches of medicine and surgery are eagerly 

 working for their solution. 



III. Unless demonstrations of operative possibility and 

 of surgical technique are permitted upon the lower ani- 

 mals, the surgeon's only way to gain such knowledge must 

 of necessity be through observations upon living human 

 beings. 



IV. Surgeons should practise the great operations of 

 abdominal, thoracic, brain, and spinal surgery upon ani- 

 mals before trying these operations upon human beings. 

 Operations upon the dead are of some value, but they are 

 performed under conditions totally unlike those upon the 

 living. Moreover, no idea can be gained as to the success- 

 ful or unsuccessful performance of the operation. The step 

 most essential to the success of the operation may have 



