128 ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION 



ments on mammals, such as dogs, cats, rabbits, and guinea 

 pigs; I have seen at least five hundred experiments upon 

 cold-blooded animals, especially fishes, frogs, and terra- 

 pins ; and yet the number of cases where there was the 

 slightest suffering on the part of a dumb animal (beyond 

 the distress which accompanies the administration of ether) 

 is certainly less than twenty-five ; and even in these cases, 

 the suffering was not greater than that which accompanies 

 a cut with a sharp instrument, or the healing of a wound 

 which is kept aseptically clean. 



I am inclined to think that my experience is exceptional 

 among physiologists, in that I have seen not a single 

 experiment involving severe pain or suffering by a dumb 

 animal. But I am sure that it is not exceptional otherwise. 

 Other physiologists would have seen perhaps a few experi- 

 ments of this character. Otherwise I believe that their 

 experience will agree with mine. 



However that may be, this may be said : If physi- 

 ological experimentation involves the pain and suffering 

 on the part of dumb animals which we might suppose 

 to be the rule from current anti-vivisection publications, 

 from various imaginative stories which appear from time to 

 time in our magazines, and even from the language of 

 counsel and petitioners for the proposed legislation, it is 

 very remarkable that, with my opportunities for observa- 

 tion in so many fields in which such suffering is suspected 

 or charged, the actual amount observed should be practi- 

 cally negligible ; and this despite the fact that both at Johns 

 Hopkins University and at the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology it is understood that any experiment, pain- 

 ful or otherwise, is allowed in research work, provided 

 there is a reasonable prospect of thereby discovering new 

 truth. 



