CONCLUSIONS 



stition, misunderstanding, jealousy, and self- 

 exploitation have all contributed their harmful 

 influences. This peculiar mental state has in 

 many instances not been satisfied with the 



and who let their morbid imaginings take the place of facts. 

 They move about among the visitors making insinuating re- 

 marks and stating falsehoods with an easy assumption of 

 knowledge they have never possessed. They show an instru- 

 ment maker's catalogue to prove the truth of their representa- 

 tions again with no mention of anesthetics. A catalogue of 

 the instruments used in surgical operations on man could be 

 used with the same sly suggestion of torture. As the visitors 

 leave, the attendants hand them circulars containing garbled 

 statements, misleading quotations, and reiterated falsehoods, 

 the untruth of which has been often pointed out. Thus the 

 exhibition is untrue in its representations, evil in its implica- 

 tions, and altogether harmful in its possible effects. 



"When the exhibition was at Atlantic City last summer the 

 Philadelphia Ledger was moved to state editorially : ' It is really 

 a serious concern that a number of good women, or others, 

 should devote their labors to harrying the nerves of the crowd 

 and inciting them to ignorant hostility against the humane 

 studies which have done so much for the services of mankind. 

 The public exhibition of an anatomic museum would be in any 

 case an offense against taste and decorum; when it is em- 

 ployed for misrepresentation and obscurantism and for the prop- 

 agation of false sentiment, prejudice and intolerance, it is 

 proper to speak of it only with the most serious condemnation. 



' * ' Utterly preposterous as the ' ' chamber of horrors ' ; on the 

 Boardwalk must appear to all who know anything of the 

 subject it pretends to illustrate, it yet has its serious aspect, 

 as an attempt to play on ignorant emotion and to create a 

 false sentiment in support of an unscientific, unreasonable, in- 

 humane effort to impose indiscriminating and injurious re- 

 strictions on the acquisition of knowledge that is for the 

 advantage of all living creatures. ' 



' ' When a lay paper takes such a stand as that, it is high 

 time that members of the medical profession awaken to the 

 harm that the opponents of research are doing. The public 

 is being educated, but the ignorant are being led by the igno- 

 rant. If medical investigation is not to be seriously hampered 

 in this country, those who do not know must be led by those 

 who do, and must be taught to see the importance to the general 



151 



