REQUIREMENTS OF SCIENCE. 183 



in his heart nurses a bitter feeling of impotence. Give him everything 

 within your power and it will not be too much. 



Moreover, gentlemen, our beautiful hospital buildings are only 

 tributes which we pay to human misery and infirmity. All the more, 

 therefore, should that in which mankind beholds its dignity and 

 pride be likewise deserving of palaces, where the power of man and his 

 strength of mind may be enlarged. Such palaces have been built 

 by the great cultured nations. Thus, for instance, in Germany the 

 scientific laboratories, especially the physiological, vie with each other 

 in the splendour of their design and equipment. Unfortunately, of our 

 laboratories, the same cannot by any means be said, with the one well- 

 known exception, of the Institute for Experimental Medicine, which 

 owes its existence to the lofty ideas and enlightened benevolence of Prince 

 Alexander of Oldenburg. In many other scientific institutes a great 

 want of accommodation makes itself felt, which is in striking con- 

 trast to the extraordinary growth of the pi-oblems biological experi- 

 ment has to solve. For, in addition to a series of special rooms for 

 the several experiments, a number of sufficiently large and suitably 

 furnished compartments are now unavoidably necessary for the different 

 animals under experiment. I have at present, in the laboratory of the 

 Institute for Experimental Medicine, up to thirty dogs on which the 

 physiology of digestion has been or is being studied, and which must be 

 so kept that their state of health leaves nothing to be desired. Hardly 

 any one would be so bold as to say that these animals have not been 

 employed to good purpose, or that so great a number is not necessary. 

 It is in fact the number of animals which has given security to our 

 results, for in case of the least doubt or suspicion the laboratory can 

 repeat and control its earlier observations. On the other hand, a large 

 number of experiment animals favours the starting and solution of 

 new problems. But these animals have been necessary solely for the 

 study of physiological problems. How many more will be required 

 for investigations in experimental pathology and therapeutics, where 

 the events to be observed stretch out over months or years ? That a 

 fruitful field is open in the prolonged observation of experiment 

 animals, I am convinced from various occasional observations during 

 the last few years. I had by no means the intention at first to set up 

 conditions of disease ; I operated solely for physiological purposes, and 

 kept my animals alive for months or years. How many and how 

 profound pathological processes have, under these circumstances, come 

 into existence before my eyes ! I have seen, in connection with a 

 disturbance of the functions of the liver, an enormous ascites develop ; 

 at another time an ascending paralysis of the central nervous system ; 

 or, again, a general lacerability of the blood vessels, and so on. 



