i 7 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion, exclude it from the category of appliances for instruction. Yield- 

 ing to none in my conviction of the indispensableness of experiments 

 on animals to the prevention and healing of disease and injury, I be- 

 lieve that a higher and broader ground should be taken. " The knowl- 

 edge of the human body," whether gained by dissection or by experi- 

 ment, " belongs to every man, woman, and child, and has no more ex- 

 clusive connection with physic than with law, engineering, or archi- 

 tecture." Consequently, had vivisection accomplished absolutely noth- 

 ing for medicine or surgery, nevertheless experiments upon animals, 

 necessarily painful in some cases, should be performed by competent 

 persons for the advancement of physiological knowledge, just as ex- 

 periments are done in chemical and physical research, and experiments, 

 commonly painless, should be constantly employed in pjhysiological 

 teaching, simply because the information so imparted is more interest- 

 ing, more intelligible, and more lasting than what is given in any other 

 way* The spirit and methods of modern scientific teaching are well 

 conveyed in the motto, " Iter longum per praicepta, breve per exempla," 

 to which may be added the metric imitation of a familiar proverb, "A 

 gramme of experiment is worth a kilogramme of talk." Logically, in- 

 deed, unless it be wrong to kill animals for the sake of mental acquisi- 

 tion, the exclusion of painless experiments from physiological teaching 

 would be comparable with the abolition of museums, models, and 

 vivaria of all kinds because most animals have been figured and de- 

 scribed. On this point most persons will admit the force of Dr. 

 Bartholow's query, " If animals are sacrificed for the support of 

 men's bodies, why should they not contribute to the improvement 

 of men's minds ? " f 



III. " An act for the more effectual prevention of cruelty to ani- 

 mals," passed April 12, 1867, embraces two sections relating to experi- 

 mentation upon animals : 



Section' 1. If any person shall overdrive, overload, torture, torment, deprive 

 of necessary sustenance, or unnecessarily J or cruelly beat, or needlessly mutilate 

 or hill, or cause or procure to be overdriven, ... or needlessly mutilated or 

 killed, as aforesaid, any living creature, every such offender shall, for every such 

 offense, be guilty of a misdemeanor. . . . 



Seo. 10. Nothing in this act shall be construed to prohibit or interfere 

 with any properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations, which ex- 

 periments shall be performed only under the authority of some regularly incor- 

 porated medical college or university of the State of New York. 



The following is the bill for the total suppression of vivisection 



* As has been pithily stated by Huxley at the close of an article " On Elementary In- 

 struction in Physiology," " Popular Science Monthly," October, 1877. 



f Lecture reported in the "Medical Record," October 11, 1879, p. 342. 



\ Certain words of this and the following extracts are italicized with reference to 

 comments which will be made presently. 



