POPULAR MIS CELL AX Y 



715 



and others, performed on a few mice; and, 

 on the other hand, the popular experiments 

 which were performed on a half-million of 

 human beings in London during the cholera 

 epidemics of 1848-'49 and 1853-'54 by the 

 water companies. M. Villemin has gained 

 information of incalculable value concern- 

 ing the causes and nature of tubercle from 

 his laboratory experiments on other animals 

 than man, and has been followed by others 

 who have developed and extended his dis- 

 coveries. Professor Gerlach, of Hanover, 

 has in a similar manner studied the trans- 

 missibility of tubercle from animals to man 

 by eating their flesh and drinking their 

 milk. The popular experiments, performed 

 by milk - dealers serving their customers, 

 which lead us to suspect that tuberculosis 

 might be transmissible through milk, are 

 performed daily upon thousands of human 

 beings. " The scientific experiments which 

 have made us certain of the fact were con" 

 elusive when they amounted to half a dozen. 

 Thus, without making any account of the 

 relative value of human beings and animals, 

 the scientific experiments are vastly more 

 economical than the popular. They have 

 the further advantage of being precise and 

 exact, while the popular experiments very 

 often have in them sources of ambiguity 

 which lessen their usefulness for teaching." 

 The principal problems to be solved in pre- 

 ventive medicine are how, by cross-breed- 

 ing or otherwise, to convert a short-lived 

 or constitutionally enfeebled stock into a 

 long-lived or vigorous one, which has hardly 

 yet become a practical question ; and.howto 

 avoid or resist the extensive interferences 

 which shorten life, on which much has been 

 learned by vivisection, and more remains to 

 be learned. Of the investigations in the 

 latter line which have led to results of mo- 

 mentous value are cited the diversified re- 

 searches of Pasteur and others on germs, 

 and their specific applications to the diseases 

 of domestic animals and man ; Drs. Klebs 

 and Tommasi Crudelli's examinations into 

 the intimate cause of marsh - malaria ; Dr. 

 Grawitz's studies of the conversion of ordi- 

 narily harmless microphytes into agents of 

 deadly infectiveness ; Dr. Lister's applica- 

 tion of Pasteur's discoveries to the anti- 

 septic treatment of wounds ; Professor Sem- 

 mer and Dr. Krajewski's discovery of inocu- 



lation against septicemia ; and Dr. Schul- 

 ler's contributions to the treatment of tu- 

 bercular and scrofulous affections, on the 

 basis of their microphytic origin. No work 

 has been performed of more promisj to the 

 world than these various contributions to 

 the knowledge of disease, its cure and pre- 

 vention; and they are contributions which 

 from the nature of the case have come, and 

 could only have come, from the perform- 

 ance of experiments on living animals. 



A Dangerons Tendency in Science. 



Mr. W. Spottiswoode, in his president's ad- 

 dress before the Royal Society, has sounded 

 the note of alarm against an evil that has 

 begun to affect science, and may result in 

 harm if it grows. Research, he suggests, 

 is being drawn into the hurry that charac- 

 terizes other departments of life in our 

 generation, and the glamour of sensational 

 fame is too apt to blind the eye to the light 

 of the solid honor which is the real and 

 best reward of science. " Apart from other 

 reasons, the difficulty, already great and 

 always rapidly increasing, of ascertaining 

 what is actually new in natural science ; the 

 liability at any moment of being anticipated 

 by others, constantly present to the minds 

 of those to whom priority is of serious im- 

 portance ; the desire to achieve something 

 striking, either in principle or in mere il- 

 lustration all tend to disturb the even flow 

 of scientific research. And it is, perhaps, 

 not too much to say that an eagerness to 

 outstrip others rather than to advance 

 knowledge, and a struggle for relative rather 

 than absolute progress, are among the most 

 dangerous tendencies peculiar to the period 

 in which we live." Happily, this tendency 

 has not yet become general in science, and 

 Mr. Spottiswoode's calling attention to it 

 may go far toward providing a cure for it. 



The Supposed Volcanoes in Central Asia. 



The existence of volcanoes in Central 

 Asia was formerly generally recognized on 

 the authority of Humboldt. As the vast 

 regions included in that country have be- 

 come more accessible to Europeans, many 

 of the supposed volcanoes have been proved 

 to have no real existence, and the inves- 

 tigations of Russian explorers have re- 

 sulted in showing that what in many in- 



