VIVISECTION AND PRACTICAL MEDICINE. 619 



catching the blood, and elaborate machines, such as those on the 

 table, were among the apparatus the surgeon had to prepare for opera- 

 tion. 



Let us now turn to a modern operation, and let us consider whether 

 our present modus operandi is influenced by the light which experi- 

 mental inquiry has shed on physiology during the last century. I 

 shall not attempt to recount any one of the numerous cases which the 

 surgeon now approaches with perfect confidence of undoubted success, 

 although a comparatively short time back they would have been 

 looked upon as completely beyond his reach. Many such cases, which 

 formerly would have led either to certain death, enduring misery, or 

 life-long inconvenience, must occur to the minds of all here. Let us 

 take a case of disease or injury requiring the amputation of a portion 

 of an extremity. In the first place the patient is made quite insen- 

 sible to pain by the administration of chloroform, or some such drug ; 

 not only is he insensible to pain, but also unconscious to all that he 

 formerly would have been obliged to see and hear, by no means the 

 least painful part of the operation. With regard to the use of anaes- 

 thetics, I shall not delay, for vivisection can not claim to be the sole 

 means of introducing this great boon to modern surgery, although ex- 

 periment on living animals played a most prominent part both in their 

 discovery and their introduction into common use in this country, as 

 has been frequently pointed out. 



The next step in the operation is to make the part bloodless. This 

 can be done in the following way : By holding up the limb for some 

 time to facilitate the flow of blood from the veins, and thus to reduce 

 the blood-pressure within these vessels, by which means the local vaso- 

 motor mechanisms are brought into play with considerable force, so as 

 to reduce the quantity of blood in the limb, allowing only a limited 

 flow to continue. Then Esmarch's elastic bandage may be applied to 

 further empty the minute blood-vessels. By this means the textures 

 to be cut into may be made to remain, during the active part of the 

 operation, as bloodless as those of a corpse. The advantage of having 

 no dread of hemorrhage to induce haste, no blood to impede the view, 

 or render the instruments difficult to handle, can hardly be overesti- 

 mated. So that, even apart from the all-important point of prevent- 

 ing the weakly patient losing blood, this bloodless surgery must be 

 regarded as one of the most important improvements in modern meth- 

 ods. And how far may it be traced to vivisection ? We know that 

 the contractility of the blood-vessels, and the high pressure of the 

 blood in the arteries, as well as the motions of the heart and the 

 course of the blood, were demonstrated by this means ; and is not this 

 the key of the whole matter ? But, further, were we not familiar by 

 vivisections, and by the removal of tissues from the bodies of recently 

 killed animals, with the fact that the textures can retain their life and 

 function for a considerable period after their normal circulation has 



