4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Vienna, properly and wisely tried cocaine first on animals,* and then, 

 finding its beneficial effects, tried it upon man with like results, and 

 one of the most remarkable drugs of modern times was thus made 

 available. We are only on the threshold of its usefulness. It has 

 been used in the eye, the ear, the nose, the mouth, the larynx and all 

 other mucous membranes, in the removal of tumors, and as an internal 

 medicine. When its physiological action has been still more thor- 

 oughly and systematically investigated, its poisonous dose ascertained, 

 when we know how it works, what its effects are upon the blood-press- 

 ure, the heart, the nerves, the blood-vessels effects that can not be 

 accurately studied upon man its usefulness may be increased to an 

 extent as yet but little dreamed of. Should it only soothe the last 

 painful hours of our great hero, General Grant, a nation will bless it 

 and the experiments which gave it effect. Moreover, had the experi- 

 ments of Dr. Isaac Ott, of Easton, f on this very drug, borne their due 

 fruit, America would have had the honor and the human race the bene- 

 fits of cocaine ten years ago ten years of needless suffering ! 



This is but one illustration of the value of experiments upon ani- 

 mals in the realm of new drugs. In fact, substitute for eocaine other 

 drugs, or new operations, or new methods of medical treatment, and 

 the argument repeats itself for each. Within the last thirty years a 

 multitude of new drugs have thus been discovered, and their effects 

 have been either first tested upon animals, or their properties studied 

 exhaustively in a manner impracticable upon man. I will only enu- 

 merate some of them, since time will not allow me to enter upon each in 

 detail. Thus have been introduced lily-of-the-valley in heart-disease, 

 yellow jasmine, in diseases of the heart and nervous system, paralde- 

 hyde and chloral-hydrate, so valuable for sleep, caffeine for headache, 

 eucalyptus as an antiseptic and in medicine, nitro-glycerine for nervous 

 maladies, Calabar bean for diseases of the eye and nervous system, 

 naphthaline and iodoform in surgery, quebracho as an antispasmodic, 

 antipyrin and kairin in fever, jaborandi in dropsy, salicylic acid in 

 rheumatism, nitrite of amyl in epilepsy and intermittent fever, jequir- 



kind on a rabbit or a Guinea-pig bad been used by Jobn Hunter, wbo probably shortened 

 his own noble life by experimenting on himself! . . . 



" Let me give one other instance. ... A few years ago two young German chemists 

 were assistants in a London laboratory. They were experimenting upon a poison which I 

 will not even name, for its properties are so terrible. It is postponed in its action, and 

 then produces idiocy or death. A experiment on a mouse or a rabbit would have taught 

 them the danger of this frightful poieon ; but, in ignorance of its subtle properties, they 

 became its unhappy victims, for one died and the other suffered intellectual death. Yet 

 the promoters of this bill would not suffer us to make any experiments on the lower ani- 

 mals so as to protect man from such catastrophes. It is by experiments on animals that 

 medicine has learned the benefits, but also has been taught to avoid the dangers of many 

 potent drugs as chloroform, chloral, and morphia." 



* " Archives of Ophthalmology," September and December, 1884, p. 402, New York, 

 Putnams. 



f Ott, "Cocai'n, Veratrin, and Gclsemium," Philadelphia, 1874. 



