8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



search intelligently for an antidote until we know accurately the effects 

 of the poison ? This can not be studied on man ; we must resort to 

 animals, 01* else let the holocaust go on. Accordingly, Dr. T. Lauder 

 Brunton began such a series of experiments in London, but was 

 stopped by the stringent anti-vivisection laws there in force. But Drs. 

 Weir Mitchell and Reichert,* in this city, have recently undertaken 

 experiments on cobra and rattlesnake venom, the cobra-poison being 

 furnished, be it observed, by the British Government, whose own laws 

 have prevented investigations for the benefit of its own subjects ! The 

 results are as yet only partly made known, but they have been brill- 

 iantly successful in showing that there are two poisons in such venom, 

 each of which has been isolated and its effects studied. The first step 

 has been taken the poison is known. Who will raise a finger to stop 

 progress toward the second the antidote ? Can the sacrifice of a few 

 score of animals each year in such research weigh for a moment 

 against the continuous annual sacrifice of twenty thousand human 

 beings ? f 



The modern history of anaesthetics is also of interest. To say 

 nothing of ether and chloroform, whose safer use Bert has investi- 

 gated in France, nor of cocaine, to which I have already alluded, let 

 us see what experiments on animals have shown us as to bromide of 

 ethyl an anaesthetic lately revived in surgery. Its revival has quickly 

 been followed by its abandonment on account of the frequent sacrifice 

 of human life that is to say, experiments on human beings have 

 proved it to be deadly. Now, Dr. II. C Wood, J soon after its ^intro- 

 duction, made a study of its effects on animals, and showed its physio- 

 logical dangers. Had his warnings been heeded, not a few human 

 lives would have been saved. 



The ideal anaesthetic, that will abolish pain without abolishing con- 

 sciousness, and do so without danger, is yet to be found. Cocaine is 

 our nearest approach to it. Now, in all fairness and common sense, 

 would it be real kindness or real cruelty to obstruct the search for 

 such an anaesthetic a search which will surely be rewarded by suc- 

 cess, but which, if not carried on by experiments on animals, must be 



* "Medical News," April 28, 1883. 



f I am permitted by Rev. It. M. Luther, of this city, to state the following fact in 

 illustration of the practical value of vivisection in snake-bite : When a missionary in 

 Burmah, he and his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Vinton (two missionary vivisectionists !), made 

 a number of experiments to discover an antidote to the poison of the "brown viper" a 

 snake but little less venomous than the cobra. They found a substance which is an 

 antidote in about sixty per cent of the cases if applied at once. Thah Mway, one of their 

 native preachers, when bitten by the brown viper, had some of this antidote with him, 

 and by its use his life was saved when on the verge of death. This one life saved has 

 been the means of leading, it is estimated, two thousand Karens to embrace Christianity. 

 Was not this one life worth all the dogs used in the experiments to make no mention of 

 the many other lives that will be saved in all the future ? 



X "Philadelphia Medical Times," April 24, 1880. 



