io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Not long since Dr. Ferrier, of London, was prosecuted for the 

 alleged performance of certain experiments on the brains of the lower 

 animals. With Fritsch, Hitzig, Goltz, Yeo, and others, he had de- 

 stroyed or galvanized certain limited areas of the brain (and it must 

 not be forgotten that the brain is wholly without the sense of pain), 

 and so determined the exact nervous centers for certain limited groups 

 of muscles. As a result of their labors, the brain is now mapped out 

 with reasonable accuracy, so that, given certain hitherto ill-understood 

 or obscure localized symptoms, we can now say that there is certainly 

 a tumor, an abscess, or other disease in precisely this or that locality. 

 True, we can doubtfully infer somewhat of the same from the cruel 

 experiments of disease on man. But Nature's experiments are rarely 

 ever limited in area or uncomplicated ; they are never systematic and 

 exhaustive ; it takes years to collect a fair number of her clumsy ex- 

 periments, and the knowledge is diffused through many minds instead 

 of being centered in one that will systematize the results. 



Said Ferrier, a year ago, in the Marshall Hall oration, " There are 

 already signs that we are within measurable distance of the successful 

 treatment by surgery of some of the most distressing and otherwise 

 hopeless forms of intra-cranial disease, which will vie with the splen- 

 did achievements of abdominal surgery." 



Note the fulfillment ! Last fall, within a year of the foregoing 

 prophecy, a man, aged twenty-five, entered the London Hospital for 

 Epilepsy and Paralysis.* From the symptoms, which I need not de- 

 tail, Dr. Hughes Bennett, basing his conclusions on Ferrier's experi- 

 ments, diagnosticated a tumor of small size on the surface of the 

 brain, involving the center of motion for the muscles of the hand. 

 On November 15, 1884, at his instance, Mr. Godlee trephined the 

 skull over the selected spot, and a quarter of an inch below the surface 

 of the brain found a tumor as big as a walnut, and removed it. For 

 three weeks the man did well, but died on the twenty-eighth day from 

 blood-poisoning, such as might follow any operation, especially a new 

 one. Macewen, of Glasgow, f has similarly trephined a woman, the vic- 

 tim of slow paralysis of body and mind, and opened an abscess a little 

 distance below the surface, letting out two teaspoonfuls of pus, and 

 followed by entire mental and physical recovery. 



them. Many persons suppose that " vivisection " means deliberate " cutting up " of an 

 animal, little by little, till not enough is left to live. So far is this from the truth, that 

 Professor Gerald Yeo, from the actual reports of vivisectionists in England ("Fortnightly 

 Review, March, 1SS2), estimates that of one hundred such experiments, there are: 



Absolutely painless *15 



As painful as vaccination 20 



As painful as the healing of a wound 4 



As painful as a surgical operation 1 



Total 100 



* " Medical News," January 17, 1885. \ Ibid., January 3, 1SS5. 



