78o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



experiment wliicli antivivisection writers tell us to wait for, and 

 which they say is sent by Providence to teach men physiology. 

 Thiersch made the same experiment upon fifty-six mice, the con- 

 ditions being accurately determined and scientifically controlled, 

 and with the death of fourteen mice gave the world more exact 

 information about the contagion of cholera than all the cholera 

 epidemics recorded in history. This is the scientific experiment 

 which we are told should not be made.* 



The antiseptic method, which we owe in so great a measure to 

 the vivisectional experiments of Joseph Lister, is past all reason- 

 able controversy and we may refer to it here. It has come to be 

 used in hospitals generally, and has reduced mortality from sur- 

 gical operations to one tenth of what it was before. Any one 

 who has seen even a few cases of antiseptic surgery will readily 

 agree with Dr. Keen when he says : " Sir Joseph Lister has done 

 more to save human life and diminish human suffering than any 

 other man of the last fifty years.'' f Still, Lister was obliged to 

 leave England to continue experiment in his merciful work after 

 the passage of the restrictive law in 1876. 



In the Tiibingen Hospital died from amputation before intro- 

 duction of Lister's method and after : 



Per cent. Per cent. 



Of lower limb 43-5 3-2 



Ofupperlimb 30-6 2-9J 



We might extend much further the list of useful discoveries 

 which have depended for some essential part of their develop- 

 ment upon vivisectional experiment ; but such is not our present 

 purpose. The reader can find these amply discussed elsewhere. 

 We would, however, at this point call special attention to the way 

 in which a discovery of this kind is received. Jenner's smallpox 

 inoculation was obliged to run the same gantlet of popular and 

 professional favor and disfavor as Lister's discovery, as Koch's 

 and Pasteur's are running now. Such discoveries are in even 

 greater danger from ignorant and enthusiastic supporters than 

 from learned opponents. The problems involved are very com- 

 plicated. Exceptions of every kind occur — e. g., a person may 

 have smallpox twice, and so, although vaccination protects in 

 most cases, it does not in all; and, further, as Jenner himself 

 says, " inoculation sometimes under the best management proves 

 fatal." « 



In the case of one of these complications in London, Jenner 



* John Simon. Experiments on Life. London, 1881. 



f W. W. Keen. Our Debts to Vivisection. Reprint from Popular Science Monthly, May, 

 1886, p. 15. 



X Ileidcnliain. Die Vivisection, p. 34. * Jenner, he. cii., p. 57. 



