ADDRESSES 35 



guinea pigs. This one experiment saves thousands of human 

 lives a year. 



Careful scientific experimentation has developed a serum 

 for meningitis which directly destroys the growth of germs. 

 As a result the mortality of the disease has been reduced and 

 severe symptoms and crippling complications have been pre- 

 vented. 



In 1878, Koch discovered the tubercle bacilli. Before that 

 time it was thought that tuberculosis was due to a divine 

 anger. Since then tubercular mortality has been reduced 50 

 per cent. Since Koch, six million people have been saved by 

 progress in hygiene. It has been clearly shown by experi- 

 mentation that tuberculosis is not inherited. 



Animal experimentation has made a rich contribution to 

 children. I fear laymen are insufficiently informed on these 

 important subjects. Hysterical imaginines would discredit 

 this beneficial work. The ones to suffer most from a suppres- 

 sion of animal experimentation are helpless suffering chil- 

 dren. ' 



As an illustration, let us consider the ravages of diphtheria 

 in New York City, prior to the use of antitoxin. In 1894 

 there was a mortality of more than eleven thousand chil- 

 dren, wihile ten years later, after antitoxin had been well in- 

 troduced, the mortality was but slightly over two thousand. 

 A saving of mortality in one city in one year from one dis- 

 ease was practically nine thousand. It is estimated that since 

 Behring discovered diphtheria antitoxin, one million, three 

 hundred and fifty thousand children in France alone, 

 have been saved by its use. Behring sacrificed one hundred 

 rabbits and twenty-five dogs to make this discovery. In 1895 

 the mortality rate from diphtheria in nineteen American cities 

 was eighty per one hundred thousand. Ten years later it was 

 seventeen per one hundred thousand. If this rate could be 

 applied throughout the United States, it would mean today an 

 annual saving of sixty thousand children as the result of anti- 

 toxin treatment and public health laws. 



I wish that the people trying to throttle scientific research, 

 would witness the awful struggle of a child dying from diph- 

 theria croup. Surely they could then realize the importance 

 of these discoveries. Fortunately few physicians are forced 

 to go through such an ordeal at present owing to the bene- 

 ficent results of treatment resulting directly from animal re- 

 search. 



