EXPERIMENTS UPON ANIMALS 253 



mental method is gradually replacing the irrational 

 by the rational. 



Such illustrations as have already been given 

 will perhaps suffice for the purpose of this article 

 and show how great is the debt of clinical medicine 

 to experimental science. The art of the physician 

 remains, as before, a noble and difficult one, which 

 must always call for special personal endowments ; 

 but experiment has widened the knowledge on 

 which it is based, and experiment alone could have 

 secured the progress which the last half century 

 has witnessed. 



A matter which is of moment to any serious 

 reader must be touched on before closing. While 

 scientific advances of every kind tend to react 

 upon and assist medicine it is certain that without 

 experiments upon animals the subject cannot 

 properly advance. The necessity continually arises 

 for performing preliminary experiments upon living 

 animals before this or that new piece of knowledge 

 can be applied to the relief of humanity. Much of 

 the new knowledge can, indeed, only be won by 

 means of such experiments. The alternatives are 

 three : ignorance and lack of progress ; experiments 

 upon human beings ; or experiments upon animals. 

 It should not be difficult to choose among them. 

 The emotions which have led many to reject the 

 last alternative are among those deserving the 

 highest respect. Such emotions, however, have 

 too often been allowed to express themselves in 



