372 



NATURE 



\Aug, 31, 1876 



never have been certainly demonstrated if the lower 

 animals had not formed the field of experimental in- 

 vestigation. In these experiments the lower animals 

 suffered neither more nor less than millions of those 

 human animals who indulge in alcohol, and I am sorry 

 to say that, like the human animals, many of them became 

 too fond of the agent that was producing their certain 

 deterioration. I can but feel sure that a great number 

 of facts of the most practical kind sprang from these 

 researches on alcohol. To them also should be added 

 one other addition to physiology. I traced out, in watching 

 the effects of the heavier alcohol from the lighter of 

 the series, the singular law that the physiological action 

 of an organic chemical substance is intensified by the 

 increase of its specific weight. Thus butylic alcohol is 

 more pronounced in its action than methylic, chloroform 

 than chloride of methyl, and so on through all the series 

 of organic compounds. 



Experimentation on Septine. 



In 1864 the death from diphtheria of one whose life 

 was dearer to me than my own, led me to study more 

 carefully than I had before, the process of secondary 

 absorption of secretions from diseased abraded surfaces. 

 In the case in question I felt sure that the death 

 was due to the absorption of poisonous secretion from 

 the ulcerated throat and from the nasal passages. 

 There was at that time no light to guide me to he 

 truth except the experiments of Gaspard, Majendie, and 

 Sedillot, which bore rather on the action of purulent 

 matter and of decomposing blood upon the body, than 

 on secretions formed during disease. I felt it right, 

 therefore, to seek for further information by experi- 

 ment, and this gave rise to the first steps of a research 

 which has since assumed great importance. In the 

 latter part of 1864 some fluid secretion had to be re- 

 moved from the peritoneum of a patient suffering from 

 surgical fever, on whom Mr. Spencer Wells had performed 

 ovariotomy. The fluid, which was quite free from decom- 

 position, was applied by inoculation to a healthy lower 

 animal — a rabbit. It produced a special form of disease 

 analogous to that from which the human patient 

 was suffering. The secretions of the infected lower 

 animal were tested in turn on another healthy animal, 

 and were found to be equally and specifically poisonous. 

 The same was extended through four series with like 

 results. Some of the original fluid was next treated with 

 the view of ascertaining if the poisonous principle in it 

 could be isolated, and a series of salts were obtained which 

 were found to possess a poisonous and progressive poison- 

 ous action like the original fluid. A poisonous organic 

 base seemed, in fact, to be present in the peritoneal secre- 

 tion, to which poison, whatever its nature might be, I 

 gave the name of septine. I afterwards made a series of 

 experiments to determine what agents destroy the activity 

 of the poison, and from the whole of the inquiry, I was 

 brought to a theory of the epidemic diseases which I 

 have specially announced, and which will, I believe, hold 

 its own, viz., that these diseases, are all glandular diseases, 

 and that their poisons are specifically nothing more than 

 ihe secretions of the glandular structures in a modified 

 condition ; that they may be produced with or without 

 infection, and that they act in producing the acute symp- 

 toms of disease, after their absorption, by their effect, 

 primarily, on the nervous system, and secondarily, on the 

 blood. Recently, I have endeavoured to demonstrate 

 that the fever which the septinous poisons produce is 

 brought about by their power of liberating oxygen from the 

 blood, and that those agents which counteract this action 

 most effectively are the true febrifuges. As yet all such 

 counteracting agents — one of which, quinine, is the< best 

 example— are clumsy and slow in their neutralising 

 effect. But chemistry has agents much more potent, and 

 the day, I am quite sure, is not far off when we shall have 



given to us neutralising agents for the contagious fevers 

 which will be as refined and potent as the poisonous 

 agents that produce the fevers, and which will cure 

 fevers by inoculation from the lancet-point, as cer- 

 tainly as small-pox, or other infectious malady, is now 

 producible by the process of inoculation of small-pox 

 septine. By-and-by, and this will probably be the earliest 

 step, we shall find a vapour, to inhale which will have the 

 desired effect, and will be rapid in operation. This prin- 

 ciple made perfect, there will be no such thing as a 

 necessary death from an infectious disease. 



At present, the view that the poisons of the spread- 

 ing diseases are merely animal secretions, like the 

 poisonous secretion of the cobra or the changed saliva 

 of the dog under rabies (canine madness), removes all the 

 mystery that surrounds them, and the various plans 

 for preventing the distribution of the poisons and of 

 infection is rendered common sense and simple to the 

 extremes! degrte. 



Experimentation on Painless Extinction of Animal Life 



The latest experimental researches which I have con- 

 ducted on lower living animals have had for their object the 

 discovery of a ready, cheap, and innocuous method for 

 killing without pain those animals which are destined, as 

 yet, for the food of man. If the labour of the physiologist 

 be allowed to progress, the day will soon arrive when the 

 slaughter of animals for food will become unnecessary, 

 since he will be able to so transmute the vegetable world 

 as to produce the most perfect and delicious foods for all 

 the purposes of life without calling upon the lower animal 

 world to perform the intermediate chemical changes. But 

 until this time arrives, animals will have to be slaughtered, 

 and my research has been directed to make a process 

 which at present is barbarous and painful, painless in the 

 most perfect degree. For this purpose the various modes 

 of rapid destruction of life — by powerful electrical dis- 

 charges, by rapid division of the medulla oblongata, and 

 by the inhalation of various narcotic vapours, have been 

 carried out. The experiments, which have been exceed- 

 ingly numerous, have led me to the conclusion that the 

 most perfect of the painless methods of killing is by the 

 inhalation of carbonic oxide gas. So rapid and complete 

 is the action of this gas, that I may say physiological 

 science has done her part, as far as it need be done, for 

 making the painless killing of every animal a certain and 

 ready accomplishment, an accomplishment also so simple 

 that the animal going to its fate has merely to be passed 

 through the lethal chamber, in order to be brought in 

 senseless sleep into the hands of the slaughterer. The 

 application of teaching and the putting into practice 

 this humane process lies now with the world outside 

 science ; but to insure its acceptance, all the force of 

 selfishness, of prejudice, and of practical apathy for the 

 sufferings of the animal creation, have to be overcome. 

 There is a great deal of talk and a great deal of sentiment 

 abroad on the question of the sufferings of the lower 

 animal kingdom, but when an attempt is made to relieve 

 those sufferings by the invention of methods for operat- 

 ing, surgically without the infliction of pain, or for 

 painless killing, the true and vital sympathy which one 

 would expect in support of such practical and humane 

 efforts, until they are made perfect and universal, can 

 scarcely be said to be found at all. With the exception 

 of a few, not a dozen altogether, of really humane ladies 

 and gentlemen, I have found no one, out of the ranks of 

 science, in the least interested in the saving of sufferings 

 to which I am now directing attention. The man of 

 science stands and wonders at the strangeness of the 

 psychological problem before him ; and, in spite of him- 

 self, is forced to the conclusion that, practically, the noise 

 that is made at him in the name of humanity is, after 

 all, sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. 



Benjamin W, Richardson 



