CHAPTER X. 

 EXPERIMENTATION UPON ANIMALS. 



THE principal objects of medical bacteriology are to dis- 

 cover the cause, explain the symptoms, and bring about the 

 cure and future prevention of disease. We cannot hope 

 to achieve these objects without experimentation upon 

 animals, in whose bodies the effects of bacteria and their 

 products can be studied. 



No one should more heartily condemn wanton cruelty to 

 animals than the physician. Indeed, it is hard to imagine 

 men, so much of whose life is spent in relieving pain, and 

 who know so much about pain, being guilty of the butchery 

 and torture accredited to them by a few of the laity, whose 

 eyes, but not whose brains, have looked over the pages 

 of physiologic text-books, and whose "philanthropy has 

 thereby been transformed to zoolatry." 



It is entirely through experimentation upon animals that 

 we have attained our knowledge of physiology, most of 

 our important knowledge of therapeutics, and most of our 

 knowledge of the infectious diseases. Without its aid we 

 would still be without one of the greatest achievements of 

 medicine, the serum therapy of diphtheria. 



Experiments upon animals, therefore, must be made, and, 

 as the lower animals differ in their susceptibility to diseases, 

 large numbers and different kinds of animals must be em- 

 ployed. 



The bacteriologic methods are fortunately not cruel, the 

 principal modes of introducing bacteria into the body being 

 by subcutaneous, intraperitoneal, and intravenous injec- 

 tion. 



Any hypodermic syringe that can conveniently be cleaned 

 and disinfected may be employed for the purpose. Forms 

 expressly designed for bacteriologic work and most fre- 

 quently employed are shown in figure 59. Those of Meyer 

 and Roux resemble ordinary hypodermic syringes; that of 

 Koch is supposed to possess the decided advantage of not 



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