77 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A recent writer* has actually cited mortality statistics to 

 prove the futility of vivisection. The figures do show that in 

 England since 1850 certain organic diseases have been on the in- 

 crease, despite the slight advance in our knowledge of them. At 

 first blush this table given by Lefiingwell strikes one as a serious 

 argument against the utility of research. On closer inspection, 

 however, it only reveals the astute cunning of this author in the 

 selection of his diseases. Almost without exception these maladies 

 lie very deep in the hereditary tendencies of the race, and we 

 could not expect them to be checked and reversed in so short a 

 time. With increase of wealth and advance in civilization the 

 chance that defectives may leave enfeebled progeny is greatly in- 

 creased, and that there has not been an even greater increase in 

 these diseases is cause for congratulation. But even if the statis- 

 tics would support the significance Lefiingwell attaches to them, 

 what are we to do about it ? The only courageous course would 

 seem to be to acknowledge the extreme difficulty of the problems 

 involved and attack them with redoubled energy. Over two 

 thousand years of clinical observation and empiricism have prob- 

 ably about exhausted possibilities in these directions, so that our 

 only hope would seem to lie in experiment ; and the less prelimi- 

 nary experimenting on men, the better. If Lefiingwell had been 

 able to prove from statistics that there is no curable disease in the 

 world, he would have had a strong argument. As it stands, how- 

 ever, it must be acknowledged to be the strongest possible argu- 

 ment for the side of research. 



The chief point of unfairness of the table lies in Leflfingweirs 

 selection of diseases. Why confine attention to statistics of or- 

 ganic disease ? In acute diseases, where we would naturally look 

 for the first fruits of scientific work, the gain has been considerable. 



In support of this, we may quote a few passages from News- 

 holme's Vital Statistics. On page 273 he says: "If these chil- 

 dren " (the 858,878 born annually in England) " be traced through 

 life, the changes in the death-rates occurring 1871-1880, as com- 

 pared with 1838-1854, would result in an addition of 1,800,047 

 years of life shared among them ; and since this number of births 

 occurs annually, it may be reasonably inferred that there is an 

 annual addition of nearly 2,000,000 years of life to the community, 

 the greater share in which muso be ascribed to sanitary meas- 

 ures. ... In the decennium 1871-1880, the death-rate from fever 

 fell from an annual average of 885 per million to 484, a decline of 

 forty-five per cent" (page 183). For scarlet fever the decline be- 

 tween 1875 and 1885 was forty-nine per cent (page 185). 



From tables, page 101, we see that the death-rate per 1,000 in 



* Albert Lefiingwell. Vivisection, p. 75, Boston, Mass., 1889 (date of introduction). 



