78 Criminal neglect of physiological research. 



truths which we cannot predict. Our present electric 

 lights in light-houses and on large ocean steamers, 

 had their origin, not in direct inventions or special re- 

 searches for the purpose, but in abstract researches 

 on apparently remote subjects. 



It is nothing less than a national crime that proper 

 provision has not yet been made for investigating 

 scientifically the causes of famine and pestilence, also 

 physiology and pathology, and the discovery of the 

 laws which- regulate diseases and epidemics. What 

 can be more painful to behold than a mother and 

 father deprived of a whole family of five or six 

 children in rapid succession by scarlatina or other 

 contagious disease, and both the parents and 

 medical men utterly unable to save them ; and this is 

 a common occurrence. Persons who are ignorant of 

 science look with an abject feeling of helplessness 

 upon great national calamities, and even upon private 

 afflictions, such as a local epidemic, as if there was 

 absolutely no remedy, whilst scientific men believe 

 that by extension of knowledge, such evils might be 

 largely avoided or prevented. 



Many persons however, actuated by the very kind- 

 est of motives, but insufficiently acquainted with the 

 necessity, conditions, results, and advantages of experi- 

 ments, unwittingly obstruct the discovery of new 

 knowledge in physiology and pathology, by attempt- 

 ing to prevent experiments being made upon animals. 



We should not strain at a gnat and swallow a 

 camel. Nearly every step in life involves a choice 



