NMA PORE 
| DECEMBER 6, 1906 
These examples, though representing the results 
which can be most easily appreciated by the unlet- 
tered and unscientific, make up only a fraction of 
the benefits that have accrued to man as the result 
of the continuation of experiments on animals. The 
control of the bodily functions must be founded on a 
knowledge of those functions. Medicine must repose 
on physiology, or be reduced to charlatanism and 
empiricism. 
During the last. thirty years our knowledge of 
physiology has advanced all along the line. We can 
now form a mental picture of every event occurring 
in the heart throughout the cardiac cycle. We know 
the nature of the impulses and the course of the 
nerves concerned in the multitudinous adaptations of 
the circulation to every change in the environ- 
ment of the body or of the activities of its different 
organs. We can form a connected image of the 
chain of processes concerned in the digestion of food 
during its passage through the whole alimentary 
canal. 
The localisation of function in the central nervous 
system, to which in 1875 Ferrier had already con- 
tributed his remarkable experiments on _ localisa- 
tion in the cerebral cortex, has now been extended 
to the whole nervous system. Though in such a 
complex system many paths must be still unknown, 
experiment has enabled us to unravel much of its 
complex character, and to form a clear conception of 
the possible paths open to almost any impression which 
may play upon the surface of the body. Comprehen- 
sion of the coordination of movement, and of the 
processes involved in every movement of a limb, has 
only lately been revealed to us by the researches of 
Sherrington. An examination of medical literature 
shows us that the clinical physicians are alive to the 
close connection which exists between the study of 
disease and the study of physiology. Every new fact 
in physiology is tested with reference to the conditions 
in disease. Although in many cases the observations 
on man are too inexact to enable a complete utilisa- 
tion of the facts of physiology, yet these clinical 
methods are being improved day by day, and the 
science of medicine is taking a larger and larger 
part as a guide to the practice of the art. 
In his evidence before the Commission, Sir John 
Burdon-Sanderson expressed his profound conviction 
that ‘A future will come—it may be a somewhat 
distant future—in which the treatment of disease will 
be really guided by science. Just as completely as 
mechanical science has come to be the guide of the 
mechanical arts, do I believe and I feel confident that 
physiological science will eventually come to be the 
guide of medicine and surgery.”’ ; 
There is a danger that the striking utilitarian 
success gained by the pursuit of experimental 
investigations along certain definite lines may en- 
courage the fallacy that any true distinction can 
be drawn between utilitarian and scientific researches. 
Even now a clamour has been raised by certain agi- 
tators for a restriction of experiments to those which 
can be shown to have a direct utilitarian object. Such 
a restriction is impossible. Science has taught us 
NO. 1936, VOL. 75| 
again and again that any increase in our knowledge 
must finally add to our powers. The so-called purely 
scientific researches are those dealing with general 
relations, and have as their object the discovery of 
laws which must affect our conceptions of the science 
in a number of its ramifications. It is the purely 
scientific researches which have effected the greatest 
revolutions in man’s relation to his environment, and 
have placed within his hands the largest powers of 
control. Moreover, these researches must be under- 
taken in a spirit) of pure curiosity, from a love of 
knowledge itself. The man who is always seeking 
a practical outcome for his experiments will have 
his field of vision narrowed, and the scope of his re- 
searches limited thereby. 
The present Commission has been appointed largely 
as a result of an agitation on the part of those by 
whom every advance in science, and every change in 
the relations of man to his surroundings, are regarded 
as improper or even impious; and these persons, by 
misleading statements appealing to the better feelings 
of a credulous and unlearned public, have succeeded in 
arousing a feeling of resentment against those who 
are engaged in the advancement of the science of life 
by experiment. There can be no doubt that a mar- 
shalling by the Commission of the true facts of the 
case will show the slender grounds for the allegations 
made by the anti-scientific agitators, and will demon- 
strate the remarkable benefits to man attained during 
the last thirty years at the cost of the infliction 
of a trifling amount of pain on some animals. 
It has been said, with truth, that the amount of pain 
inflicted in all the laboratories in this country in 
the course of a year is not equal to that suffered by 
the birds in one day’s shooting battue, carried out, 
not primarily for food or for the benefit of man, 
but to amuse a few rich men. Yet noble ‘‘ sports- 
men’? take a prominent place among the patrons 
and vice-presidents of the various anti-vivisection 
societies which, by leaflets and paid lecturers and 
letters to the Press, disseminate misleading and lyiag 
statements throughout the country in furtherance of 
their malignant campaign against science. Mr. 
Paget has been well advised in appending to this 
new edition a part iv., entitled ‘‘ The Case against 
Anti-vivisection,’’ in which he deals at some length 
with the unscrupulous methods of these societies and 
of their paid agents. It is sincerely to be hoped that 
the Royal Commission will inquire, not only into ex- 
periments on animals, but also into the morality of 
the anti-vivisectionists themselves. IDS 1B!) fs) 
SENSE-PERCEPTION IN GREEK 
PHILOSOPHY. 
Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition from 
Alemaeon to Aristotle. By John I. Beare. Pp. viii 
+354. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) Price 
12s. 6d. net. 
eee volume, from the pen of the regius professor 
of Greek in Dublin, continues the kind of work 
so well begun for English readers by Prof. Burnet’s 
““ Early Greek Philosophy.” It deals with the various 
theories entertained in regard to the five senses, sensa- 
