Augtist 1 8, 1881] 



NATURE 



373 



vfhat agrees and what disagi-ees with its life. And then, as tlie 

 next and immeasurably most important stage, where nothing but 

 experiment on the living body will help u^, we can try whether 

 perhaps any of our modifications of its life have made it of 

 weaker power in relation to the living bodies which it invades, 

 or whether, through our more intimate knowledge of its vital 

 affinities, we can artiScially give to bodies M'hich it would invade, 

 a partial or complete protection against it. Such, at first blusli, 

 were the obvius possibilities of research which the new doctrine 

 of infectious disease suggested to the mind of the pathologist ; 

 and never since the profession of medicine has existed, had a field 

 of such promise been before it. The promise has not been belied. 

 A host of diseases has been worked at in such lines as I just now 

 indicated, and with many of them important progress has been 

 made. 



It would be impossible for me even to name a twentieth part 

 of the investigations which have been more or less successful. 

 As regard-; some which have most struck me, I pass with but a 

 word Dr. Klein's investigation of the pneumo-enteritis of swine; 

 Prof. Cohn's and Dr. Koch's and Dr. Buchner's respective con- 

 tributions to the natural history of the anthrax bacillus ; Dr. 

 Bollinger's recognition of the microphytic origin of an important 

 cancroid disease of horned cattle, with Dr. Johne's illustration 

 of the inoculability of this disease ; the research by Drs. Klebs 

 and Tommasi-Crudeli into the intimate cause of marsh-malaria ; 

 and, not least, the demonstration (as it appears to be) which Dr. 

 Grawitz has recently published, that some of the commonest and 

 most innocent of our domestic microphytes can be changed by 

 artificial culture into agents of deadly infectiveness. I pass 

 these and others, in order that I may more particularly speak of 

 some which have already shown themselves practically useful ; 

 for in respect of some of them the time has already come when 

 abstract scientific knowledge is passing into preventive and 

 curative knowledge. 



First, and not in a spirit of nationaLpartiality, I will mention 

 tlie application which M. Pasteur's doctrine has received at the 

 hands of Mr. Lister, with regard to the antiseptic treatment of 

 wounds : an application which, enforced and illustrated at ever)' 

 turn by Mr. Lister's own eminent skill as an experimentalist, has 

 been confirmation as well as application of the parent doctrine ; 

 and the beneficent uses of which, in giving comparative safety to 

 the most formidable surgical operations, and in immensely facili- 

 tating recovery from the most dangerous forms of local injury, 

 are recognised— I think I may say, by the grateful common con- 

 sent of our profession in all countries, to be among the highest 

 triumphs of preventive medicine. 



Secondly, out of the experimental studies of anthrax — chiefly 

 out of those of Dr. .Sanderson and Mr. Duguid in this country, 

 and those of Dr. Buchner in Gennany and M. Toussaint in 

 France, has grow^n a knowledge of various w.ays in which the 

 contagion of that dreadful disease can be so mitigated that an 

 animal inoculated with it, instead of incurring almost certain 

 death, shall have no serious illness ; and the further knowledge 

 has been gained that the animal s bmitted to that artificial pro- 

 cedure is thereby more or less secured against subsequent liability 

 to the disease. In other words, with regard to that disease, an 

 infliction which sometimes spreads to man from his domestic 

 animals, and one which in some parts of Europe is of serious 

 consequence to agricultural interests, as well as to animal life, 

 the later experimenters — of whom I may particularly name ^L 

 Toussaint and our countryman. Prof. Greenfield, seem to be 

 giving to the animal kingdom, and to the farmers, the same sort 

 of boon as that which Jenner gave to mankind when he taught 

 men the use of vaccination. Quite recently, our great leader, 

 M. Pasteur, seems to have made, by new experiments, still 

 turlher progress in the mitigation of anthrax. 



Thirdly, a similar discovery has been made by M. Pasteur, 

 with reference to the contagium of a very fatal poultry disease, 

 known by the name of fowl's cholera ; he has learnt to mitigate 

 that contagium to a degree, in which, if fowls be inoculated 

 with it, they wiU suffer no serious ailment ; and he has found 

 that fowls so inoculated (or, as he, in honour of Jenner, would 

 say, " fowls so vaccinated ") are proof against future attacks of 

 the disease. 



Fourtlily, Prof. Semmer of Dorpat, through experiments 

 done under his direction by Dr. Krajewski, has made a similar 

 discovery in regard of the infection of septicemia ; has found, 

 namely, that by treatment like that with which M. Toussaint 

 mitigates the contagium of splenic fever, he can bring the most 

 virulent septic contagium into a state in which it shall be mild 



enough to serve for harmless inoculations ; which inoculations, 

 when performed, shall be protective against future infectious. 



Finally, in a different direction of experimental worls, let me 

 name the recent most admirable research which Dr. Schuller of 

 Greifswald has made, nominally in respect of certain surgical 

 affections of joints, but in reality extending to the inmost patho- 

 logy and therapeutics of all tubercular and scrofulous affections. 

 A knowledge of the fatal infectiveness of crude tubercular matter 

 had been given (as I before said) by Villemin and tho-^e who 

 followed him ; and Prof. Klebs, four years ago, declared the 

 infective quality to be due to the presence of a microphyte 

 (micrococcus), which he had succeeded in separating from the 

 rest of the matter by successive acts of cultivation in fluids of in- 

 organic ori fin. Dr. Schiiller solidly settles, and h idely extends, 

 that teaching. According to his apparently quite unquestionable 

 observations and experiments, the micrococcus which charac- 

 terises tubercle characterises also certain affections popularly 

 called "scrofulous" — namely, "scrofulous" synovial membrane, 

 " scrofulous " lymph-glands, and lupus: so that these diseases 

 may be delined as essentially tubercular, and that inoculation 

 with matter from any of them, or with a cultivation -fluid in 

 which the micrococcus from .any of them has been cultivated, 

 will infect with general tuberculosis. The rapid multiplication 

 of the tubercle-micrococcus in the blood and tissues of any inocu- 

 lated animal can be verified both by microscopical observation, 

 and by inoculative experiment ; and an extremely inieresting 

 part of the research, in explanation of certain of our human 

 joint-diseases, is the demonstration that if in the inoculated 

 animal a joint is experimentally injured, that joint at once be- 

 comes a place of preferential resort to the micrococcus » hich is 

 multiplying in the blood, and becomes consequently a special or 

 exclusive seat of characteristic tubercular changes. Even thus 

 far the practical interest of Dr. Schiiller's book is such as it 

 would not be easy to overstate, but still greater interest attaches 

 to the last chapter of the book, in which, confidently resting on 

 the pathological facts which I have quoted, he makes proposals 

 for the treatment of tubercle on the basis of its microphytic 

 origin, and shows the successful result of such treatment as he 

 has hitherto tried, from that basis, on animals artificially infected 

 by him. 



I venture to say that in the records of human industry it 

 would be impossible to point to work of more promise to the 

 world than these various contributions to the knowledge of 

 disease, and of its cure and prevention ; and they are contribu- 

 tions «hich fiom the nature of the case have come, and could 

 only have come, from the performance of experiments on living 

 animals. 



At this most productive epoch in the growth of medical 

 science, our Engli-h studies have been interrupted. An Act of 

 Parliament, passed five years ago under the title of the Cruelty 

 to Animals Act, has made it difficult or impossible for scientific 

 observers any longer to follow in this country any such courses 

 of experiment as those which of late years, at the cost of rela- 

 tively insignificant quantities of brute suffering, have tended to 

 create an infinity of new resources of relief for the sufferings both 

 of brute and man. The Act does not in express terms inter- 

 dict all performance of such courses of experiment: it nominally 

 allows them to be done under a variety of limited licences which 

 may be granted by a Principal Secretary of State ; hut the 

 limitations under which these licences are granted, and the 

 trouble, delay, and fi'iction which necessarily to some extent, 

 and, in fact, often to an intolerable extent, attend the nb'aining 

 of any one of them, are practically little better than prohibition. 



The Act apparently contemplates, as the chief subjects of its 

 operation, an imaginai^ class of unqualified persons, who, with 

 no legitimate relation to scientific research, would, uncer pre- 

 tence of such research, torture, and (it is supposed) take pleasure 

 in torturing, live animals ; and against this devilish class of 

 persons the Act is very indulgently framed : for, instead of 

 expressly refusing licence to unqualified persons, and perhaps 

 hinting to such of them as would do wilful cruelty under pre- 

 tence of study that the lash and the treadmill are for such 

 scoundrels — instead of this, I say, the Act virtually confounds 

 together that im.aginary class of unqualified and crael persons, 

 and, on the other hand, our professional class of bond fide scien- 

 tific investigators, on whom the progress of medicine d pends, 

 and whose names are sufficient security for their conduct. What 

 is counted good for the one class is also counted go id for the 

 other. The law will trust no licensed experimenter farther than 



