NATURE 
ale "ay PVe niece 
[March 95 1882 
watch the process of ‘baking dogs alive’’’—a statement 
“calculated, if not intended to convey a totally false im- 
pression both of the purpose and the details of these 
memorable experiments.” The importance of the latter 
in relation to preparing the way for a full understanding 
of the deadly phenomena of fever is then clearly ex- 
hibited, together with the fact that “if a dog be put into 
a heated chamber and his blood be raised to the tempera- 
ture of a bird’s, he quickly dies’’—so that the “baking 
alive” really means raising the temperature of the dog’s 
blood through ten degrees. Every year in this country 
alone 40,000 persons die of scarlet and typhoid fevers— 
“baked alive” by them}; and this constitutes but a small 
part of the annual deaths in which exalted temperature 
is a fatal factor. No wonder therefore that medical men 
pay tribute to the memory of Bernard for opening the 
way to an understanding of the subject, such that “ this 
fiery furnace, with its uncounted millions of victims, 
science hopes to close; and it is quite reasonable to 
believe that the time will come when fever will be as 
much under our control as are the movements of a chro- 
nometer.” When to this it is added that ‘‘ Bernard, in 
these experiments on fever. sacrificed two pigeons, two 
guinea-pigs, less than twenty rabbits, and six dogs,” we 
cannot think that the selection by Miss Cobbe of her 
favourite atrocity is a very fortunate one. 
Sir William Gull proceeds to consider the great gains 
which have accru2d to medical science through some of 
the experiments of Magendie, and those of Marshall 
Hall; and Dr. Brunton, in a singularly telling article, 
shows how in an ordinary diagnosis it is impossible to 
advance a step without using at every point knowledge 
gained by experiments on animals. He also appeals to 
the British Pharmacopoeia to prove that to vivisection | 
“we owe the introduction of the most valuable of our 
new remedies.” Between the editions of 1864 and 1867 
there are added seven new drugs, of which at least the 
two most useful—viz. carbolic acid and physostigma—are 
due to vivisection. 
and 1874 we find eleven new remedies, of which the three 
most useful—pepsine, chloral, and a nitrite of amyl— 
were discovered, or their uses perfected, by experiments 
on animals. So that, without considering “many other 
new remedies which are still on their trial, and which 
will, in all probability, be added to the next edition of the 
Pharmacopeeia, it is a matter of already accomplished | 
fact that “the introduction of nearly all the most valuable 
new remedies which have been added to the Pharma- 
Again, between the editions of 1867 | 
copseia since the year 1864"’ have been discovered by | 
vivisection. 
Still confining ourselves to the question of utility, we 
have next to notice the essay by Mr. Fleming, who under- 
takes to show that even in the exclusive interests of 
animals themselves, it is most ill-advised to tie the hands 
of science in its investigation of disease. Anthrax 
alone, in a single district of France, kills about 178,000 
sheep a year, and in 1857 100,000 horses perished from 
this disease in Russia alone. Many other equally start- 
ling statistics are given; and now, owing to the labora- 
tory experiments of Pasteur axd others, “there is no | 
longer any doubt as to the value of protective inocula- 
tion;” and the same method has been found equally 
effectual in protecting poultry from “fowl-cholera.” It 
| human body should not be made. 
is not improbable that hydrophobia, glanders, cattle” 
plague, pleuro-pneumonia, swine-plague, sheep small-pox 
distemper, and tuberculosis, will all admit, by modifica- 
tions of the same method, of being similarly brought 
under control. 
In connection with utility we have space only to refer 
to one other case, but this the most conspicuous. We 
allude to the work of Lister, which, as Dr. Carpenter 
says, “constitutes by far the greatest single improvement 
ever introduced into surgical practice,” and which, as Dri 
Wilks says, “has been the means of saving the lives of 
thousands every year, both in England and on the 
Continent.” Yet Prof. Lister “found that he was obliged 
to discontinue his important investigations or conduct 
them abroad. He chose the latter course, and went to 
France; for, he said, ‘even with reference to small 
animals, the working of the Act is so vexatious as to be 
practically prohibitory of experiments by a private 
worker like myself, unless he chooses to incur the risk of 
breaking the law.’ ” 
Such, then, is a brief abstract of the evidence on the 
head of utility. This evidence is not disputed by the 
writers on the other side, with the exception of Miss 
Cobbe and Mrs. Kingsford ; but the writings of these. 
| ladies upon the subject are so extravagant and ill-advised 
that even an ignorant reader must feel their judgment 
upon this head to be valueless.1 With the unanimous 
opinion before them of the International Medical Con- 
gress, the British Medical Congress, and of all persons 
whose knowledge of physiological science entitles them to 
be heard on this point, Lord Coleridge and Mr. Hutton 
adopt a line of argument which, so far at least, is more 
judicious. Lord Coleridge says: “‘1 will not dispute with 
them as to the fact. A lawyer ought at any rate to know 
the folly of encountering an expert without the knowledge 
necessary for success in the conflict. I deny the practical 
' conclusion sought to be drawn from it on grounds of 
another sort, which appear to me of overwhelming force.” 
And Mr. Hutton says : “I have never believed all these 
experiments to be scientifically, or even medically, worth- 
less,’? and he allows that some of them (inoculations) 
have been “ very fruitful.” 
We may, then, take the evidence of utility as being 
beyond all question by any reasonable and impartial 
mind. Next let us consider the arguments which are 
adduced against vivisection other than the suicidal one 
of inutility. These may broadly be classed under two 
headings—those which assert that vivisection is immoral, 
and those which assert that it is irreligious. 
In considering these arguments we may best begin with 
the essay of Lord Coleridge, and in doing so we find it 
difficult to strike the balance between our respect for the 
1 The authority of Sir W. Fergusson and of Sir Charles Bell is indeed 
quoted in support of the uselessness of vivisection to surgery, but their 
opinion on this subject—or rather the opinion of the former, because the 
litter did not live to see all the results alluded to by Sir James Paget—is so 
immeasurably outweighed by professorial opinion in general that it is inter- 
esting chiefly because of its isolated character, ‘The only other feature in 
these papers that deserves the name of argument is that inference from the 
results of experiments on animals to the physiological economy of man may 
be erroneous, or even misleading. But what does this argument show? 
Surely not that, for this reason, experiments on the nearest analogues of the 
No instance can be pointed to of a fatal 
or even deleterious mistake having been made as a consequence of any such 
erroneous inference, nor is it at all likely that such an instance can ever 
arise, 
