December 10, lUOOJ 



SCIENCE 



829 



the same agent that the hypnotist, the 

 teacher and the parent employ, namely, 

 suggestion, of which we all make daily 

 use in our dealings with our fellows. If 

 he couples with it the self-surrender in- 

 volved in Christian faith, it is because he 

 believes the mental attitude thus induced 

 to be, with many persons, helpful in 

 making suggestion efficacious. But I take 

 it that religious faith is not the essential 

 factor. The psychotherapist himself is, or 

 at least tries to be, reasonably sane. It is 

 his patients and his would-be patients who 

 often make extravagant demands on, and 

 bold extravagant beliefs in, his powers. 

 That his method is effective in a limited 

 variety of diseases and in a certain pro- 

 portion of eases seems to be beyond ques- 

 tion. But that it is not of wide applicabil- 

 ity as a therapeutic agent and that it is 

 efficacious only in certain hands is equally 

 true. The danger of psychotherapy is 

 twofold : There is, first, the possibility of 

 its practise by ignorant and unprincipled 

 persons for ignoble purposes ; and secondly, 

 while it endeavors to make the weak 

 morally strong, it may, like christian sci- 

 ence, have the reverse effect. It can be 

 employed with the greatest prospects of 

 success by intelligent physicians, though in 

 addition to a high training in the prin- 

 ciples of scientific medicine, they should 

 have a right understanding of human 

 psychology, and should possess a high de- 

 gree of sympathy with suffering mankind, 

 coupled with a genuine, earnest desire to 

 relieve distress. 



It may safely be assumed that, with few 

 exceptions, any one who publicly professes 

 to be opposed to what the consensus of the 

 world's best judges favors, is either men- 

 tally or morally deformed. The world can 

 advantageously dispense with the services 

 of those who are constitutionally in a 

 chronic state of opposition to the public 



weal. There are two interesting aberrant 

 types of humanity, of this negative nature, 

 who constitute themselves a public annoy- 

 ance and a public enemy. I refer to the 

 autivivisectionist and the antivaccination- 

 ist. While claiming the right to be arbiters 

 of scientific method, they are out of sym- 

 pathj^ with scientific ideals, suspicious of 

 scientific motives and ignorant of scien- 

 tific achievements. They are swayed, not 

 by calm reasoning, but by feverish emo- 

 tion. They either blindly can not, or will- 

 fully will not, see that if their demands are 

 acceded to, pain and sorrow and death that 

 might have been avoided ^^•ill be brought 

 to thousands of their fellowmen. 



Nothing is more certain than that scien- 

 tific experimentation on animals consti- 

 tutes the verj' basis of physiological, patho- 

 logical, medical and surgical advance. To 

 question its value in scientific progress is 

 as futile as to question the value of the 

 railway or the telegraph in commerce. To 

 assert that it is synonymous with the in- 

 fliction of pain rests upon gravely mis- 

 taken assumptions regarding its proced- 

 ures. To abolish it or fetter it by legisla- 

 tion would change our hopefulness of fu- 

 ture victory over hitherto unconquered 

 diseases into despair, and deprive future 

 generations of the blessings which we be- 

 lieve we or our successors can give them. 

 And yet there are persons who would not 

 hesitate to abolish animal experimentation 

 summarily were they given the power. 

 Others, seemingly normal-minded in many 

 respects, would seriously restrict it. And 

 for what reason? Because of an over- 

 wrought emotionalism, a hyperesthesia I'e- 

 garding the possible sufferings of animals, 

 a state of things in the laboratories that is 

 wholly fancied, and an unwarranted dis- 

 trust of the humanity of man. I have had 

 occasion, during recent years, in defending 

 the moral right and even duty of com- 



