310 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1161 



biographer, Sir Riciunan J. Godlee and is pub- 

 lished by his consent. 



W. W. Keen 



My dear Sir: I am grieved to learn that there 

 should be even a remote chance of the Legislature 

 of any state in the Union passing a bill for regu- 

 lating experiments upon animals. 



It is only comparatively recently in the world's 

 history that the gross darkness of empiricism has 

 given place to more and more scientific practise, 

 and this result has been mainly due to- experiments 

 upon living animals. It was to these that Harvey 

 was in large measure indebted for the fundamental 

 discovery of the circulation of the blood, and the 

 great American triumph of General Anesthesia 

 was greatly promoted by them. Advancing knowl- 

 edge has shown more and more that the bodies of 

 the lower animals are essentially similar to our own 

 in their intimate structure and functions; so that 

 lessons learnt from them may be applied to human 

 pathology and treatment. If we neglect to avaU 

 ourselves of this means of acquiring increased ac- 

 quaintance with the working of that marvelously 

 complex machine, the animal body, we must either 

 be content to remain at an absolute standstill or 

 return to the fearful haphazard ways of testing 

 new remedies upon human patients in the first in- 

 stance which prevailed in the dark ages. 



Never was there a time when the advantages that 

 may accrue to man from investigations on the 

 lower animals were more conspicuous than now. 

 The enormous advances that have been made in our 

 knowledge of the nature and treatment of disease 

 of late years have been essentially due to work of 

 this kind. 



The importance of such investigations was fully 

 recognized by the commissioners on whose report 

 the act of Parliament regulating experiments on 

 animals in this country was passed, their object in 

 recommending legislation being only to prevent 

 possible abuse. 



In reality, as one of the commissioners, the late 

 Mr. Eriohsen, informed me, no single instance of 

 such abuse having occurred in the British Islands 

 had been brought before them at the time when I 

 gave my evidence and that was toward the close of 

 their sittings. 



Tet in obedience to a popular outcry, the gov- 

 ernment of the day passed an act which went 

 much further than the recommendation of the 

 commissioners. They had advised that the opera- 

 tion of the law should be restricted to experiments 

 upon warm-blooded animals; but when this bill 



was considered in the House of Commons, a mem- 

 ber who was greatly respected as a politician, but 

 entirely ignorant of the subject matter, suggested 

 that " Vertebrate" should be substituted for 

 "warm blooded" and this amendment was ac- 

 cepted by a majority as ignorant as himself. 



The result is that, incredible as it may seem, any 

 one would now be liable to criminal prosecution ia 

 this country who should observe the circulation of 

 the blood in a frog's foot under the microscope 

 tvithout having obtained a license for the experi- 

 ment and unless he performed it in a specially 

 licensed place. 



It can readUy be understood that such restric- 

 tions must seriously interfere with legitimate re- 

 searches. 



Indeed for the private practitioner they are al- 

 most prohibitive; and no one can teU how much 

 valuable work is thus prevented. 



My own first investigations of any importancs 

 were a study of the process of inflammation in the 

 transparent web of the frog's foot. The experi- 

 ments were very nimierous, and were performed at 

 all hours of the day at my own house. I was then 

 a yoimg unknown practitioner; and if the present 

 law had been in existence it might have been diffi- 

 cult for me to obtain the requisite licenses; even 

 if I had got them it would have been impossible 

 for me to have gone to a public laboratory to work. 

 Yet without these early researches which the exist- 

 ing law would have prevented I could not have 

 found my way among the perplexing difficulties 

 which beset me in developing the antiseptic system 

 of treatment in surgery. 



In the course of my antiseptic work, at a later 

 period, I frequently had recourse to experiments on 

 animals. One of these occurs to me which yielded 

 particularly valuable results, but which I certainly 

 should not have done if the present law had been in 

 force. It had reference to the behavior of a thread 

 composed of animal tissue applied antiseptically 

 for tying an arterial trunk. I had prepared a lig- 

 ature of such material at a house where I was 

 spending a few days at a distance from home, and 

 it occurred to me to test it upon the carotid artery 

 of a calf. Acting on the spur of the moment, I 

 procured the needful animal at a neighboring 

 market; a lay friend gave chloroform, and another 

 assisted at the operation. Four weeks later the 

 calf was killed and its neck was sent to me. On 

 my dissecting it, the beautiful truth was revealed 

 that the dead material of the thread, instead of 

 being thrown ofi by suppuration, had been re- 

 placed under the new aseptic conditions by a firm 



