422 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 64. 



periments which are commonly called vivi- 

 sections. During the following twenty-nine 

 years there have appeared, from time to time, 

 at one or another place, similar denuncia- 

 tions, more or less sweeping and violent. Of 

 these some condemn vivisection altogether, 

 and others in various of its phases. Some 

 call for its total abolition, and others for its 

 material restriction. Some are labored 

 essays, and others are brief ' tracts ' or ' leaf- 

 lets ' intended more easily to arrest the atten- 

 tion. Most of these publications, however, 

 have this in common, that they seek to fortify 

 argument with strenuous appeals to emo- 

 tion; and in some the tone of invective rises 

 to a shrillness little short of frantic. In 

 these publications, too, there often figure 

 extracts from scientific writings; and, in 

 many cases, these extracts are so garbled 

 that only ignorant or reckless animosity 

 could be accepted in excuse for their seem- 

 ing bad faith. 



During the past twenty-nine years these 

 attacks have but little disturbed the calm 

 of biology and medicine in this country; 

 but, from time to time, it has seemed wise 

 to take some notice of them, inasmuch as 

 the common sense of some members of a 

 changing community is liable to be led 

 astray as to a subject which is largely 

 technical in its nature. The following state- 

 ment, therefore, is added to its predecessors. 

 Its signers, however, are well aware that 

 they can hardly hope to make any state- 

 ment or to draw any conclusion which some 

 an ti-vivisectionist agitator will not promptly 

 denounce as false or immoral. 



Science is simply common knowledge 

 made precise, extended and transmitted 

 from generation to generation of trained 

 observers and reasoners. The biological 

 sciences study in the most varied waj-s the 

 bodies and the lives of men, of animals and 

 of plants. The applied sciences utilize 

 knowledge thus obtained for the every-day 

 good of mankind ; and one of these applied 



sciences, medicine, brings biological dis- 

 coveries to bear upon the preveution and 

 cure of disease and injury. As experience 

 grows incessantly, the fact which has la- 

 boriously been established with no other 

 thought than the noble one of advancing 

 knowledge may be applied, the next day or 

 the next century, in the most practical way 

 by some inventor or physician; and, in the 

 application, new facts may come to light, 

 which will markedly extend the boundaries 

 of knowledge. 



Therefore, in the slowly woven fabric of 

 achievement, pure science and applied sci- 

 ence, biology and medicine, have always 

 been warp and woof. Let either be de- 

 stroyed, man's life shall go threadbare. 



To show this, a few out of many striking 

 examples may suflSce. 



Not very long ago the red clover was 

 imported into a British colony to which it 

 was not native. The plant throve, when 

 planted; but its flowers set no seeds, so that 

 fresh seed had to be brought from the 

 mother country. The disappointed farmers 

 consulted people who had given up their 

 time to the study of plants and insects — 

 botanists, and 'bug-hunters,' in fact. Pure 

 science told the practical farmers that the 

 long-billed humble-bees which sucked honey 

 in every English clover field also carried 

 pollen from flower to flower, and thus fertil- 

 ized the plants, and that it was useless to 

 try for crops of imported red clover, unless 

 humble-bees were imported also. 



No less enlightening is the history of one 

 of the latest and most modern of the devel- 

 opments of science. Near the end of the 

 last century Dr. Galvani, an Italian pro- 

 fessor of anatomy, set himself to investi- 

 gate the cause of a newly discovered fact : 

 namely, that the muscles of the legs of 

 freshly killed frogs jerked forcibly when 

 their nerves were worked upon by the tak- 

 ing of a spark from an electrical machine. 

 This investigation, which does not sound 



