532 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 66; 



lution by scientific methods, that is, by experi- 

 ment. 



Progress in the biological sciences calls for 

 experiments on living things. The term vivi- 

 section originally related only to cutting opera- 

 tions upon living animals. Its use has been ex- 

 tended by those who have been led to enter 

 upon a crusade against experiments on living 

 animals, so that now it includes all experiments 

 to which they are subjected. 



Thus, said the speaker, the injection of 

 bacteria under the skin of a"guinea pig becomes 

 vivisection. It is by experiments of this kind 

 that our knowledge of disease germs has been 

 acquired, and without such experiments it 

 would be absolutely impossible to distinguish 

 the harmless bacteria and the deadly germs of 

 tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid fever, puerperal 

 fever, anthrax and the like, which are now well- 

 known in pathological laboratories. 



Such experiments have resulted in an immense 

 saving of human life, yet the anti-vivisectionists 

 insist that they are unjustifiable, and would en- 

 act measures calculated to entirely arrest all 

 profitable research in this most important de- 

 partment of human knowledge. 



Continuing, General Sternberg said that 

 when the dissection of dead plants and animals 

 was first practiced there was great opposition 

 to it on the part of those who did not realize 

 what could be accomplished thereby. One 

 great fault that has seriously retarded the prog- 

 ress of medicine is that there has been alto- 

 gether too much deduction from insufficient 

 data. This is proved in part in other depart- 

 ments of life by a curious feature of the times, 

 the revival of interest in palmistry, faith cure 

 and matters of that sort, and the absolute re- 

 liance which a great many people place in the 

 virtues of patent medicines as panaceas for all 

 ills. If one controverts the views of a believer 

 in any of these he will be met by the recital of 

 some particular incident, unsupported, which 

 answers the purpose of absolute proof to the 

 credulous. This sort of credence is not alto- 

 gether lacking in the medical profession. Final 

 conclusions cannot always be reached by chem- 

 ical methods, but much must be done by hos- 

 pital experiments. These often furnish ex- 

 tremely valuable additions to our scientific 



knowledge, but it is not always possible to 

 carry these experiments sufficiently far. Fuller 

 and more valuable results may often be ob- 

 tained by experiments on the lower animals in 

 the hands of a master. 



He quoted, in support of his position, the 

 story of one of Pasteur's experiments by means 

 of which, sacrificing the lives of a few animals, 

 he discovered the bacillus of anthrax, and 

 thereby saved the lives of millions of animals. 

 The fact that anthrax inoculation is now so 

 generally practiced was due to Pasteur's work, 

 which could never have been carried through 

 without vivisection. Formerly ten per cent, of 

 all the sheep and five per cent, of all the cattle 

 in France died from this disease, and his study 

 of the malady has resulted in a saving, in 

 France alone, of 5,000,000 francs a year for 

 sheep and 2,000,000 francs' worth of cattle. He 

 also spoke of Pasteur's experiments on the sub- 

 ject of hydrophobia, pointing out the tremen- 

 dous blessings which have accrued to the human 

 race from the work of the famous French scien- 

 tist, a work, however, which necessitated the 

 sacrifice of a few animals. As a result of his 

 experiments and study, mortality from hydro- 

 phobia among human beings has been reduced 

 to less than one per cent. In a record of 416 

 cases of people who had been bitten by animals 

 known beyond question to have been mad, 

 treated by the Pasteur method, not one died. 



Vivisection has resulted in a great increase 

 in the exactness of medicine and surgery, and 

 any further progress in biology calls for experi- 

 ments upon living things. In the consideration 

 of vivisection is placed on the one side the tre- 

 mendous advance in science, the increased im- 

 munity from disease and the great saving to the 

 material wealth of the world, while on the 

 other side of the balance is the thought of the 

 animals, comparatively few in number, which 

 have been sacrified. As human lives are too 

 sacred to risk in solving the questions of patho- 

 genic potency, we resort to lower animals, 

 and vivisection has resulted in a great saving 

 of human life. The painful dissections made 

 by the early investigators, and necessary in the 

 beginning, are rarely, if ever, made nowadays. 

 The statements presented by the ultra anti- 

 vivisectionists that unnecessarj' cruelty is used 



