Decembbb 2, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



801 



all forms of animal food, and in the latter 

 they must eschew and condemn every kind of 

 sport. It follows, too, as Lord Cromer pointed 

 out, that they, as well as all who, without 

 sharing their extreme opinions, object to vivi- 

 section on principle, must decline to avail 

 themselves of the knowledge acquired by the 

 bacteriologist whenever they are ill themselves 

 or illness occurs in their families. If all anti- 

 vivisectionists displayed the courage of their 

 opinions to this extent there would, we imag- 

 ine, be very few anti-vivisectionists left and 

 the Research Defence Society would find its 

 occupation gone. We should regret this re- 

 sult, because we need not hesitate to acknowl- 

 edge that the practise of vivisection does need 

 regulation, and that the anti-vivisectionists, 

 in spite of their occasional resort to methods 

 and arguments which Lord Cromer did not 

 hesitate to characterize as " in the highest 

 degree unscrupulous," have in some degree 

 helped to define the proper limits of such 

 regulation. But in truth the defence of re- 

 search and of vivisection, properly regulated, 

 as ancillary and even indispensable to it, is, 

 as Lord Cromer showed, irresistible in its 

 cogency. " Step by step, the microorganism 

 of all the principal diseases — relapsing fever, 

 leprosy, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, diph- 

 theria, tetanus, influenza, plague and dysen- 

 tery — had been tracked to its lair." By this 

 discovery all these diseases have been rendered 

 much more amenable to remedial treatment 

 and preventive control, and in favorable con- 

 ditions some of them have been, for all prac- 

 tical purposes, extirpated. It is now almost 

 impossible for the cholera or the plague to 

 effect a lodgment in this country; and there 

 need be no serious anxiety about the recent 

 mysterious outbreak at Freston in Suffolk. 

 The case of the plague, on which Lord Cromer 

 dwelt at some length, affords a crucial in- 

 stance of the value of bacteriological research. 

 Its prevalence in certain districts in India 

 was found to be associated with the prevalence 

 of rats, and, further, the chain of causation 

 was traced through the rat to the particular 

 kind of flea with which the rat was infested. 



This led by means of experiments on living 

 rats and their fleas to the discovery of the 

 anti-plague vaccine by Mr. Haffkine. When 

 this point was reached after some years of 

 observation the practise of inoculation with 

 the vaccine was gradually introduced. The 

 results were astonishing and should be con- 

 vincing. " In the Punjab, whose aggregate 

 population was about 827,000, some 187,000 

 were inoculated four months before the plague 

 appeared, and some 640,000 were not inocu- 

 lated. Only 314 deaths occurred amongst the 

 inoculated, while no fewer than 29,723 oc- 

 curred amongst those who had not been inocu- 

 lated." In other words, about 8,000 lives were 

 saved in consequence of prolonged bacteriolog- 

 ical researches conducted by means of experi- 

 ments on living animals. Would the anti- 

 vivisectionists insist that those 8,000 lives 

 should be sacrificed in order that a few hun- 

 dred, it may be, of rats or guinea-pigs should 

 be spared the pains that are inseparable from 

 properly regulated vivisection? If not, what 

 are we to think of their far from scrupulous 

 methods and their incessant appeals to popular 

 prejudice and perverted sentiment? 



By a fortunate, though undesigned, coinci- 

 dence we printed yesterday in our South 

 American Supplement a statistical statement 

 by the chief sanitary officer of the Isthmian 

 Canal Commission of the results of recent 

 sanitary effort in the Isthmian region. Bac- 

 teriological research has demonstrated that 

 many of the diseases incidental to a tropical 

 region like this are caused, not by the tropical 

 climate, nor by any emanations from the 

 soil or waters, but by the introduction into 

 the human system of specific microorganisms 

 by means of the bites of insects — ^just as the 

 plague is conveyed in India by means of the 

 bites of the rat flea. Here, again, science 

 having ascertained the cause has been enabled 

 very largely to mitigate and control the effect. 

 It was in 1905, when the Canal Zone came 

 under the sanitary control of the United 

 States, that sustained efforts were initiated to 

 mitigate the devastating scourge of these trop- 

 ical diseases. There has been no case of either 

 plague or yellow fever on the Isthmus since 



