November 19, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



705 



trate the growth of knowledge sought for 

 its own sake into knowledge which is ap- 

 plied to the good of man. But I have 

 merely touched upon the latter. Let me 

 emphasize again that the great importance 

 is not in the value of this or that specific 

 detail, but in the great background which 

 has been built up, which enables us to gain 

 and to interpret new knowledge, and to see 

 things in a proper perspective. 



The physiology of digestion might have 

 served equally well to illustrate the same 

 truths. We owe to Pawlow and other 

 workers in this line a mass of knowledge of 

 prime importance to man, and this could 

 not have been obtained in any other way 

 than by vivisection. It is true that a few 

 unfortunate human beings have had gastric 

 fistulas formed through accident, and they 

 have been used to study processes going on 

 in the living stomach. But these studies 

 have had no such orderliness as those in 

 which upon animals definitely planned and 

 controllable operations have been made. 

 Indeed, the human observations have been 

 mainly useful to check up the observations 

 on animals and to see whether for some rea- 

 son conclusions drawn from animals might 

 not be wholly applicable to man. 



To experiments on living animals we owe 

 most of what is known of the functions of 

 the various parts of the nervous system. 

 The possibility of diagnosis of the seat of 

 nerve tumors, of injuries, of pressure due 

 to blood-clot and the like, in many instances 

 depends upon knowledge of cerebral locali- 

 zation first discovered by experiment on 

 the brain of the dog. 



We are just now at the entrance into a 

 new era in the history of physiological sci- 

 ence. The study of the glands of internal 

 secretion is widening and deepening our 

 vision of the life processes, and I confidently 

 believe that the next decade or two will be 

 most fruitful in this comparatively new 



field of research. Already we have use of 

 adrenalin, and various gland extracts. 

 Nearly all our knowledge is based on vivi- 

 section. 



It is not the purpose of this paper to go 

 into the enumeration of specific instances 

 of the value oi biological research; many 

 of them are already familiar ; some of them 

 are, rightly considered, among the greatest 

 achievements of the human race. You 

 know that the event celebrated by the great 

 Exposition whose lights are at this moment 

 blazing across the Bay could not have been 

 accomplished if malaria had not first been 

 conquered through biological research ; you 

 know that Havana by the same means has 

 been changed from a seed bed of yellow 

 fever to a healthy port and has ceased to 

 be a menace to our own southern coast. 

 You know that while occasional deaths 

 from diphtheria stiU occur, the intelligent 

 use of antitoxin has dispelled the dread 

 and the terror which its presence in any 

 community formerly produced; that a 

 knowledge of the Pasteur treatment for 

 rabies has reduced the death rate from that 

 horrible disease from 15 per cent, to about 

 0.3 of 1 per cent. These and the like 

 achievements are what the Hon. Stephen 

 Coleridge, president of the English Anti- 

 vivisection organization has eloquently 

 denominated "The desolating advance of 

 science." 



You know all these things and much 

 more, of the value of the achievements of 

 biological research. But you probably do 

 not know or, knowing, do not realize the 

 vigor of opposition to all this effort for the 

 advance of knowledge and the good of 

 humanity. The danger of limiting, harm- 

 ful restrictions is imminent and absolute 

 prohibition is not improbable. 



In England for years it has been neces- 

 sary, if one wishes to perform a single vivi- 

 section experiment, to procure a license. It 



