710 



SCIENCE 



[N. S..VOL. XLII. No. 1090 



rived, the same conclusion from certain given 

 data. This is the basis of the constant ap- 

 peal to hygiene, as the means of preven- 

 tion of disease; while the very principles 

 of hygiene are based throughout on animal 

 experimentation. 



I have read recently with great interest 

 two books, accounts of journeys over prac- 

 tically the same ground, the journey from 

 Mombasa on the East African coast to 

 the great lakes at the source of the Nile. 

 The one is by Lieutenant Speke, the other 

 by Colonel Roosevelt. Speke traveled in 

 constant danger and discomfort, beset with 

 discouragements and the opposition of 

 treacherous natives, in an unexplored, un- 

 known land. Eoosevelt made the trip by 

 railroad. Our antivivisection opponents 

 continually npbraid us for traveling like 

 Speke in the difficult, uncharted territory, 

 when we might wait and go de luxe in a 

 Pullman: Will they build the road while 

 we wait? 



5. A further charge is urged against 

 vivisection, that it leads to a state of mind 

 which will not hesitate to make similar ex- 

 periments on man. Human vivisection is 

 held up as the acme of the fiendish impulses 

 of the biologist, physiologist or surgeon. A 

 hospital is a place of unspeakable horrors. 



Now on this I must make two remarks. 



(1) That any thinking man will see that 

 certain observations may be made on a 

 patient without injury or pain to the pa- 

 tient, and that if these observations or ex- 

 periments furnish useful knowledge, there 

 can be no possible objection to them, and 



(2) every surgical operation is a vivisec- 

 tion experiment in one sense. A surgical 

 friend has vivisected me, and yet I do not 

 call him a fiend and an arch torturer. 



Of course there are all sorts of men 

 among physicians and surgeons as in all 

 other professions. Abuses and outrages do 

 occur, no doubt. There have been wicked 



doctors who have abused their trust; and 

 there have been clergymen with whom the 

 virtue of a young lady boarder was not 

 safe; but we need not say for this reason 

 that all surgeons are arch torturers and 

 that all preachers are arch-lechers. 



And this brings me to a point I wish to 

 insist upon, that just as you do not need 

 tc pass a special law against adultery by 

 ministers of the gospel, but that if you did 

 so you would put an imputation on the 

 character of a large body of earnest, sin- 

 cere and unselfish men, so you should not 

 pass laws which would put on men in bio- 

 logical research the imputation of bad 

 faith and cruelty. Make the general laws 

 against cruelty to animals as strict and 

 far-reaching as may seem necessary for the 

 good of the human race ; but do not single 

 out the men who are devoting their lives 

 to the search after that knowledge which is 

 for the best good of the race, and make 

 them the special objects of unnecessary, 

 restrictive limitations. If experiments on 

 animals must be prohibited let the same 

 law prohibit castration of animals and the 

 dehorning of cattle. If the English law 

 requiring all operations by a scientific man 

 to be done under anesthesia be adopted, 

 then require that the operations on the 

 farm be performed in the same way. 



You will perhaps say that the arguments 

 mentioned are unworthy of attention; 

 that it is beneath our dignity to answer 

 them. It will not do to take that attitude. 

 The opponents of research are too strong 

 and too well organized to be neglected. 

 They have enormous sums of money at 

 their disposal. They have been able to 

 subsidize newspapers and are prepared for 

 a campaign of persecution and prosecu- 

 tion. The opponents of research are not 

 easy to classify. They represent widely 

 varied types of mind, but the following are 

 usually recognizable: 



