November 19, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



711 



1. The fanatics. This type is repre- 

 sented by the man who states over his sig- 

 nature that he would prefer to have his 

 own child die of diphtheria than to have it 

 saved by the torture (?) of a single guinea- 

 pig. These are perhaps the only thor- 

 oughly consistent antivivisectionists. They 

 are often so much in earnest that they do 

 not hesitate to mislead the public through 

 publication of untruths. 



2. The cultured ignoramuses. A large 

 class of people highly educated along cer- 

 tain lines of language and literature, but 

 profoundly ignorant of the most simple 

 and fundamental facts of natural law. 

 They are the Clara Vere de Veres of both 

 sexes and all ages. 



3. The financially interested. Great 

 fortunes are accumulated by the sale of 

 patent nostrums. The business makes 

 headway in proportion as medical knowl- 

 edge and medical practise can be thrown 

 into disrepute. Thus the Journal of 

 Zoophily, January, 1915, quotes the fol- 

 lowing with no word of disapproval. 

 Medical Freedom says in its October number: 



"Only recently Mrs. Catherine E. Mercer and 

 her two children were vaccinated against typhoid 

 in Brooklyn, N. Y. All were made ill. Mrs. 

 Mercer died and the two children suffered for 

 weeks. In Iowa a perfectly healthy guardsman 

 was vaccinated against typhoid, became ill and 

 died. In Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa, Conrad 

 Liljeberg died soon after vaccination. Also Clar- 

 ence Pantzer, Thirteenth Coast Artillery, National 

 Guard, New York." 



4. Religious cults. It must be said to 

 the credit of the majority of those who pro- 

 fess a religious philosophy which ignores 

 disease that they are not inclined to put 

 obstacles in the way of medical progress. 

 Nevertheless, in a recent number of the 

 Journal of Zoophily, a column headed 

 Anti-Vivisection Notes is entirely occupied 

 by a long tirade against the medical pro- 

 fession by the senior senator from Cali- 

 fornia. 



5. Demagogues. These are not wanting 

 and in California have been not unsuccess- 

 ful in securing legislative position by mas- 

 querading as benefactors and reformers. 



The above are strange bedfellows, but 

 they seem to agree well among themselves. 

 They have this more or less in common 

 that they desire to throw the efforts of the 

 earnest, honest physician into disrepute; 

 his loss is their gain. Anything does for a 

 pretext. It can be vivisection or vaccina- 

 tion or quarantine or what not. Their 

 method is always that of the pettifogger or 

 the demagogue. They publish accounts of 

 experiments done under anesthesia and of 

 experiments done before the introduction 

 of anesthetics as if they were all alike and 

 now all in vogue. They describe vivisec- 

 tions done in the days when men were 

 hanged and quartered as if they were the 

 common practise of to-day. And in it all 

 the appeal is to sentiment and prejudice, 

 not to reason and common sense. By these 

 methods they reach and may yet more ef- 

 fectively influence large numbers of honest 

 and conscientious voters too busy to in- 

 form themselves as to the real issues, and 

 unable to unravel the tangle of sophistry, 

 sentiment and misrepresentation, with the 

 result that there is great danger of hostile 

 and harmful legislation. 



In the face of all this opposition I feel 

 justified in calling for support from you 

 who are working in the various fields of 

 science more or less remote to that of biol- 

 ogy, not only because as co-workers in the 

 effort to enlarge the sphere of human 

 knowledge as men of open mind and en- 

 lightened sympathies your support may 

 rightly be expected by those whose re- 

 searches are primarily concerned in the 

 discovery of those truths that are directly 

 applicable to the diminution of pain and 

 suffering and disease. But I would also 

 place before you the importance to all of 



