July 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



99 



witli the methods of a modern amputation. 

 The patient is first made unconscious by 

 the use of ether or chloroform . The blood 

 vessels of the limbs are then emptied by 

 means of an elastic bandage. Hardly a 

 drop of blood is shed in the amputation 

 itself; the divided arteries are firmly tied 

 and the wound, treated antiseptically, heals 

 with little or no pain. At every step in the 

 process which has led to this brilliant result 

 experiment has been the guide. Various 

 technical details of the method remain still 

 to be worked out. It is this beneficent 

 work which anti-vivisectionists seek to 

 abolish. 



I will allude to but one other benefit con- 

 ferred upon suifering humanity by scientific 

 experiment involving the sacrifice of ani- 

 mal life: The therapeutic use of anti-toxine, 

 though still in its infancy, shows by the 

 unimpeachable records of hospital practice 

 that the physician has now within his grasp 

 the means of successfully treating one of 

 our most dreaded diseases. The anxiety, 

 almost amounting to despair, with which a 

 physician formerly approached a serious 

 case of diphtheria, has given place to a feel- 

 ing of well grounded hope of a favorable 

 result. Who can estimate the burden of 

 terror and distress thus removed from the 

 anxious watchers by the bedside, and who 

 will dare to say that the boon has been 

 dearly purchased by the lives of some 

 thousands of guinea pigs ? 



Let us now briefly review the points over 

 which we have already passed. We have 

 seen, in the first place, that pain is a pu^rely 

 subjective phenomenon, the sensibility to 

 which differs very much in different indi- 

 viduals and is in the lower animals reduced 

 apparently much below that of the least 

 sensitive human beings, and that, more- 

 over, the external signs of suffering are apt 

 to be misleading, unless the conditions under 

 which these signs are made are well under- 

 stood, a knowledge which can be acquired 



only, by careful physiological study. We 

 have seen, in the second place, that pain is 

 only relatively an evil, that we submit to it 

 ourselves and subject others to it for the sake 

 of subsequent advantages which we con- 

 sider sufficiently important. Thirdly, we 

 we have seen that our relations to animals 

 are such that there is no well recognized 

 objection to our causing them very great 

 suffering for the sake of very slight benefits 

 to ourselves. In this matter there is, of 

 course, great room for improvement. The 

 practical question always is " how much 

 suffering may we inflict on an animal for 

 the sake of how little benefit to ourselves?" 

 In the progress of civilization there is 

 a constant tendency to draw the line more 

 and more in favor of the animal, but when 

 we remember how much opposition there 

 was, within a few years, arrayed in this 

 State against the passage of a law to 

 abolish pigeon shooting we cannot flat- 

 ter ourselves that we have, as yet, 

 reached any very advanced humanita- 

 rian standpoint. It is certainl}^ no very 

 extravagant concession to the rights of 

 animals to enact that they shall not be set 

 up as living targets at a shooting match, 

 when glass balls thrown into the air will 

 answer the same purpose. In forming and 

 fostering a public opinion which demands a 

 greater consideration for the brute creation 

 the societies for the prevention of cruelty 

 to animals have played an important part, 

 and their work would doubtless be still 

 more effective were they in the habit of 

 making more frequent applications of the 

 results of physiological research to the 

 problems of animal life. By the efforts 

 of these societies and by the general 

 growth of humane sentiments in the com- 

 munity, we may expect that a larger and 

 larger prospective benefit will be demanded 

 as a justification for the infliction of pain 

 upon animals. ,To this raising of the re- 

 quirements of humanity phj^siologists will 



