100 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 82. 



be certain to offer no objection, provided 

 the same rule is applied to all occupations 

 involving pain to animals ; for it is evident, 

 I trust, from what lias been said, that a 

 standard so high as to be practically inappli- 

 cable to the daily aifairs of life will still leave 

 a wide margin for the carrying on of physio- 

 logical research. A questionable practice 

 cannot of course be j ustified by demonstra- 

 ting that another and still less justifiable 

 practice exists, but it may be fairly urged 

 that, while practices are permitted which 

 cause great suffering to animals with only 

 incidental benefits to mankind, '' it is irra- 

 tional folly," to quote a writer in Nature, 

 " to waste the energy of humanitarian feel- 

 ing in a warfare against the only kind of 

 pain-giving practice which is directed to- 

 ward the mitigation of pain, and which has 

 already been successful in this its object to 

 a degree out of all proportion to the pain 

 inflicted." 



Enough has been said, I trust, to demon- 

 strate the expediency of permitting physio- 

 logical research to go on unchecked, and 

 even of encouraging it, in every possible 

 way, as the only legitimate basis of scien- 

 tific medicine. Before leaving the subject, 

 however, it is well to notice that, whatever 

 restrictions be imposed on the physiologist 

 working in his laboratory, the advancement 

 of medicine by experiment will be certain 

 to go on. Agitation cannot check it. Legis- 

 lation cannot prevent it. Once admit, 

 what no one thinks of disputing, that 

 physiological phenomena are chemical or 

 physical in their character, and the position 

 of physiology among the experimental 

 sciences is a matter of necessity. All that 

 legal enactments can do is to determine to 

 some extent who shall be the experimenters 

 and who the victims of the experiments. 

 Shall practicing physicians grope blindly in 

 search of methods of treatment when 

 chance brings disease under their observa- 

 tion, or shall men of science, systematically 



studying the nature and results of morbid 

 processes in animals, point out to the prac- 

 titioner the path to be followed to render 

 innocuous the contagion of our most dreaded 

 diseases ? In illustration of this point, per- 

 mit me to quote a few lines from Dr. John 

 Simon's address on State Medicine : " The 

 experiments which give us our teaching 

 with regard to the causes of disease are of 

 two sorts ; on the one hand, we have the 

 carefullj^ pre-arranged and comparatively- 

 few experiments which are done by us in 

 our pathological laboratories, and for the 

 most part on other animals than man ; on 

 the other hand, we have the experiments 

 which accident does for us, and, above all, 

 the incalculably large amount of crude ex- 

 periment which is popularly done by man 

 on man under our present ordinary condi- 

 tians of social life, and which gives us its re- 

 sults for our interpretation. ^ * ^ Let 

 me illustrate my argument by showing 

 you the two processes at work in indentical 

 provinces of subject-matter. What are 

 the classical experiments to which we 

 chiefly refer when we think of guarding 

 against the dangers of Asiatic cholera ? On 

 the one side there are the well-known scien- 

 tific infection experiments of Prof. Thiersch, 

 performed on a certain number of mice. 

 On the other hand, there are the equally 

 well-known popular experiments which dur- 

 ing our two cholera epidemics of 1848-49 

 and 1853-54 were performed on a half a 

 million of human beings, dwelling in the 

 southern districts of London, by certain 

 commercial companies which supplied those 

 districts with water. Both the professor 

 and the water companies gave us valuable 

 experimental teaching as to the manner in 

 which cholera is spread. * ^ >i< Now, 

 assuming for the moment that man and 

 brute are of exactly equal value, I would 

 submit that, when the life of either man 

 or brute is to be made merely instrumental 

 to the establishment of a scientific truth. 



