CHAPTER X 



EXPERIMENTATION UPON ANIMALS 



The principal objects of medical bacteriology are to discover 

 the cause, explain the symptoms, and bring about the cure and 

 future prevention of disease. We cannot hope to achieve these ob- 

 jects without experimentation upon animals, in whose bodies the 

 effects of bacteria and their products can be studied. 



No one should more heartily condemn wanton cruelty to animals 

 than the physician. Indeed, it is hard to imagine men, so much of 

 whose life is spent in relieving pain, and who know so much about 

 pain, being guilty of the butchery and torture accredited to them by 

 a few of the laity, whose eyes, but not whose brains, have looked over 

 the pages of text-books of physiology, and whose " philanthropy has 

 thereby been transformed to zoolatry." 



Fig. 71. — r, Roux's bacteriologic syringe; 2, Koch's syringe; 3, Meyer's 

 bacteriologic syringe. Such syringes, because o£ their complexity and the 

 destructible packings, give very unsatisfactory service and are no longer em- 

 ployed. 



It is largely through experimentation upon animals that we have 

 attained our knowledge of physiology, most of our important knowl- 

 edge of therapeutics, and most of our knowledge of the infectious 

 diseases. Without its aid we would still be without one of the great- 

 est achievements of medicine, the "blood serum therapy." 



Experiments upon animals, therefore, must be made, and, as the 

 lower animals differ in their susceptibility to diseases, large numbers 

 and different kinds of animals must be employed. 



The bacteriologic methods are fortunately not cruel, the principal 

 modes of introducing bacteria into the body being by subcutaneous, 

 intraperitoneal, and intravenous injection. 



Hypodermic syringes, expressly designed for bacteriologic work 



