EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
715 
diseases so fatal as diabetes? Again, by what other means 
could be carried on those important inquiries of Dr. 
Richardson, in which he has synthetically traced a mode of 
origin of endocarditis and joint inflammation by injecting 
lactic acid into the peritoneal cavity; or in which he has 
indicated the connexion of cataract with diabetes, or at least 
one mode of its production, by injecting sugar-water into the 
fluids of the body ? By what arbitrary police regulations can 
scientific men be bound in these investigations? Is it per¬ 
missible to anatomise a frog, of which some scores w T ere 
recently leaping about the table, variously mutilated, at the 
Roval Institution of Albemarle Street, before an audience 
composed partly of ladies? And is it interdicted to tie the 
arteries or inject the veins of a guinea-pig? Is the line to be 
drawn at rabbits or dogs, or asses or horses ? It is obvious 
that no arbitrary regulation of police can decide a question 
so variously complicated. The progress of a science which 
aims at the amelioration of human suffering must be respected ; 
and the rules for carrying out his investigations must be left 
to the conscience of the physiologist. Useless barbarities 
cannot be reprobated too strongly. The most accomplished 
physiologists are also the most humane ; but a wide latitude 
must be left to each man, who will be individually responsible 
for the use which he makes of this power. Bell grieved over 
the rabbits which he sacrificed; and Dr. Brown-Sequard 
regarded with almost the affection of a parent a pet guinea- 
pig in which he had succeeded in artificially producing 
epilepsy; that guinea-pig, in fact, contributed greatly to the 
progress of medical science, and was worthy of his affection. 
Marshall Hall first removed the brain of his frogs, thus 
destroying all consciousness, before proceeding with his 
experiments on the diastaltic function. Finally, it may be 
said, that sometimes the sufferings of animals may be everted 
by the use of anaesthetic agents; and their title to the em¬ 
ployment of these agents is the stronger because they add in 
a great degree, by the results of experimentation, to our 
knowledge of the laws of anaesthetization.” 
THE EARLY EMPLOYMENT OE NAILED SHOES TO THE 
EOOT OE THE HORSE. 
The wish expressed in our last number for further infor¬ 
mation on the antiquity of attaching the shoe by nails to 
the foot of the horse has soon been realised; and, as our 
