AmMS)i91oo.rm'}        Editorial  Notes  and  Comments.  145 
porters  who  were  not  quite  so  '  smart '  to  again  complain  to  the  proper 
authorities,  which  had  the  effect  of  making  importation  through 
other  ports  more  difficult.  After  all,  the  examination  of  new  arri- 
vals of  gum  asafetida  is  not  strictly  carried  out  in  our  opinion,  as 
it  has  recently  happened  to  us  that  part  of  a  shipment  was  refused, 
although  we  were  unable  to  detect  any  material  difference  in  the 
quality  of  the  rejected  part  and  that  which  was  admitted ;  in  fact, 
the  latter  did  not  quite  meet  the  requirements  of  the  U.S. P. 
"  This  unsettled  state  of  affairs  will  continue  as  long  as  no  strict 
supervision  and  exact  method  of  examination  of  every  importation 
into  the  United  States  exists. 
"  Asafetida  is  not  sold  according  to  test  abroad,  and  buying 
brokers  have  to  use  their  best  judgment  whenever  making  selections 
of  suitable  grades  for  export  to  the  United  States ;  it  is  evident  that 
an  error  on  the  broker's  part  may  put  the  importer,  although  he 
may  have  the  best  intentions,  to  a  great  deal  of  annoyance  and 
expense." 
'    EXPERIMENTS  ON  LOWER  ANIMALS. 
It  was  commanded  of  man  long  ago  that  "  thou  shalt  not  kill." 
The  interpretation  that  was  to  be  placed  upon  this  commandment 
was  that  he  should  not  kill  his  fellow-man.  No  restriction  was  laid 
upon  his  taking  any  other  form  of  life,  whether  for  sport,  food  or 
for  purposes  of  experimentation,  etc.  We  are  also  taught  that  "  to 
everything  there  is  a  season,  and  a  time  to  every  purpose  under  the 
heaven,"  so  that  there  is  "  a  time  to  kill  and  a  time  to  heal,"  etc. 
The  advance  of  civilization  has  made  it  all  the  more  apparent  that 
there  was  a  hidden  truth  in  the  words  of  Voltaire  when  he  spoke 
of  physicians  as  "pouring  drugs,  of  which  they  know  little,  into 
bodies  of  which  they  know  less."  While  certain  classes  of  scientists 
have  been  at  work  giving  us  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  drugs, 
the  experimental  physiologist  has  given  us  a  vast  amount  of  infor- 
mation upon  the  various  functions  of  the  body  itself.  Beginning 
with  Vesalius,  the  founder  of  human  anatomy,  who  by  means  of  his 
experiments  upon  living  animals  laid  down  the  principles  of 
anatomy,  we  observe  the  host  following,  each  of  whom  has,  by 
reason  of  his  observations  upon  living  animals,  made  possible  the 
"  time  to  heal."  By  means  of  vivisection  experiments,  Harvey 
demonstrated  the  circulation  of  the  blood ;  Lavoisier  and  Priestly 
the  principles  of  respiration ;  Schmidt  and  Bidder  the  important 
