Am*Sept.r"if?^rm"  }  Standardization  of  Medicinal  Products.  589 
slowly  to  treatment  since  it  is  usually  complicated  by  accompanying 
pathological  processes  not  directly  connected  with  the  disease.  In 
pigeons,  on  the  other  hand,  the  condition  of  polyneuritis  can  be  de- 
veloped in  a  remarkably  short  time  by  a  diet  consisting  largely  of 
polished  rice,  while  the  recovery  from  this  condition  takes  place  in 
only  a  few  hours  when  an  extract  of  the  polishings  of  the  rice  or, 
better  still,  an  extract  of  yeast  is  administered.  The  chemical  char- 
acteristics of  these  various  therapeutic  agents  are  as  indefinite  as 
the  exact  status  each  has  in  nutrition,  but  the  deficiency  of  each  of 
them  in  the  diet  can  now  be  recognized  and  remedial  agents  sug- 
gested, based  on  the  experiments  conducted  by  a  number  of  prom- 
inent physiologists  as  Funk,  Eijkman,  Veddar,  Hopkins,  Goldberger 
and  many  others.  The  possible  value  of  this  work  in  recognizing 
and  overcoming  disease  due  to  nutritional  deficiencies  is  immeas- 
urable. 
Koller,  an  ophthalmologist  of  Vienna,  in  1884  tested  the  anes- 
thetizing properties  of  cocaine  on  guinea  pigs,  rabbits  and  dogs. 
After  noting  that  in  these  animals  the  eye  could  be  touched  or 
scratched  without  pain  after  a  2  per  cent,  solution  had  been  dropped 
into  it,  he  tried  the  same  solution  on  man  and  thus  was  introduced 
into  medicine  a  new  method  of  relieving  pain  and  permitting  of 
operations,  previously  unendurable. 
Cocaine  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  local  anesthetic,  but  it  is 
highly  toxic  and  has  besides  a  habit-forming  action  which  greatly 
restricts  its  use.  As  a  result  of  a  careful  chemical  study  of  its 
composition  and  structure  combined  with  pharmacological  exper- 
iments on  animals,  it- has  become  possible  entirely  to  eliminate  this 
drug  as  a  local  anesthetic  substituting  a  substance  almost  equally 
efficient  but  at  the  same  time  much  less  toxic  and  with  no  habit- 
forming  effects.  This  in  itself  would  justify  the  practice  of  vivi- 
section. 
In  many  surgical  operations,  profuse  bleeding  is  almost  unavoid- 
able, even  with  the  utmost  precautions.  Further,  there  are  many 
individuals  whose  blood  is  very  slow  in  coagulating  and  with  whom 
an  operation  is  regarded  as  almost  surely  fatal.  By  the  aid  of  animal 
experimentation  and  from  the  blood  and  tissues  of  other  animals, 
substances  have  been  produced  which  when  introduced  into  the  cir- 
culating blood  shorten  its  coagulation  time  so  greatly  that  the  danger 
from  excessive  hermorrhage  has  been  largely  eliminated  even  in 
those  cases  known  as  hemophiliacs. 
