The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-22 00:00:00

VIVISECTION.
(From the Britibh Medical Journal.)

We saw lately a reproach addressed to physicians,
that they are never ready to incur any risks in therepeutical experiment upon themselves, but prefer o
substitute the lower animals. We confess to a dis-
tinct sympathy with that preference. It does not
seem to us to be any part of the duty of a physician to
experiment upon himself where any lower animal can
be substituted. But it is very far from being the fact
that on particular occasions, where it seems desirable
to interrogate self-consciousness as to subjective results
of the action of drugs, physicians haveshrunk from ex-
periment. On the contrary, they have been too apt,
and are still too'apt, in such investigations, to encounter
mortal risks. To mention only quite recent examples.
the biographer of the late Dr. Anstie says :—" Some
of the experiments which he performed were attended
with considerable personal risk. On one occasion he
fastened to his face an inhaler containing an ounce of
ether, placed his watch before him, took a pencil in
hand, and began to make a mark on a piece of taper
upon the lapse of every fifteen seconds. He soon lost
consciousness, and when he could again distinguish his
watch he found that thirty-five minutes had elapsed,
and that he had made but two marks on the paper.
He was alone during this experiment. Another time,
he took a grain and a half of very good extract uf
belladonna on going to bed, and woke in a state of
delirium." The late Mr. Toynbee fell a victim to ex-
ts on himself, performed for the purpose of
ascertaining the effect of powerful arzesthetic vapours
on the inner ear by way of the Eustachian tube.
Obermeier inoeuhted hi:neelf with A fatal fever' of
which he died. Sir Robert Coriatison lost conscious-
ness, and very nearly lost his life, during some experi-
ments on him ilelf with the Calabar bean. Innumerable
instances of inconvenierfce, and even danger, from
the proving of therapeutic and physiological agents by
medical inquirers on themselves, and the inoculation
of poisons, might easily be collected; but we are in-
clined to think that, except in absolutely necessary
conditions, and where only subjective experiences
can avail, such experiments should be considered
rash and unreasonable. Medical men daily encounter
necessary riplcs of conta.ion and fever of all kinds,
and are subject constantly to contact with the most
deadly forms slid causes of disease; and their high
death-rae and short "expectatn.n of life,"• cempared
with those of other profession less skilled in warding
off the causes of death, show tbe heavy toil which they
pay to the demands which their profession makes on
the qualities of heroism and self sacrifice. It is un-
reasonable and improper that they should offer up.
their lives and health to save those of frogs, rabbits,
guinea-pigs, or even cats and dogs. If the cyno-
philists, male and female, be really in earnest in think-
ing that human life is of less worth than the life. of a
dose, some of them might be allowed the opportunity of
offering themselves, and a special clause for the purpose
might be iuserted in the Bill which will be introduced
during this or the next Sessions for the regulation of
experiments upon living animals. A pamphlet has been
put in circulation, concerning which a correspondent
writes to us that a copy has been left with him, in
which the author draws with great minuteness and a

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