The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-02-17
TESTS ON ANIMALS.
THE KNOWLEDGE THEY YIELD IN
PHYSIOLOGY.

PHYSIOLOGY.
Facts Concerning the Discoveries Duo to Q
Intelligent vivisection-Its Results Add 4
to the Certainties of the Medical Art. 7
How Harvey Worked.
The discussion at the church congress on !,
The subject of Experiments Upon Living :
Animals" and the correspondence which !.
IL have naturally led to some re-
newal OF interest In the whole of the ques- q
lions involved, and especially In one of {
them, on which, In the opinion Of most
people, the decision concerning others
should depend. We refer to the question
of the actual benefit to the human race, or
even to the lower animals themselves,
which these experiments have been, the
means of comforting, and we propose to set
forth some of these benefits in a manner
calculated to be Ineligible to nonmedical
readers.
The words Experimentation on living
animals" cover u very wide range of proce-
dure, and 1t may therefore be desirable, in
the first place, to attempt to classify experi-l
mental work with reference to its nature
and objects. Experiments are performed:
AS an orderly series, intended to ascer-
tain the functions of organs or assemblages
of organs in the human or animal body.
As detached proceedings, intended to de-
eide some single questions which may arise
during the course of an illness or In the
progress of a medico-legal investigation,
such question, for example, as the prac-
ticability and applicability of q proposed
operation or the nature of q poison which
defies chemical analysis.
Either singly or in series, for the purpose
of ascertaining the initial and ultimate
action of some drug upon the human or
ganism, with the view either Of testing its
value as remedial agent or of guarding,
by antidote or otherwise, against its iDju
rious effects.
incubation and feeding experiments, in
tended to identify the specific microbe Of
some disease and to ascertain whether,
and IL SO, in what degree, its virulence is
capable of being destroyed OF mitigated by
cultivation or other circumstances
| Besides the experiments which fall under
one or other of the foregoing groups there
may be others which 1t would be difficult
to classify, but the groups will serve to in
clude the greater number, and each will
furnish illustrations of valuable results
which could probably have been attained
| in no other manner.
As conspicuous example of the first
group we may recall to mind the expert
mcnts of DR.. William Harvey by which he
discovered the circulation Of the blood
| There may be thousands of educated peo-
pie to whom this phrase is phrase and
nothing more. But the work OF Harvey
bears about the same relation to the subse,
ouent progress of medicine as that of Gal
iii to the subsequent progress of astron-
omy.
To the physician OF the present day the
ignorance of animal function which pre-
vailed before Harvey ind which his dis
coveries served in time to dispel, can
scarcely be realized by any effort of the
imagination, and it would be impossible
to conceive Of any progress in physiology
or of any progress in medicine which could
have been made prior to the completion OF
his work. Every portion of that work,
from its commencement to its close, was
accomplished and establiahed by expert
ments upon living animals, and could have
been accomplished in no other way. Tho
king placed the deer of the royal parks al
Harvey's disposal for this special purpose
and came himself to witness the expert
ments as soon as the results were sui
ficiently declared.
lHt MOEh Which JidlNtN hCCpiilpilSutt
for the benefit of all future generations d
: the human race has been so fruitful that
it is scarcely possible to point to any subse
quent discovery in physiology or in medi
cine which has not more or less directly
followed from it.
In order to discover second example o
the kind of experimentation which we hav,
placed in the first group we may pass from
the circnlatory to the nervous system
which will furnish US with an instance a
least as remarkable and at least rs strone
as that which has been already dealt with
J To take q third example from the SAM
group, DIR. Hopes experiments on liyin.
animals cleared up much which had befor
been doubtful regarding heart disease, not
withstsnding bedside experience aud pos
mcrtem examinations, and haye enable,
I physicians ever since to detect the carries
indications of cardiac changes and correct
ly to appreciate the sounds which are sig
niiicant of improvement or of deterioration
Proceeding to the second group, IN eX
, cellent example of them is furnished b.
the experiments preliminary to John Hun
, ter's operations for the cure of aneurism, o
to Won GFaefes operations for the cure @
glnucoma. Tho results obtained by eS
periments on the legation of arteries, iron
very great and constantly increasing say
. ing OF human life.
The third group embraces a very larg
number Of experiments, the details c
9 which would mostly be uniutelligible t
nonmedical persons, but which have serve
to establish the action of some medict
. ment.
The fourth group includes the SO calle
''inoculation" and feeding" experiments
/ which have been extensively performed i
: connection with modern baeteriology, an
the main features of which have beeom
widely known. 1t has been established b
these that the active cause Of many form
Y of disease is II special niicrobe, and that i
: some instances this microbe may be cult
: waited or reared in such Il manner as /
! diminish the vrulence of its effects, e
. that it will confer. when introduced int
the body of u man or an animal, immunit
!, from u severe disease by the production c
Q mild one The effect Of incubation eN
= periments has been to identify the severa
microbes of many diseases, to prove thu
they are the causes of these diseases, I
; test the degree III " hich their effects ina
. be diminished by cultivation, and the de
gree in which these diminished effects vii
afford protection against incubation, acc
dental or designed with tue more ordinar
forms.-LoGdon Times.
i, Two of Kind.
4. state wants To have her pastor dismisse
1 I. L. L..