The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-05-19

! Experimental ReSeafch...the
) Greatest Of Life.SaYerS.

In Harper's, DR.. W. W. Keen, one
of the most famous Of American r
geons, presents in his article on RE.
cent Surgical Progress" a striking
comparison of the accomplishments
of the friends and foes Of experiment
tai research:
What the Friends Of Experimental
Research Have Done.
~ They have discovered antisep-
tic surgery, and so made possible the
wonderful results of modern surgery.
To complete his beneficent work,
Lord Lister was compelled to: go to
France by reason of the stringency OF
the English anti-vivisection laws.
(2) They have made possible prac-
tically all modern abdominal surgery,
including operations on the stomach,
intestines, liver, gall, bladder, pam
creas, spleen, kidneys, etc.
go They have made possible all
the modern surgery of the brain.
(4) They have demonstrated how
lockjaw spreads from the wound;
how sometimes it can be arrested and
cured; and, still better, how 1t can
be prevented, so that practically tet-
anus has been banished from surgi-
cal operations. "a.
(5) They have reduced the death
rate in compound fractures from six
ty-1ve pei cent. to less than ON per
cent.
co They have reduced the NOR
tally of ovariotomy from two out OF
three to two or three out of one hum
dred. -,
Gu They have abolished yellow
fever.
(S) They have made possible the
cure of nearly all cases of h~ydropho-
bia.
co. They have cut down the NOR
taiity Of diphtheria in New York City
alone from 1853 per 100000 in 1894
to 3S per 100000 in 1905, and prac-
tically the same story is told all over
the world.
(10) BY the use of the serum re-
Gently discovered by Flexner at the
Rockefeller Institute they have
changed the mortality in cerebro-
spinal meningitis from seventy-five
per cent, and even ninety per cent. to
thirty per cent. or less.
(11) They have shown the aus
Of acute tetany after operation for
goiter, so that 1t now can be pre-
vented.
(12) They have almost completely
abolished the dangers OF maternity,
reducing its death rate from ten or
more mothers out Of every hundred
to less than n in every hundred.
(13) They have shown the cause
and the method of propagation and
of prevention of the deadly malaria
which devastates whole regions and
armies. Its extinction Is only a mat
ter of time.
(14) They have reduced the NOR
tality of tuberculosis by from thirty
to fifty per cent, for Koch's discov-
cry Of the tubercule bacillus Is the
foundation stone of all modern pro-
gress in the treatment OF tuberculo-
sis.
(15) They have enormously bene-
flied animals by discovering the
causes and the dangers Of tuberculo-
sis, Texas fever, anthrax, CHAMBERS,
hog cholera, and other infectious dis
eases of animals, thus enabling us to
combat them more successfully OF
even to prevent them.
What the Foes Of Research Have
Is Done.
Nothing but to stand in the way
of progress. Not a single human life
has been saved by their efforts; not a
single household made happy. Not a
single disease had had its ravages
abated or abolished.
The victims of their sincere but
misguided zeal are men, women and
little children. Even the lower AMI
mails may well cry, Save us from u
friends. ..,.