search intelligently for an antidote until we know accurately the effects of the poison? This can not be studied on man; we must resort to animals, 01* else let the holocaust go on. Accordingly, Dr. T. Lauder Brunton began such a series of experiments in London, but was stopped by the stringent anti-vivisection laws there in force. But Drs. Weir Mitchell and Reichert,[1] in this city, have recently undertaken experiments on cobra and rattlesnake venom, the cobra-poison being furnished, be it observed, by the British Government, whose own laws have prevented investigations for the benefit of its own subjects! The results are as yet only partly made known, but they have been brilliantly successful in showing that there are two poisons in such venom, each of which has been isolated and its effects studied. The first step has been taken—the poison is known. Who will raise a finger to stop progress toward the second—the antidote? Can the sacrifice of a few score of animals each year in such research weigh for a moment against the continuous annual sacrifice of twenty thousand human beings?[2]
The modern history of anæsthetics is also of interest. To say nothing of ether and chloroform, whose safer use Bert has investigated in France, nor of cocaine, to which I have already alluded, let us see what experiments on animals have shown us as to bromide of ethyl—an anæsthetic lately revived in surgery. Its revival has quickly been followed by its abandonment on account of the frequent sacrifice of human life—that is to say, experiments on human beings have proved it to be deadly. Now, Dr. H. C. Wood,[3] soon after its reintroduction, made a study of its effects on animals, and showed its physiological dangers. Had his warnings been heeded, not a few human lives would have been saved.
The ideal anæsthetic, that will abolish pain without abolishing consciousness, and do so without danger, is yet to be found. Cocaine is our nearest approach to it. Now, in all fairness and common sense, would it be real kindness or real cruelty to obstruct the search for such an anæsthetic—a search which will surely be rewarded by success, but which, if not carried on by experiments on animals, must be
- ↑ "Medical News," April 28, 1883.
- ↑ I am permitted by Rev. It. M. Luther, of this city, to state the following fact in illustration of the practical value of vivisection in snake-bite: When a missionary in Burmah, he and his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Vinton (two missionary vivisectionists!), made a number of experiments to discover an antidote to the poison of the "brown viper"—a snake but little less venomous than the cobra. They found a substance which is an antidote in about sixty per cent of the cases if applied at once. Thah Mway, one of their native preachers, when bitten by the brown viper, had some of this antidote with him, and by its use his life was saved when on the verge of death. This one life saved has been the means of leading, it is estimated, two thousand Karens to embrace Christianity. Was not this one life worth all the dogs used in the experiments—to make no mention of the many other lives that will be saved in all the future?
- ↑ "Philadelphia Medical Times," April 24, 1880.
