done to influence such occult conditions, is an experiment. The social instinct is very hypersensitive to the use of this word in relation to disease; but why? We all, when ill, become the prey of experiment. Even the man who does nothing is not exempt. I suppose that there has never been a dose of medicine administered, however much we think to have divined its action, that has not been in some measure an experiment. "It subdues pain,” you say. Yes. “It strengthens the heart.” Maybe. “It arrests disease.” No doubt. But how and why? These are the questions. And if it does these things for one of us, why does it fail for others? Further, what else is it doing in the economy at large? Is its mission ended when your behests are accomplished? What about thyroid extract, Coley’s fluid, atoxyl, and all the vaccines, sera, and so on, that are now coming into use—all powerful, even heroic, attempts to cure disease, what are they all in their use but experiments? And although the wind be tempered as far as possible to the shorn lamb—it is here that knowledge and experience come in—they are, and must be, experiments attended with risk. There are some who think and speak of experiments as if they were performed only upon the lower animals and the poor who cannot help themselves. The fact is that by experiments the worlds have grown, that experimentation is the one fundamental necessity of all progress, and the whole of animal life—life of every kind—to reap the benefit must share the risks and chance the pain. So each and all of us must think on these things, and try to give such individual thought and observation as may be possible to the how and why of ordinary physiological reactions. We depend upon leechdom too
