BENDER HYGIENIC LABORATORY. THE 
Albany : Medical : Annals 
Vol. XVII.—No. 12. DECEMBER, 1896. 
$1.00 a Year. 
The Dedication of the .Bender Hygienic Tabaratory. 
The Bender Hygienic Laboratory was dedicated on Tuesday, 
October twenty-seventh, 1896. 
The building itself, a picture of which is contained in this num- 
ber, was presented by Matthew W. Bender, Esq. 
The Park Commissioners of the City of Albany allowed the build- 
ing to be erected on land devoted to public usage; and the faculty of 
the Albany Medical College, by a unanimous vote, contributed their 
salaries, as teachers in the Medical College, for the coming year, for 
the purchase of the entire scientific apparatus. 
The equipped institution thus represents: The generosity of a 
public spirited citizen, the wise foresight of the municipality, and the 
self denial of the physicians connected with the Albany Medical 
College. 
That the enterprise thus worthily founded may be a model and 
example to other institutions throughout the land, and be a stimulous 
and incentive to generous gifts of patriotic minds, and that it may 
continually contribute to the advancement and dissemination of scien- 
tific medical knowledge, and to the prevention and spread of disease 
and death, is the earnest hope of the entire community. 
The order of exercises, together with the speeches made on the 
occasion of the dedication of the building is as follows: 
Prayer by Rev. J. Livingston Reese, D. D. ; History of the 
building by Geo. E. Gorham, M. D. ; Formal presentation of the 
building to the board of Trustees by Plarry H. Bender; Reception of 
the building on behalf of the Board of Trustees by A. Vander Veer, 
M. D., Regent of the University of the State of New York; Address 
by Prof. B. Jacobi, M, D., of New York; Benediction by Rev. Free- 
born B. Jewett, Jr. ; Inspection of the building. 354 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
History of the Building, by Geo. E. Gorham, M. D. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen :—Twelve months ago the first foun- 
dation stone of the Bender Hygienic Laboratory was laid; less than 
twelve weeks ago the sound of the hammer and the swing of the brush 
were yet within these walls; therefore, the history of the building is 
a brief one. Brief though it be, it gives me pleasure to relate it. 
Pleasure, because to erect such a building, for such a purpose, is 
an honor to our city, a credit to our state. Pleasure, because to our 
State Normal College, the Albany Medical College, the Albany Law 
School, and our other well known institutions of learning, we add 
to-day the Bender Hygienic Laboratory, and institute here a course of 
instruction and scientific research in pathology, bacteriology and the 
allied medical studies, emphasizing again the fact that as a progressive 
educational centre Albany ranks with the first in this country. It 
also gives me pleasure to state that this, the latest accession to our edu- 
cational institutions, comes to Albany through the generous gift of her 
esteemed citizen, my friend and neighbor, Mr. Matthew W. Bender. 
About two years ago, knowing something of Mr. Bender’s unos- 
tentatious contributions to charities, I mentioned to him Albany’s need 
for better hospitals; later, at the suggestion of Dr. Vander Veer, I 
presented for his consideration the idea of building a Laboratary for 
pathological and bacteriological work. Mr. Bender promptly offered 
to give $20,000 to erect such a building upon the condition that a suit- 
able site be provided him. 
On the evening of June 27th, 1895, Dr. Albert Vander Veer, 
Dr. Henry Hun, Mr. Robert Scherer and George E. Gorham, met with 
Mr. Bender and for the purpose of carrying out his wishes, organized 
the Board of Trustees of the Bender Hygienic Laboratory. The Board 
immediately applied to the Park Commissioners, and through their 
generous action the desirable site and grounds now occupied by the 
building on Lake avenue were obtained. Messrs. Fuller and Wheeler 
were employed to prepare plans for the building, and, at the next 
meeting of the Board, July 12th, the plans were accepted. August 
5th, 1895, bids for the work were examined by the Board and 
contracts awarded to the following Albany contractors: Masonry, 
Stephen A. Carr; carpenter work, Morris L. Rider; painting and 
glazing, David R. Stewart; steamfitting, P. J. Sweeney; plumbing, 
Ridgeway & Russ; roofing, James Ackroyd; Mosaic tiling, the Schil- 
ling Co.; corner stone, Flagler & Chapman; gas fixtures, Van Heusen 
Charles Co.; seating, W. A. Choate Co. ; elevator, Sedgewick Machine 
Co., of New York City. ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
355 
Under the supervision of the contractors the work has gone 
steadily forward to the state of completion in which you see the 
building to-day. The Mosaic tiling, the seating, elevator, and a few 
other extras not included in the first contract, have been added by Mr. 
Bender at a cost of one thousand five hundred dollars in addition to the 
twenty thousand originally donated. 
Dr: Geo. Blumer, late of Johns Hopkins University, is director 
of the Laboratory, and under his directions the class rooms, amphithea- 
tre, etc., have been fully equipped with necessary apparatus, Eighty- 
five microscopes, tables, lockers, thermostats, hot air and steam steri- 
lizers, freezing apparatus, microtomes, etc., have been placed in the 
different departments. This generous outlay, together with the salary 
of the director is furnished by that tireless corps of public spirited aud 
unselfish workers, the faculty of the Albany Medical College. 
Formal Presentation of the Building to the Board of Trustees by 
Harry H. Bender in the Name of the Donor, Mr. Matthew 
H. Bender. 
In attempting to perform the delicate but pleasant task which 
devolves upon me at this time, I am deeply impressed with the dispar- 
ity between the importance of the occasion and my own small measure 
of ability to do it justice. I cannot hope to put in adequate language 
the sense of gratification and personal compliment I feel in being thus 
chosen the humble instrument to formally symbolize, in this public 
manner, the consumation of a project the practical realization of which 
began on the 31st day of October, 1895, when I witnessed with par- 
ental pride the laying of the corner-stone of this edifice by the boyish 
hands of my son, Kenneth Everts Bender—a project which I believe is 
fraught with the possibilities of wonderful achievement in the science 
of medicine and untold blessings to mankind. I can only assure you 
of my enthusiastic sympathy with the philanthropic and humanitarian 
motives which actuated the donor in his conception of this gift, the 
singleness of purpose with which he has furthered its development, 
and the broad and liberal spirit of professional enterprise which has 
been his inspiration and encouragement at all stages of the undertak- 
ing, and which now prompts you, gentlemen, to receive from him the 
responsibilities and opportunities accompanying its bestowal which 
only the future can unfold. 
I deem it one of the greatest privileges of my life to have been 
connected in an executive capacity with this work. While I have at 356 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
all times felt the weight of my responsibilities, and have not been free 
from care and anxiety as it progressed, yet I am happy to say that on 
all occasions I have been animated by the spirit of hearty and cordial 
co-operation which has been uniformly accorded me by the medical 
profession into whose capable hands I now commit the fruit of our 
united labor. 
It is not, perhaps, fitting that I should dwell upon the nobility of 
the mind, the virtues of the heart, the generosity of the hand, which 
called our efforts into being, and ever stood back of and upholding us 
all, never failing in any crisis or emergency to furnish that moral and 
material support without which our exertions would have been una- 
vailing. But I trust I am not debarred by family ties from telling you 
how proud I feel to-night that the modest and unassuming gentleman 
who has been and is the heart and soul of this undertaking-—to whom 
is due the gratitude not only of this corporation and the medical pro- 
fession, not only of the thousands of students of the Albany Medical 
College who will receive substantial aid here, not only of our day and 
generation, but of the unnumbered posterity which in after years shall 
rise up and call him blessed—bears the name of Bender. I cannot 
leave wholly to other lips the praise that is due to him who by his 
works has proved himself to be humanity’s benefactor, and who has so 
signally honored me with his confidence in the carrying out of his 
high-minded charity. 
Reception of the Building on behalf of the Board of Trustees, by 
A. Vander Veer, M. D., Regent of the University of the State 
of New York. 
My dear Mr. Bender:—In accepting the noble gift you have this 
day donated to science, in behalf of the Board of Trustees of the 
Bender Hygienic Laboratory, and of the faculty of the Albany Medical 
College, I desire to express to you our earnest thanks and gratitude. 
The conception and object has been so well presented by Dr. 
Gorham, and by your nephew, Mr. Harry H. Bender, that I can add but 
little in commemoration of this great event. 
Within a few days of one year ago we stood upon the foundation 
structure of this building, and with proper ceremonies assisted in laying 
the corner stone. It was my privilege at that time to address you with 
such remarks as the occasion called for, and in a few brief sentences I 
alluded to the possibilities that the building of this Laboratory might 
bring in the “ lengthening of human life and the alleviation of human 
suffering.” ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
357 
Had I the power of expression, and did time permit, I would be 
glad to dilate upon these points, and express to you more fully the 
thoughts of respect and admiration that exists in the minds of the 
Trustees and those who are hereafter to be associated with the adminis- 
tration of this building towards yourself; for the nobleness of purpose, 
for the grandeur of the act that is now consumated, in giving so elegant 
a structure for future investigation of the causes and study of diseased 
conditions of the human system. We all rejoice that your life has 
been spared, and that we have you with us to-night, that you may 
witness the dedication of your own good work. 
A wise man towards the close of his life once said, “All that I 
have spent upon myself is gone forever; all that I have saved I must 
soon leave to others, but whether it .shall be a blessing to them I know 
not.” 
To this may be added that, in the closing period of your life, you 
may justly say that “ the work I have here done will be constantly 
witnessed and enjoyed with a wonderfully cumulative quality.” 
What a blessed thing to have been able to accomplish so much, 
and to be permitted to witness somewhat the good results that are to 
follow! 
Who can deny but that with the director and his assistants of this 
Bender Hygienic Laboratory, we may not yet see larger investigations 
in tuberculosis that is to result in the saving of life; or that in the 
study of septic peritonitis we are yet to know something more as to the 
deadly effect of the ptomaines and conditions that result so rapidly in 
death; or that we may not learn something that will tell us of the true 
nature of cancer and the possibilities of its treatment; or that in the 
continued investigation of water supplies, and of the isolation of the 
bacillus of typhoid fever, we are not to learn something more saving 
in the treatment of this disease; that we are not to profit by investi- 
gation as to the contagious and infectious diseases, as scarlet fever, 
diphtheria, etc., the true nature of the so-called milk disease, the better 
treatment of such acute attacks or conditions as present in poisonous 
ice cream, and many forms of diseased food, and something more to be 
learned as regards the possibilities and uses of the antitoxines? Who 
can deny that it is not among the possibilities that in the future here 
may be discovered and demonstrated the antitoxin that is to be used 
against the venom of all snake bites? 
Within your memory you have witnessed epidemics that have 
visited Albany and claimed its many victims in the grasp of death; 
you have seen the effort made to build a high fence to shut out the 
dreaded cholera, and it ought now, in the erection of this grand struc- 358 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
ture, to be a comfort to you to know that in it may be established a 
bulwark of strength to keep at bay the most virulent epidemic. 
You, and all of us know this to be true, that in the investigations 
made by bacteriologists, enabled by such generosity as yours to conduct 
earnest research, we have learned that cholera is a distinct germ, and 
that this very bacteriological study has established a line of treatment 
so beneficial that to-day, among intelligent and well educated people, 
there is little in the disease to be feared. 
Consider for one moment some of the epidemics that cause so 
much anxiety among our farmers in certain sections, i. e., hog cholera, 
a disease of such fatal character, or another called Texas fever among 
cattle, or chicken cholera, how thoroughly well these conditions have 
been followed out, brought to their true origin in a microbe, that tells 
in itself the line of protection and necessary treatment. These are, of 
the list, a mere reference, a foretaste of the many possibilities of the 
work that may be done here in the future. 
In assuming the responsibility that rests upon us as Trustees, in 
taking charge of the building, we appreciate the generous gift made by 
you in the cause of science, and that you have completed here an 
edifice that is suited in every way better than some far more pretentious 
and expensive for the work at hand ; that you have done more than you 
really promised at first in its construction. But we also realize that we 
are greatly indebted to the Faculty of the Albany Medical College for 
the rich and modern equipment of apparatus, that is up to date in 
every respect, aiding so clearly to complete the plant as a whole. We 
also realize that for the maintenance of the work it is intended shall be 
done here, the Faculty of the College has assumed much, but we trust 
that the same public generous spirit that stimulated you in fulfilling 
your promise may, through new, earnest friends, bring us an endow- 
ment, or in some manner aid in continuing the work so well begun. 
To you, Mr. Bender, I am sure I convey the feelings of the Board 
of Trustees in rendering you our earnest gratitude, and in expressing 
in behalf of the Faculty of the Albany Medical College, its students, 
and members of the profession in this city and surrounding country, 
the wish that God may lengthen your years, and that your declining 
days may be peaceful and serene. 
It is not my intention to dwell further upon the possibilities or 
the good that is to come from the work inaugurated here. 
We have with us to-night one who leads in the noble path of 
science, one whose reputation is not alone of this continent, but the 
entire world. It may be said of him that he has done his work so well 
that it reaches to the North, South, East and West,—one whose repu- ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
359 
tation for professional work has few equals—one whose name is known 
by thousands, and in thousands of the homes of his adopted country. 
Therefore, I can say with all candor that it gives me great joy and 
thankfulness to be able to introduce to you, as the orator of the 
evening, Professor A. Jacobi, of New York City. 
Address by A. Jacobi, M. D., of New York. 
The earnest spirit exhibited in the arrangement of this celebration, 
the concourse of students, the participation of medical practitioners of 
this city and from beyond the boundary lines of Albany, the gathering 
of gentlemen not directly connected with our profession, the presence 
of a stranger upon whom you have conferred the honor of an invitation 
to address you, and the interest shown in your achievement both by 
the public and the press—all this seems to demonstrate that this occa- 
sion is felt by all to be one of more than temporary or local importance. 
This is as it should be, for of all the institutions of learning and 
research none can be more worthy of the sympathy of all classes than 
a laboratory of hygiene. 
Hygiene is that part of medical science and art which treats of the 
causes and prevention of disease. We can not conceive of a subject of 
vaster importance and more incompatible with ignorance. It ought to 
be understood by every man to whom is entrusted the care of the indi- 
vidual or of the community, for it comprehends, as you will understand 
if you will but run your eyes over the index of any text-book on that 
subject, a great many vital topics. To it belong the normal and 
abnormal conditions of air, water, foods, and soil; the removal of sew- 
age, the construction and sanitation of dwellings, hospitals, schools, 
manufactories, camps, arsenals and prisons; and the subject of baths 
and bathing, of clothing and exercise. The theory of disease germs 
and of contagion and infection, with the history of epidemic diseases 
and the disposal of the dead, prevention and treatment by antiseptics, 
disinfectants and deodorizers, and protection by quarantine, and finalfy, 
vital statistics form intrinsic constituents of hygiene. 
You have noticed that the themes I enumerated are, so to speak, 
no mere primary elements of medical science or art. Indeed, they 
require the application of a number of branches which must be taught 
and learned before the difficult matter of hygiene can be fully grasped. 
It is mainly physics, chemistry, physiology, pathology and bacteriology 
which form the foundation of the structure, and ought to be thoroughly 
assimilated by the student’s mind before he may expect to master 360 
ALB \NY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
hygiene. It is, therefore, impossible to believe that the undergraduate 
will, in the second or third year of his medical curriculum, succeed in 
acquiring a knowledge of it any more than he can expect to become a 
diagnostician without anatomy and physiology, and without patients. 
The addition of a fourth year to the course of medical study, such as 
your college has established, is therefore indispensable. To it mostly 
belongs the instruction in hygiene which, based as it is upon previous 
studies extending over three years, must be twofold. 
Didactic lectures and the study of books will convey much informa- 
tion, but without practical laboratory work, neither teacher nor student 
will succeed any better than the chemist without personal experi- 
mentation, the anatomist without dissecting, or the swimmer without 
water. Now, the significance of hygiene for the physician, the lay- 
man and the community at large is such as to preclude the possibility 
of a college with a two or three years course being able to supply a 
modern public with modern physicians. The profession has waked 
up to this knowledge some time ago; indeed, it has been the profession 
that was the principal agitator in behalf of progress. Your city of 
Albany has been a lively battlefield in the war of evolution. Those 
under whose leadership we have been struggling for the improvement 
of medical instruction and the extension of legal requirements these 
two dozen years will admit that the profession of the empire state had 
now and then to overcome serious obstacles coming even from some of 
the colleges. It is both with gratification and gratitude, however, that 
I remember the active and incessant aid lent to the cause of progress by 
the Albany Medical College. To-day both the profession and the 
colleges appear to work for the same ends, namely, the better prepa- 
ration of matriculants, more years of instruction, longer courses, more 
branches and more teachers, every one of whom should be a thorough 
specialist—not necessarily in practice, but in the branch he means to 
teach—, and besides: practical work in laboratories. 
These are demands not always made either in America or Europe. 
The briefest possible retrospect of the condition of medical knowledge 
and practice, and of teaching methods, and a comparison of periods 
not so very remote indeed should as well emancipate us from despond- 
ing pecsimism as justify some optimistic hope for the future. Of our 
present status I do not speak, for to intellectual enterprise there is no 
greater drawback than self-sufficiency and the beatitute of self-con- 
gratulation. No medical period can ever afford to boast of its own 
perfection. 
Fifty years before I started to study medicine, say about 1800, 
medical science and art furnished many illustrious names. There were ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
361 
Hunter, Haller, Bichat, Peter Frank. But teaching and practicing 
were comparatively on a low level. Most medical schools or medical 
faculties of universities were limited in anatomical material, practical 
instruction or clinical teaching. Often the same person would teach 
botany, obstetrics and theory and practice, or anatomy and materia 
medica. Aye, now and then there was one who would write books on 
philology and on medicine; still there was an advance, in spite of the 
mysticism in which the medicine of Germany was, it seemed, hopelessly 
immerged ; for the empirical tendency and cool observation of the Anglo 
Saxons never wavered, and the French kept the flag of scientific ana- 
tomy, physiology and nosology unfurled in the first half of the century. 
Fifty years ago when I was considerably younger than to-day, and 
began the study of medicine on which I continue to be engaged at the 
present time, Virchow had just commenced his war against ontology, 
and laid the foundation of cellular pathology. Still, the differential 
diagnosis of what has been called Bright’s disease had begun to be 
elaborated but twenty years previously. The stethoscope was not 
twenty years old, and my old professor at Bonn, Friedrich Nasse, then 
three score and ten years old, was one of the few who appreciated 
and enthusiastically taught on German soil this French innovation. In 
Goettingen I had an illustrious teacher who was at the same time pro- 
fessor of anatomy and dissected with us, and of operative surgery and 
director of the surgical clinic. In all Germany outside of Vienna, 
which at that time was part of Germany, there were but two places 
where pathological anatomy and histology were taught, and but two 
men who gave such instruction, namely, Virchow in Wurzburg, and 
Frerichs in Goettingen. That is why I travelled four hundred miles 
to the latter place. In a New York institution I was, some thirty or 
thirty-five years ago, connected with a surgical gentleman of know- 
ledge, enterprise, skill and fame, whose proudest possession was a 
large, splendid, gorgeous, velvet gown, which covered him all over to 
his feet, and made a tremendous impression on the spectators while he 
was operating on the dead or the living; he attended to both, some- 
times in the same hour and on the same table in the amphitheatre. 
Now and then he would perform the same operation, first on the cada- 
ver and immediately afterward on a patient. It was not very hygienic, 
but at that time it was strictly legitimate. A hospital and a dissecting 
room were under the same roof. That was but little more than thirty 
years ago, and few of us knew or taught better. A short twenty-five 
years ago we had in connection with wounds no higher ambition than 
to see pus. If there was none we might have, and too often had, ery- 
sipelas or gangrene. Pus was always looked for and welcomed if it 362 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
was but “bonum et laudabile”. When I was a student there was no 
laboratory anywhere but the chemical. It was at that time that Petten- 
kofer began in private his influential studies on topics connected with 
hygiene, but it took decades before he succeeded, in 1878, in obtaining 
an official laboratory. Still, from him and his time date the apprecia- 
tion of the theoretical and practical importance of hygiene as a science. 
I may state the gradual effects of his personal and local efforts right 
here. It was from that period that the sanitation of Munich became 
possible. It resulted in the extermination of typhoid fever which had 
decimated both the home population and the strangers. It spread 
health and vigor over old and young, while embarrassing the mourn- 
ing goods stores and the undertakers. 
In recalling these historical facts and personal reminiscences, let 
me not forget, however, that within that time great achievements were 
accomplished even without the modern methods of work and study. 
Although there were no laboratories, and no high-power microscopes, 
no Abbe condensers and no oil immersions, there was what no great 
metropolitan teacher nor obscure country practitioner should be without 
—educated brains, powers of observation and application, and common 
sense. Within that very time, a century ago, Jenner had introduced 
vaccination, and one-third of a century ago the United States improved 
hospital arrangements. It is our pride as a nation, and always should 
be, to remember that America has been foremost in accomplishing the 
greatest practical progress almost without any schooling. I can do no 
better for you than to copy, in order to make clear what I mean to say, 
literally from our great pathfinder and master, Rudolf Virchow. In 
his “Progress of Military Medicine,” an oration delivered on August 
2nd, 1874, he says: “ The French army lost in the Crimean war 33$ 
of its men, namely 95.615. Of this number 10,240 were killed on the 
battlefields, and about as many died of their wounds in the hospitals. 
More than 75,000 men died of infectious diseases. In the American 
civil war 97,000 died of their wounds and 194,000 perished of infectious 
and other diseases. What a vast amount of pain and misery! What 
an ocean of blood and tears, and besides what a number of errors, mis- 
takes and prejudices! It is not necessary to now enumerate the long 
list of blunders and sins. They are so well known as to serve in the 
future as warning examples. Let me say here that it was not mis- 
fortune alone that showed where the cause of evil was and then provided 
aid. If the French learned little or nothing in the Crimea, and the 
Americans so much in their civil war as to create a new era in military 
medicine, the explanation is not to be sought for in the immensity of 
misfortune and misery undergone by the Americans, for they did not ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
363 
suffer any more than the French did in the Crimea. The explanation 
is in the critical and thoroughly scientific spirit, the clear perception, 
the sound and practical common sense which penetrated gradually 
every part of the American military administration, and which with 
the astounding cooperation of the entire nation accomplished more 
humane results than any great war ever produced before. Whoever 
studies the copious publications of the medical staff of the American 
army must again and again be astonished at the vast experience 
collected in them. Absolute accuracy of details, the most painstaking 
statistics, acquaintance with all branches of medical learning, and a 
comprehensive style are united in them for the purpose of collecting 
and preserving in the interests of the present and future generations 
the new knowledge so dearly bought.” 
The practical results of the civil war were the pavilion system, the 
increase of air space, the isolation of contagious diseases, the improve- 
ment of heating and ventilation, and thereby a vast saving of lives. 
The lessons were not lost; were learned and adopted all over the globe, 
and made the American name honored and blessed all over the world. 
Understand, young men, for the present and the future, that this is the 
only practical and useful sort of interference with European nations 
which is worthy of the American people and consistent with the 
principles of our government. 
While almost instinctively we succeeded in finding some way 
of escape from deadly diseases, the Europeans advanced slowly and 
surely to the evolvement of what first appeared theoretical science only, 
but proved of vast practical import. These two, as a rule, go hand in 
hand. It is true science that has its own reward in satisfying the mind, 
but I know of no instance in the history of mental development but 
demonstrates the fact that the most theoretical, the most abstruse 
intellectual result will always turn out to be serviceable to mankind. 
Of this there is no more beneficent instance than the methods by which 
the sources of disease have been fathomed. By the study and know- 
ledge of their causes the greatest improvements have been made in the 
prevention and treatment of epidemic diseases. There was a time 
when they were unexplained in their suddenness and considered 
unavoidable. Niobe and her nine children slain by Apollo and Diana 
are always sad realities. There have been millions like them, though 
they alone live forever in marble and prove that the highest degree of 
aesthetic and artistic achievement may well accompany dense ignorance. 
That may occur in nations as it does in individuals. In heathen 
antiquity and Christian mediaevalism disease and death are deemed 
punishments. There is no way of combating them; mute submis- 364 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
sion only is demanded. Nothing is indicated but prayers, offerings of 
beast or man, and pilgrimages. There was another time when nothing 
bad could happen except through some evil influence. Somebody was 
at fault when a cow or a child died. There was witchcraft or the evil 
eye. When there was a general dying somebody must be killed for it 
—dissenting protestants by the hundreds, Jews by the ten thousands. 
There was a later period when it was neither gods who sent their 
swift arrows nor Jews who poisoned the wells; when it was well known 
that epidemics would follow in the path of wars and thus depopulate 
the large cities; that they would spread from man to man and thus 
decimate the people. The latter belief was even exaggerated when it 
was found advisable to class syphilis also among those diseases which 
could be transmitted without physical contact, for nothing is more 
pleasing to human self-love than to escape, not so much guilt as the 
appearance of guilt. Thus it was felt that in the dissemination of con- 
tagious diseases there must be a something the nature of which was 
unknown or unknowable. The “genius epidemicus”, the epidemic 
tendency, was the pass-word which allowed etiology to go unchallenged. 
By others, though they admitted not to know the nature of the con- 
tagion, the latter was believed to originate in the body, at least in some 
instances, spontaneously. Typhoid fever, tuberculosis, dysentery were 
thus explained. By many, spontaneous generation of the cause of the 
disease was assumed for the generality of cases; by others, for the 
first instances of the epidemic only, but no matter whether the real 
cause was hidden there were the facts of contagion and of awful 
mortality; and the clear head of the eighteenth century—Sydenham in 
England, Boerhaave in Holland, Van Swieten in Holland and Austria, 
Peter Frank in Italy and Austria—knew better than to cross their arms 
in such nihilistic contemplation, as reigned supreme through a pro- 
tracted period of this very century of science and humanitarianism. 
Many of the measures established at present on solid knowledge and 
improved by experimental research were inaugurated by them. Their 
reasoning was as follows: Man is the carrier of contagion; therefore, 
when falling sick with a contagious disease he must be isolated. A 
contagium will not cling to everybody indiscriminately. Thus the 
amount of individual vulnerability appears to be larger or smaller, but 
no matter how various the degrees, there is some vulnerability probably 
in everybody. Therefore, try to diminish it by saturating the system 
with the poison when the epidemic is mildest. Thus they inoculated 
variola and risked a slight danger rather than allow men to die of a 
greater. And thirdly, no matter whether the nature of the contagion 
is clearly known, it is advisable to destroy or diminish its poison. As ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
365 
early as the period of black death in the fourteenth century people 
would keep wood and tar fires burning in the streets. Was it the 
instinctive belief in the disinfectant action of heat, of tar, and of 
creasote ? 
Afterwards fumigations with vinegar, with chlorine, nitrous acid, 
were resorted to. Patients and utensils had to submit to disinfection 
as best they could, and goods or tools were either burned or temporarily 
buried. 
The organic origin of disease (which was to be proven after mani- 
fold labors) was first suspected in antiquity when imagination gathered 
all the visible and alleged invisible insects under the sinister command 
of the supernatural patron, the devil. Amongst the Romans, Varro 
suggested the presence, like that of big insects, of invisible minute 
beings hovering over swamps which he thought might cause fevers. 
Paracelsus when speaking of the seed of diseases may have believed in 
a similar hypothesis. A. clergyman, the Jesuit Anastasius Kircher, 
1671, was the first, however, to claim contagion to be the result of 
organic influences, and Leuwenhoek being in possession of a better 
instrument made by himself, was the first to discover real bacteria.* 
Progress, however, was slow. It took a century until O. F. Muller, 
1786, was able to describe and draw some of them. The names given 
by him are still in use. Bory de St. Vincent in 1824, Ehrenberg in 
1838, Dujardin in 1841, added a great deal to our knowledge. In my 
own time Perty, in 1852, discovered the changes which take place in 
bacteria when developed under varying circumstances, and in 1853 
Ferdinand Cohn classified, rather pedantically, it is true, the whole 
number of microbes then known. 
Kircher’s theory of the organic origin of disease was adopted by 
Lancisi, Reaumur and Linne. Its firmest believers were Marcus Ant- 
onius Plenciz whose book of 1Y62, and Pringle whose researches on 
infectious diseases and disinfectants furnish the best presentation of 
the subject in the last century. Their views, as Ferdinand Hueppe 
aptly remarks, were, however, not generally held because it was not 
so much the cause of the disease as the disease itself that was considered 
to be a living parasite; for it is from that time that such names date as 
lupus and cancer, which have outlived their justifiable term of existence. 
Besides, positive knowledge based on descriptive observation was 
defective to such an extent that even Malpighi, Morgagni, Bichat, and 
*J Ferdinand Hueppe, Naturwissens chaftliche Einfuhrung in die Bakteriologie, 1896. Friedrich 
LOEFFLER, iiber die Fortschritte in der Bekampfung der Jnfektions Krankheiten in den lezten25 Jahren, 
1896. -Max Gruber, Pasteur’s Lebenswerk, etc., 1896. Charcot, Bouchard, Brissaud Traitd de Medecine, 
Vol. 1, 1891. G. M. Sternberg, A Manual of Bacteriology, 1892. Victor C. Vaughan and Frederick G. 
Novy, Ptomains, Leucomains, Toxins and Antitoxins, 3d Ed., 1896. 366 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
up to 1874 Virchow, gave their attention exclusively to the pathological 
anatomy of organs and tissues. 
At that time, however, the question of the nature of putrefaction 
engaged the attention of many minds. Decomposition was proved to 
be organic in yeast by Astier in 1813 ; the so-called “ bleeding hosts ” 
were demonstrated by Sette in 1816 to owe their discoloration to bac- 
teria. In 1837 Cagniard Latour studied the yeast deposits which he 
found during alcoholic fermentation. He proved them to be organic, 
and presumed they were the cause of fermentation. In the same year 
Schwann became more positive of this, and moreover found that extract 
of nux vomica did not stop fermentation, but that arsenic did. This 
is why he took it to be of vegetable nature. The same results were 
obtained by Turpin in 1838. Fuchs in 1841, Remak in the same year, 
and in 1843 Mitscherlich referred all fermentation to living microbes. 
The two last named authors were the first to find two different microbes 
in two different forms of ferinentation. Helmholtz also participated in 
these researches without, however, excelling here as he did in almost 
everything else he undertook. It was only in 1857, however, that 
Pasteur could prove undeniably, in spite of Hiller’s and others’ remon- 
strations, that all putrefaction and fermentation were attributable to 
microbes, and that each different fermentation had its own specific organic 
cause. 
Long before researches on the origin of the diseases of animals, 
Provost found in 1807, and deBary after him, the causes of diseases of 
plants to be microbic. Bassi and Balsamo discovered in 1835 the 
microbe of the “muscadine” disease of the silkworm, and Audouin the 
spores which enable the parasite to live through the winter. Schoen- 
lein found the achorion to be the cause of tinea, Simon the acarus of 
the itch. It was shortly before this time that Henle, in 1840, formula- 
ted his conviction that infectious and contagious diseases were the result 
of living causes. His main reasons were these, that in such cases the 
morbid matter was evidently increasing from the moment of invasion-. 
Organisms only have that faculty. Another reason was this, that the 
quantity of the invading material was out of proportion to the effects 
gradually obtained by it. Further, that there was a stage of incuba- 
tion which was not required in poisoning by a definite dose of a simple 
chemical substance, and lastly, that the poison which is introduced in a 
very small quantity must increase before the disease can be expected 
to make its appearance. 
Henle’s theory suggested by the facts hitherto known, and sup- 
ported by the published reports of Franz Schulze in 1836, and 
vSchwann in 1837, was confirmed by Schroeder and von Dusch, 1854 ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
367 
and ’61, by von der Broek, 1857, and by Pasteur. Pasteur having- 
established as a sound fact the principle, omne vivuvi ex vivo—that is, 
nothing that is alive can possibly have come from what is dead—, and 
thereby annihilated the doctrine of spontaneous generation, and having 
further found that fermentation and putrefaction took place through 
external microbic influences only, Joseph Lister concluded that if 
wounds became infected through such living external influences only 
the latter should be kept away from them before they could reach them, 
or be destroyed. That was in 1867. 
There was great activity in the .study of bacteria from 1866 to 1876. 
Klebs found microbes in pyonephritis in 1866, Rindfleisch in pyaemia in 
1856; soon after Recklinghausen and Waldeyer in metastatic abscesses, 
Klebs in gunshot wounds in 1872, others found them in septicaemia, 
erysipelas, hospital gangrene, puerperal fever, diphtheria, and finally, 
1873, Obermeier in relapsing fever. In this way much valuable material 
was collected, but unfortunately but little sifted. It so happened that 
in similar conditions many varieties were found to occur simultaneously, 
by several in abscesses, also in diphtheria, in cholera, in variola. Pas- 
teur found a number of bacteria in putrid material, but in most cases 
no positive decision was at that time arrived at as to the relationship of 
specific microbes or poisons to specific diseases. Besides, there was 
never such a scramble for notoriety as in those times. Dilettanti in 
journalism were as numerous as pickpockets at a fair or tramps after a 
battle. The medical weeklies and monthlies of that time teemed with 
new discoveries and new bacteria. Bacteria found in the dead body 
were proclaimed to be the cause of death, accidental finds the origin of 
a special disease; and hundreds of essays appeared at that time which 
proved nothing but carelessness in experiment or observation. Thus 
it could happen that even all the results obtained by one of the most 
active and ingenious experimenters, Hallier, could be proven by deBary 
to be worthless, because no protection had been procured against the 
accidental admixture of miscellaneous bacteria. At that time it took a 
great deal of mental equilibrium not to be swamped by the flood of 
new microbes. Indeed, in spite of the results already attained and 
appreciated, the profusion of immature publications was enough to 
create doubts and prejudices in the minds of many clinicians. It 
was at that time, in 1880, when finishing my treatise on diphtheria that 
I availed myself of that occasion to express my own feelings about the 
hasty and immature conclusions arrived at by the crowd of microscope 
fiends and leaned in the explanation of the diphtheritic process rather 
to a chemical poison than to the direct influence of a parasite. Riper 
experience, all built up on laboratory work, has since taught us that in 368 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
diphtheria as well as, with but few exceptions, in every infectious dis- 
ease in whose development microbes are known to be concerned, it is 
a chemical product of the microbe only which penetrates into the circu- 
lation and destroys life. It is fortunate indeed that it should be so, for 
chemical poisons are more easily counteracted than living microbes 
circulating in the blood. The latter condition is present in anthrax. 
That is why Pasteur’s inoculation of thousands of flocks of sheep with 
less virulent anthrax has not proved an unmitigated success. Deaths 
have taken place after such inoculations as they did when in the last 
century smallpox was inoculated to protect against smallpox. In 
southern Russia in such attempts at conveying protection thousands of 
sheep were destroyed. When speaking of this accident it was Haffkin, 
of whom I shall have more to say, who, shuddering, exclaimed, “If that 
happened to man ! ” 
After many mistakes, amongst which one of the most prominent 
is the alleged isolation of Bergmann’s “ sepsin ”, Panum proved that 
septic poisons could be derived from microbes, after Coze and Feltz in 1866, 
and Burdon Sanderson, and in 1872 Davaine had succeeded in perpetu- 
ating infectious processes by persistent inoculations of the same mi- 
crobes from animal to animal. As early as 1868 glanders had been 
produced by vaccinating its pus, and it was proved by the effects of 
immense dilution that the infecting material must necessarily be of 
organic nature. Still, the nature and manner of propagation of the 
microbe was not recognized. Finally in 1876 Koch discovered that 
the great vitality of the bacilli of anthrax, themselves very perishable, 
owed their vitality to the formation of spores. 
Thus far the parasitic theory appeared to be rather firmly estab- 
lished, but still, as many believed in the excessive variability of bac- 
teria, and attributed their many different forms to transmutation of a 
single original form, they were often believed to be not the cause but 
the accompaniment of the infectious process. All this happened in spite 
of the fact that Pasteur had differentiated the bacteria of wine and of 
beer fermentation, of anthrax, of sarcina, of amylobacter, and Ober- 
meyer’s specific spirilum of relapsing fever was known since he paid his 
self-sacrificing zeal with his own life. Another proof of the essential 
differences of bacteria was accidentally found by Schroeter who noticed 
differences in the color of his cultures, but a scientific differentiation 
became possible only when C. Weigert and later on Ehrich taught the 
systematic staining of bacteria by means of basic anilin dyes. With 
this method and better microscopes, and immersion, and the use of 
Abbe’s condenser, Koch made rapid strides. In 1877 published his 
treatise on the methods of research, and in 1878 the etiology of the ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
369 
infection of wounds. About the same time Pasteur, 1877, after having 
proved in 1863 that normal blood was free of germs, demonstrated that 
the bacillus of anthrax would grow not only in the circulating blood, 
but also in blood outside the body and on other nutrients. Thus pre- 
pared, he and his pupils discovered a number of characteristic mic- 
robes: that of malignant oedema in 1877, the staphylococcus pyogenes 
in ’78. that of the sputum-septicaemia, identical with the pneumococcus 
of Fraenkel, in ’80, of chicken cholera in ’89, of hog cholera in ’82. 
Lister, Buchner, and Koch further improved the methods of examina- 
tion until in 1882 the latter succeeded in demonstrating his bacillus 
of tuberculosis before the physiological society of Berlin. At this time 
it was conclusively proven that the microbes had each their peculiar 
etiological significance, that in fact it was a single specific microbe zvliich 
caused a single specific infection or contagions disease. 
Let me here try to correct what I believe to be a mistake and to 
give rise to confusion. The terms contagion and infection are too 
often used promiscuously, though they are by no means synonymous. 
The dissemination of mycotic diseases takes place in different ways. 
There are those which can not be communicated from person to person, 
but spread only by the microbic cause invading the individual. To 
this class belong malarial fevers produced by plasmodia. Malaria is 
not contagious; just so in all probability cerebro-spinal meningitis. 
There are, secondly, those which are not communicable from person to 
person but through external carriers only, such as soil, water, food, 
air, clothing and utensils. To that class belong yellow fever and 
Asiatic cholera. They are infectious. There are, finally, those which 
may be transmitted directly from a person, or indirectly through carriers. 
To this class belong scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, variola, influ- 
enza, erysipelas and varicella, perhaps also whooping cough. They 
are contagious and infectious. As its cause has not been sufficiently 
proven to be microbic, I do not add syphilis. On no account, there- 
fore, ought the terms contagion and infection be taken as synonymous. 
The belief of Naegeli that the multiplicity of bacteria originated 
in a single or a few changeable varieties was proven to be erroneous 
partly by direct observation and partly by the results of cultures under- 
taken under varying circumstances, It can be demonstrated that the 
infectiousness of bacteria may be increased or lowered. That is what 
Buchner found in 1880 in regard to the bacillus of anthrax. The main 
progress in the following years was made by Pasteur either single 
handed or in cooperation with his pupils. In 1880 he found acciden- 
tally that the bacillus of chicken cholera was less virulent when the 
cultures were exposed to air and got cool. Still, the hens infected. 370 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
with them became ill. After they recovered he infected them with 
thoroughly virulent germs, and, lo and behold! they were immune. 
From that time dates all our modern protective and curative therapeutics 
ofinfectious diseases. Pasteur then experimented with anthrax. A few 
of his results can be stated in the following brief sentences. The 
bacillus of anthrax did not develop in the blood of the living chicken. 
That is, the latter were immune against anthrax. But the bacilli did 
develop in the blood of chickens outside their bodies. The conclusion 
was that the presence of bacilli in the animal body was active or inactive, 
not through its own properties, but o/dy so far as the animal tissues permit of 
its influence. The disease, therefore, is not established by the presence 
of the bacillus, but is the composite of the symptoms caused by the 
battle of the invader with the living cell. 
Pasteur also found that the infected chick remained immune when 
retaining its own high temperature. When it was cooled by being 
immersed in water it fell sick, but recovered when again warmed. The 
conclusion is that the development and growth and injuriousness of 
bacilli, or some of them, depend on the temperature of the medium in 
which they are. He further found that the bacillus of anthrax grew 
in sterile urine when being alone in the fluid, but not when other 
bacilli were exposed together with it. This observation was confirmed 
by further experiments. When these bacilli were injected with other 
bacilli into an animal, the bacilli of anthrax did not thrive, and the 
animal remained well and alive. The discoveries followed one another 
in quick succession. Septic phlegmonous suppurative processes of all 
kinds were found to be caused by different bacilli. On the other hand, 
the same microbe would cause different afections in different animals. The 
bacillus of chicken cholera, for instance, produced general sepsis in the 
chicken, but a local abscess only in the guinea pig. 
The virulence of the bacillus or its poison can be lowered in many 
ways; by high temperatures, partial desiccation, dilution by chemicals, 
or by culture of the original in different animals. Pasteur’s experi- 
ments with the bacillus of anthrax were very numerous and efficacious. 
He produced cultures of lowered infectiousness and vaccinated sheep. 
It is true many died of the infection, but a great many were rendered 
immune, and the mortality from anthrax was very much reduced. 
Experiments made with the view of lowering the virulence of bacilli 
in other animals were also successful. That of hog erysipelas was 
thus changed when passing through the rabbit, and the poison of 
rabies, believed by Pasteur—though even he could not isolate it—to be 
the product of an organism, after unsatisfactory experiments with 
monkeys, was weakened by its passage through the same animal, viz., ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
371 
the rabbit. The indomitable man was successively engaged in finding 
new hypotheses based on well-known facts, and in experiments which 
were to prove or disprove the value of his hypotheses. In regard to 
rabies his reasoning was as follows: The long duration of its incu- 
bation proves the slow progress of the poison in the direction of the 
nerve centres, for it is of symptoms of the nerve centres that the patient 
infected by a mad dog finally dies. Thus the time between the infec- 
tion and the affection of the nerve centre should be utilized by antitoxic 
injections. The poison must be intercepted. It is well known that 
the spinal cord of the rabbit is gradually and in proportion to the 
duration of its presence in the organ, changed by injection with fully 
virulent rabic poison, that the different degrees of morbid.changes pro- 
duced in its tissue yield a material which is employed for injection into 
the patient who has been, or is believed to have been infected. The 
attacks on this method, or rather its effects, are many, but it appears 
that the good done by it far outweighs its dangers 01 ill results. And 
one fact must never be forgotten : it is but little more than a decade 
since the method has first been employed. It has been the forerunner 
of other discoveries of similar import and of more and extensive utility. 
Thus it appears that the future therapy of infectious and contagious 
diseases will be built upon the foundation laid by the work performed 
in Pasteur’s and other laboratories. 
As far as Asiatic cholera is concerned, the discovery of the comma 
bacillus appears to have finally settled the question of its cause. The 
bacillus, however, does not enter the circulation, but destroys life by 
secreting a deadly poison. So does that of yellow fever; so does rabies, 
each with its own poison bred by its own specific bacillus. In these 
diseases it is not the weakened bacillus that can be expected to act as 
an antidote, but the lowered strength of the chemical poison.. Thus it 
was that Ferran’s therapeutical experiments with living cultures in 
1885 were of doubtful importance. When cholera again appeared in 
1890. Haffkin, of Russia, working in Pasteur’s laboratory, found that 
cholera bacilli when cultured lose part of their activity. Imbued as he 
was with Pasteur’s principles the light flashed upon him. The lowered 
activity of the culture bacilli could be expected to be utilized as the 
healing agent after having been tried on somebody. But animals are 
immune, so he made himself the object of experiment and, he did not 
die. Within two years afterwards, in the East Indies, he made 70,000 
injections on 42,179 human beings in 98 different localities. No 
accident marred his operations, though pain followed each of them for 
four or five days. In order to control his experiments he always vacci- 
nated a part of the population only. What were the results of his 372 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
laborious and self-sacrificing labors? In Calcutta the morbidity of those 
vaccinated fell to i—19 or 1-24 compared with former experience; the 
mortality fell to 1—17 or 1-24. If in the near future—in Berlin they 
are experimenting at this moment on the action of dead cultures which 
appear to immunize — the methods will be improved, and the East 
Indian and Arabian pilgrims be vaccinated before they start for Mecca, 
“ Death, where is thy sting! Grave, where is thy victory! ” 
As so much has been written on the subject of diphtheria, a few 
words may suffice on that form of this contagious and infectious disease 
which is caused by, or as some still say, accompanied with the Klebs- 
Loeffier bacillus. The bacillus locates on the mucous membrane of the 
naso-pharynx, sometimes on wounds. On the mucous membrane it 
produces a disease only when the surface is sore and thereby amenable 
to invasion. It does not enter the circulation, but produces a poison 
which is rapidly absorbed. When this chemical poison is injected into 
an animal in slowly increasing doses, which should be large enough to 
make sick but not to destroy, an antidote to the original disease is 
produced in the serum of that animal. This is the healing serum of 
Behring, which has succeeded in greatly reducing the mortality of 
diphtheria, and may be further proved to cause temporary immunity 
when injected into those who are well but constantly exposed. This 
almost fabulous result is the result exclusively of laboratory work. The 
success accomplished thus far speaks well for the future. It does not 
require an unbounded enthusiasm to believe that the results will be 
still more favorable in this dread disease which destroys the infants 
and children in every country by the ten thousands, and to trust that 
further study and experimental labors may find similar methods for the 
subjugation of other contagious and infectious diseases. The question 
of rabbit, sheep or horse rights ought not to be raised. We kill them 
and eat them to keep alive. In the laboratory we utilize them for the 
purpose of finding means to keep alive our people young and old, while 
but few, if any, are destroyed in the process. The problem will be to 
decide whether the future is to belong to the rabbit and sheep or to 
mankind. 
All those results could not have been attained without experimen- 
tation on animals. The saving of animal and of human lives accom- 
plished by its teaching is simply immense. Let us consider. 
The investigation of the action of remedies can not be complete 
without it. Anthrax has lost its terrors amongst the French peasantry 
since Pasteur discovered how to reduce the mortality of their sheep. 
One of the most fearful calamities of former times, the terror of every 
woman who is to become a mother—childbed fever—has been reduced ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
373 
to the very lowest figure wherever the teaching of animal experimen- 
tation has been heeded. Hydrophobia, fatal in every case, is now 
accessible to successful treatment. Myxoedema, an incurable disease 
a few years ago, has become curable in almost all instances, even 
cretinism in many. Tuberculosis may be, and is in part, confined 
within certain limits. The prevention of cholera is no longer a dream. 
The mortality of diphtheria has been reduced to one-half of what it was. 
The success of surgical operations under the influence of Listerism is 
simply marvellous; antisepsis and asepsis have been evolved out of the 
laborious studies of medical experts. 
All these blessings, the enumeration of which has not exhausted 
the list, are the immediate results of experimentation on animals. To 
deny it is either ignorance or malevolence-—mostly the former. In our 
times when nobody who is mortal can be acquaiated with everything 
worth knowing, it is no reproach to be ignorant of topics known only 
to those who make them their special study. There is, however, 
another class of people with whom there is no reasoning. As long as 
the law of the land allows them to be abroad, you can only rely on the 
better judgment of the majority. This majority will not defile the 
name of “Christianity” to cover moral obtuseness, and that of “science” 
to shield intellectual hebetude. Those who refuse sleep to the sick 
unto death in order that they may pray, and a remedy to those in pain 
and dying of an acute disease—I know whereof I speak—they all are 
antivivisectionists. But there are also thousands of antivivisectionists 
amongst the educated men and women, and the legislators of the land, 
all of them philanthropically inclined, who because they can not, ought 
not to judge of these things. All of them, when taken sick, confide 
their lives to the judgment of the physician, ask no question and offer 
no criticism; but all of them, as long as their interest is theoretical 
only, express, perhaps even have, positive opinions dictated by their 
hearts, and allow their easily won sympathies to run away with their 
signatures under an antivivisection proclamation. What is it that 
makes the best talents of the medical profession; those who are most 
bent upon the elevation of the standard of science and the improvement 
of mankind; the great men amongst practitioners; the teachers of 
physiology, biology, and hygiene, adherents to animal experimenta- 
tion? What is it, if not its indispensability? 
You say that hundreds of M. D.’s add their signatures to the 
applications for the abolition of animal experimentation. Still, you do 
not say that you know how easy it is to gather names, such as they are, 
on every sheet of paper which is not a check or a promise to pay. 
Unfortunately it is too easy; and if the public does not know, we in 374 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
the profession know that there are M. D.’s and M. D.’s. There are 
those who make a living out of their profession—a trade out of a voca- 
tion—witnout ever having the clouds removed from their brains, or 
from their hearts, or from their conciences either, by solid knowledge 
of any kind, or by sympathy or the sense of responsibility. Do you 
expect that the hundred thousand practitioners—not every M. D. is a 
physician—of the United States are of equal knowledge, morality, 
public spirit and self-sacrifice? In other spheres you do not count 
names, you weigh them. When you require an exalted opinion based 
on the laws of the land or of humanity, you select an expert. In great 
economic and political questions you ask statesmen, but not the wire- 
pulling ward politician. And in a question of Science, of physiology 
and hygiene, you want us to believe that you abide by the name of any 
M. D. in some distant corner whose name you have never heard, never 
will hear! But there is a famous man on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Famous 1 Yes, for did he not cut more abdomens than any living man ? 
He is an apostle of antivivisectionism ! I do not stand here, however, to 
criticise methods of operating or of making out statistics. What I 
always do when I want to take the measure of a medical man is to con- 
sult the opinion of the best men in science and in morals of his country. 
His weight is taken. 
Who believes, or makes believe, that there is no sympathy, love 
for the living, or regard for life in those whose profession is more than 
any other an arduous labor of love? Or who, not a medical man, will 
decide what means must be selected to increase knowledge, and as 
every knowledge has its practical results, to benefit mankind ? Is there 
any antivivisectionist who would not on principle employ antitoxin if his 
child be stricken with diphtheria? Or a woman who would refuse pre- 
ventive measures due to animal experimentation exclusively, in order 
to avoid her own death or that of the newly born waif? It is no use to 
call antivisectionists hard names. There is but one thing to do, 
namely, to appeal to their common sense, their duty to husband, wife, 
children. Thus it has come to pass that the English restrictive laws 
have been partly rescinded, and English medicine is thereby restored 
to the privileges of legitimate science. No prohibition of any kind ever 
worked well. 
One of the objections to animal experimentation which we hear 
constantly from the lips of antivivisectionists is that the results of 
such procedures are unsatisfactory in as much as the struggles and the 
pain render the conclusions unequal and doubtful. That may be true 
to a certain extent, but as I have proved by facts, is not a barrier to the 
extension of our knowledge. To a certain extent it is true, however, and ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
375 
some experiments can not be made without giving pain. But the light 
of science shines on animal as it does on man. Anaesthesia, which 
itself has not been developed without animal experimentation—and is 
it not a wondrous achievement?—has been a blessing to both man and 
animal. Under its influence there is no pain, no struggling, and less 
uncertainty as to the results of observation. Thus more humanity and 
more reliability go hand in hand. Nobody rejoices more intensely at 
that than the experimenter, for he can observe better, study better, 
and he need not himself suffer by giving pain to the helpless. 
Medical science and art were born out of the heart of man. The 
physical distress of man created love and helpfulness. It is not in the 
nature of things that the followers and apostles of medicine should be 
otherwise than thoughtful and sympathizing. This much I, who have 
been a close observer and a coworker of the medical profession of the 
state of New York these forty-three years, can say that I never knew 
of a medical man, practitioner or teacher, who was morally lowered by 
his practice or his scientific work. On the contrary, I find the old 
practitioner getting more cautious and sympathetic, and the pure 
Scientist more considerate and circumspect from year to year. We are 
not angels, nor pretend to be in this life; but we do not forget, any 
more than any other heedful member of human and humane society, 
that “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have 
not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And 
though I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries, and 
all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove moun- 
tains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” 
It is to me a constant .source of painful surprise to find men and 
women ever ready to attribute bad, selfish and cruel motives to others. 
Do they think the great experimenters had an easy life? If there is 
an occupation that strains every physical, moral and intellectual labor, 
it is that of the close student of nature. Nor is the study of nature 
unattended with danger. When a soldier dies in the very moment 
that he is bent upon inflicting death upon his adversary he may be 
rewarded with admiring songs and a lasting monument. Every 
physician, every scientist is constantly on his field of battle, and he 
may die on it. Obermeier was not the only one who, when studying 
the spirillum of relapsing fever by night and day, sacrificed his life. 
For him there is no visible monument. Only a few months ago the 
magazines reported the death of a young experimenter who was killed 
by his object of study. 
Nor is the story I heard Dr. Playfair tell a few days ago on the 
occasion of the Boston semi-centennial celebration of anaesthesia less 376 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
instructive. He was the co-operator of Simpson, of Edinburg, during 
and after the time of the discovery of chloroform, and busily engaged 
in finding other anaesthetics. Some day Simpson called and asked for 
news. He was told of a new compound that certainly was a powerful 
anaesthetic, and insisted on trying it immediately upon himself. 
Playfair refused, but proposed to try it again on some rabbits. Simp- 
son having consented, called the following day. Having been 
informed that some time ago the rabbits were alive, he insisted upon 
an immediate experiment upon himself, and hardly allowed the time 
required to inspect the rabbits. They were brought up—dead. 
Without deliberating long after hearing the tale, I decided in my 
mind that the death of the rabbits was not after all such a calamity as 
that of Simpson would have proved. I will also admit that, as I said 
before, I was ever of the opinion that the present and the future ought 
rather to belong to man, and not to the same degree to Guinea pigs, 
rabbits and horses. If man, and sympathetic woman also, are per- 
mitted to hunt and kill animals because they are good to eat—man is 
not meant to be a cabbage eater exclusively—it is still more pardon- 
able to experiment on them as humanely as possible for the purposes 
both of serving the commercial interests of the people and to preserve 
the health and save the lives of human beings exposed to fatal devas- 
tation by vegetable microbes. 
There is, however, an admission which should be made to the anti- 
vivisectionists and to public opinion, no matter if it be the dictate of 
the heart only. There ought to be some restriction to animal experi- 
mentation. To permit every individual, inquisitive student or private 
person to operate indiscriminately on animals for the sake of personal 
curiosity, I personally do not approve of it. Whatever experimenta- 
tion is not intended or able to elevate the human mind, is liable to 
impair it. Flimsiness and frivolousness must not claim the mantle of 
sacred science. I am not ready to admit that the sweet will or the 
thoughtless meddling of anybody who calls himself a medical student 
should be encouraged to do work will not lead to serious scientific con- 
clusions. To experiment on the living with results leading to the 
improvement of science, and to benefit the art of preventing and heal- 
ing diseases, takes thorough knowledge and high aims. Nor am I 
prepared to approve of indiscriminate lecture-room demonstrations on 
living animals before college classes of medical students and still less in 
public schools. They belong to laboratories, such as the intelligent 
generosity of a fellow citizen of yours has established for you. Here 
is all the mechanical and scientific skill, here are the facilities and pre- 
paratory studies required for the consummation of our aims and ends. ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
377 
Here it is that such advanced students and graduates who have the skill 
and knowledge and ambition demanded of future teachers of science, 
and benefactors of mankind, may be instructed. The interests of human 
and humane science are amply guarded by some such restrictions as 
will confine animal experimentation to institutions specially calculated 
for such purposes. To them it may be confined. In them, however, 
it should be protected. And instead of being hampered by the intrusion 
of uninformed and jealous watchmen, as has been proposed, it should 
be treated with admiration and reverence. What the church and 
sanctuary are to the religious, what the hall of a library is to the 
student of history and science, that is the laboratory to the explorer of 
the mysteries of life, and to the teacher of those secrets the revelation 
of which is indispensable for the protection of mankind, and the 
enhancement of its felicity. 
The solemnity of the occasion which affords me an opportunity to 
speak to you this evening, and the indulgence exhibited to me, 
encourage me to speak in connection with this laboratory of hygiene 
of a subject intimately connected with it. The Bender Labaratory of 
Hygiene as planned and established will have two objects, at least for 
the nearest future. I understand it is meant to be the place where 
systematic efforts will be made to increase, by new and original 
research, the stock of such knowledge as will prevent, wherever it will 
reach, the origin and dissemination of contagious and infections dis- 
eases. Its further destination in connection with the Medical College 
and its hospital is to furnish the means of an exact diagnosis of the 
cases entrusted to the painstaking care of the hospital physicians. 
From the standpoint of philosophy and humanity these two ends, it is 
true, belong together. The first is to benefit all humanity. The sec- 
ond includes the scientific labors calculated for the individual sick. It 
seems to me, however, that you will soon learn that the interests of 
science as a whole and those of the patients in your wards can be better 
served by separating them. Indeed, the laboratory of hygiene ought 
to labor exclusively in the service of the scientific and social commu- 
nity; the hospital in that of the individual man, woman and child. 
Laboratories like this new abode of science are but a few dozen years 
old. Within that short period many of the aspects and aims, 
not only of theory, but of practice have been changed. A modern 
hospital is as different from that but twenty-five years old as a comfor- 
table, clean, ventilated, spacious, cozy and healthy house of yours 
differs from the lodge of the pioneer. He lived in it, but its barren- 
ness and exposure are not the consumation of human civilization and 
cultured existence. Modern science means to make hospitals modern 378 
ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
institutions and succeeds in so doing. Whatever contributes to the 
comfort and welfare of the patient—ample space, light and food, all 
the resources of science—society places at the disposal of its wards. In 
this way hospitals have become a school, not only for the medical man, 
but for the public also. There is particularly one demand which 
ought to be fulfilled in every hospital. 
There ought to be, there must be laboratory facilities in and 
directly connected with every modern hospital. It requires no demon- 
stration that rational treatment is not possible without a correct and 
minute diagnosis. Blood, sputum, urine, faeces, stomach contents, 
tumors, eruptions, require a careful examination. There is scarcely a 
case nowadays that does not require some one examination of the kind. 
Nor is it enough in blood diseases, for instance, to count cells, com- 
pare red cells and leucocytes. These very leucocytes assume different 
characters and undergo the most various changes. The indistinct 
class of fevers which tempt so much to call them malaria, perhaps 
because the mellifluous and foreign sounding word is relished by the 
people, require for diagnosis examination for plasmodium, or the bac- 
terium coli commune or streptococcus. The cases in which neither 
was found, but an encephalitis explained all the symptoms, are not 
rare within my own experience. 
The examination for tubercle bacilli facilitates the diagnosis of the 
true nature of peritonitis which may depend on appendicitis, tubercul- 
osis, carcinoma, or the invasion of the bacterium coli commune, pneu- 
mococcus, or streptococcus. The very diarrhoea of the child is far 
from being always catarrhal or the reflex of external exposure and 
irritation. It is mostly the result of the bacterium lactogenes, or coli 
commune, or a hay bacillus. The very selection of the milk food is a 
matter of grave responsibility which often can be shouldered only by a 
person equipped for microscopical and bacteriological examination. 
The latter is by no means so simple as it was thought to be when 
knowledge was less and faith greater. It is not more than a dozen 
years ago that a gentleman who admired his universal standing as a 
microscopist told me that he disdained the use of stains, for what he 
could not see without dyeing and understand, did not exist. Now he 
is staining. 
The labor connected with every single hospital case has greatly 
increased with the accumulation of new knowledge. Even a layman 
uninstructed in medical matters, appreciates that difficulties grow with 
results, results with difficulties. So the best achievements of a hospital 
require from year to year more facilities, because they demand more 
work. Without the former, the latter remains sterile. The faithful ALBANY MEDICAL ANNALS. 
379 
blending of practical labor and scientific research finds no better illus- 
tration than a thoroughly modern hospital with a clinical laboratory 
attached. What I mean to suggest, in your case, is that in no distant 
future the hospital work ought to be performed not only in the sick 
wards, but also in a clinical laboratory immediately connected with 
them. All scientific work, however, unconnected with a special case, 
unless its interest and importance be of unusual magnitude, ought to 
be delegated to this new institution. 
The necessity of equipping a hospital with all that is required by 
the laws of hygiene and the demands of scientific diagnosis concerns 
not alone the individual patient or the attending physician. It 
reaches further. By facilitating research, it adds to common knowl- 
edge and improves the chances of not only the patient, but of the 
future patients and doctors. Indeed, every such hospital is a school 
for the medical profession at large and at the same time a benefit to the 
community. Are there short-sighted objections? O, yes! Our 
fathers did without all this. The hospital was considered good as it 
was only ten or twenty years ago. Our old doctors were good doctors 
and a blessing to the community, and learned men. I say Amen. 
It is true there were no better men than Marsh, and Vanderpool, and 
Thomas Hun. Certainly their names are always mentioned when the 
best are recalled. But as they were learned, and conscientious, and 
eager and as good citizens as they were great doctors, they would 
stand by us as they often did, in our fights for better schools, better 
hospitals, more and better institutions, and more facilities to learn and 
to teach. They, one and all, would look about in the advanced and 
advancing state of science and practice, for a new hospital for the sake 
both of the community and the college which is to furnish medical 
advisers to the families of the country, and the future teachers. 
The example given by your sympathizing, enlightened, and public 
spirited fellow citizen, whose name I need not mention as it is in every 
heart and upon every lip, should be, will be, an incentive to others 
whose hearts are taught by their brains, whose brains are warmed by 
their hearts to give you and the city a well equipped, competent new 
hospital. 
Spanish Losses in Cuba.—It is estimated in Madrid that since 
the beginning of the Cuban revolution, the army of occupation has lost 
nearly fifty thousand men, of whom by far the greater number died 
from disease. The total number of patients in the military hospitals in 
one day recently was 9,475, of whom 1,035 were suffering from yellow 
fever, 1,331 from malaria, and 520 from wounds.—Medical Record.