EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS EXPERIMENTS" ON 
ANIMALS 
By Stephen Paget 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY LORD LISTER 
Semper ego auditor [tantuni^ n^n^dpi^e.' refyngq 
Vexatus toties? 
New York : 
WILLIAM WOOD & COMPANY 
1900 TO 
CHARLES ALFRED BALLANCE, M.S., F.R.C.S., 
AND 
WILLIAM HUNTER, M.D., F.R.C.P. PREFACE 
FOR twelve years it was the writer's business, as 
secretary to the Association for the Advance- 
ment of Medicine by Research, to know something 
about experiments on animals, and to follow the 
working of the Act of 1876 ; and to give facts 
and references to a very large number of applicants. 
Believing that an account of these experiments, and 
of the conditions imposed upon them by the Act, 
might serve a useful purpose, he proposed to the 
Council of the Association that he should write a 
book on the subject. The Council accepted this 
proposal; and decided that the book should be written 
for general reading, that it should not be anonymous, 
and that it should be published without reserve. 
It was of course a doubtful and embarrassing task. 
But, from twelve years' experience of the things that 
are said by the chief opponents of all experiments 
on animals, he knew that there was only one way 
V PREFACE 
of doing it-to give the original authorities, the 
plain facts, the very words, chapter and verse for 
everything. 
Among those who kindly revised the proofs were 
Dr. Rose Bradford and Prof. Starling, who revised 
Part I. ; Mr. Shattock, who revised Part II. ; and 
Prof. Schafer. Certain valuable reports, references, 
and illustrations, were contributed by Mr. R. H. 
Clarke, Mr. Horsley, Dr. Washbourn, Dr. Beevor, 
and Surgeon-Major RoSs. 
VI CONTENTS 
PAGE 
INTRODUCTION . . . xi 
EXPERIMENTS IN PHYSIOLOGY. 
I. The Blood . . . .3 
II. The Lacteals . . . • T7 
III. The Gastric Juice . . .20 
IV. Glycogen . . . .26 
V. The Pancreas . . . 32 
VI. The Growth of Bone . . 37 
VII. The Nervous System . . .41 
EXPERIMENTS IN PATHOLOGY, BAC- 
TERIOLOGY, AND THERAPEUTICS. 
I. Inflammation . . . 63 
II. Suppuration and "Blood Poisoning" 67 
III. Anthrax . . . . 72 
IV. Tubercle . . . .81 
V. Diphtheria . . . .88 
VII CONTENTS 
PAGE 
VI. Tetanus . . . 105 
VIL Rabies . . . .114 
VIII. Cholera .... 132 
IX. Plague .... 149 
X. Typhoid Fever . . .167 
XI. Malta Fever, Yellow Fever, 
Malaria . . . 174 
XII. Parasitic Diseases . . .187 
XIII. Myxcedema . . . .191 
XIV. The Action of Drugs . 197 
XV. Snake Venom . . . 207 
THE ACT RELATING TO EXPERIMENTS 
ON ANIMALS. 
I. Text of the Act . ' . . 220 
II. Anesthetics used for Animals . 240 
III. Reports of the Government In- 
spector for England and Scot- 
land .... 247 
IV. Official Statements . . 257 
Appendix ..... 270 
VIII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
Brain of a Monkey, with Motor Centres 
Marked on It . . Facing page 
(From Dr. C. E. Beevor's " Diseases of the Nervous System") 
Haffkine's First Preventive Inoculations 
against Cholera in a Calcutta 
Bustee. March, 1894 . Facing page 132 
Photograph taken at Grassfields, Sierra 
Leone, by a Member of the Malaria 
Expedition (Liverpool School of 
Tropical Medicine), showing one of 
the Breeding Puddles of Anopheles 
Fa ci ng page 183 
IX INTRODUCTION 
THIS work by Mr. Paget is entirely a labour of 
love. Not being himself engaged in re- 
searches involving experiments upon the lower 
animals, he is not directly interested in the subject. 
But, in his official capacity as Secretary to the 
Association for the Advancement of Medicine by 
Research, he has become widely conversant with 
such investigations, and has been deeply impressed 
with the greatness of the benefits which they have 
conferred upon mankind, and the grievous mistake 
that is made by those who desire to suppress them. 
The action of these well-meaning persons is based 
upon ignorance. They allow that man is permitted 
to inflict pain upon the lower animals when some 
substantial advantage is to be gained ; but they deny 
that any good has ever resulted from the researches 
which they condemn. 
How far such statements are from the truth will 
be evident to those who peruse this book. Its earlier 
pages deal with Physiology, the main basis of all 
sound medicine and surgery. The examples given in 
this department are not numerous ; they are, how- 
ever, sufficiently striking, as indications that, from the 
discovery of the circulation of the blood onwards, our 
XI INTRODUCTION 
knowledge of healthy animal function has been 
mainly derived from experiments on animals. 
The chief bulk of the work is devoted to the class 
of investigations which are most frequent at the 
present day ; and it shows what a flood of light has 
been already thrown by Bacteriology upon the 
nature of human disease and the means of com- 
bating it. 
The chapter on the Action of Drugs will be to 
many a startling disclosure of the gross ignorance that 
prevailed among physicians even in the earlier part 
of last century. The great revolution that has since 
taken place is no doubt largely due to advances in 
sciences other than Biology, especially Chemistry. 
But it could not have attained its present proportions 
without the ever-increasing knowledge of Physiology, 
based on experiments on animals ; and Mr. Paget 
shows how large a share' these have had in the direct 
investigation of articles of the Materia Medica. 
The concluding part of the volume discusses the 
restrictions which have been placed by the legislature 
in this country on those engaged in these researches, 
with the view of obviating possible abuse. Whether 
the Act in question has been really useful, whether it 
has not done more harm than good, by hampering and 
sometimes entirely preventing legitimate and benefi- 
cent investigation, I will not now discuss. 
Meanwhile I commend Mr. Paget's book to the 
careful consideration of the reader. 
LISTER. 
XII EXPERIMENTS IN PHYSIOLOGY I 
THE BLOOD 
I 
Before Harvey 
GALEN, born at Pergamos, 131 a.d., proved by 
experiments on animals that the brain is as 
warm as the heart, against the Alexandrian doctrine 
that the office of the brain was to keep the heart cool. 
He also proved that the arteries during life contain 
blood, not 7rvEv^za, the breath of life :- 
" Ourselves, having tied the exposed arteries above and 
below, opened them between the ligatures, and showed 
that they were indeed full of blood." 
Though all vessels bleed when they are wounded, 
yet this experiment was necessary to refute the fanci- 
ful teaching of Erasistratus and his followers :- 
" Erasistratus is pleased to believe that an artery is a 
vessel containing the breath of life, and a vein is a vessel 
3 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
containing blood ; and that the vessels, dividing again and 
again, come at last to be so small that they can close their 
ultimate pores, and keep the blood controlled within them; 
yea, though the pores of the vein and of the artery 
lie side by side, yet the blood remains within its proper 
bounds, nowhere passing into the vessels of the breath of 
life. But when the blood is driven with violence from 
the veins into the arteries, forthwith there is disease ; and 
the blood is poured the wrong way into the arteries, and 
there withstands and dashes itself against the breath of life 
coming from the heart, and turns the course of it-and 
this forsooth is fever." 
From Galen to the Renaissance, physiology made 
no great advance, for want of experiments. Of 
Servetus, Caesalpinus, and Ruinius, Harvey's near 
predecessors, this much only need be said here, that 
they did not discover the circulation of the blood. 
Realdus Columbus (1559) understood its passage 
through the lungs, but not the general circulation :- 
" The blood is carried through the pulmonary artery to 
the lung, and there is attenuated ; thence, mixed with air, 
it is carried through the pulmonary vein to the left 
ventricle of the heart. Which thing no man hitherto has 
noted or left on record, though it is most worthy of the 
observance of all men. . . . And this is as true as truth 
itself; for if you will look not only in the dead body but 
also in the living animal, you will always find this pulmo- 
nary vein full of blood, which assuredly it would not be, 
if it were designed only for air and vapours. . . . Verily 
I pray you, O candid reader, studious of authority, but 
more studious of truth, to make experiment on animals. 
You will find the pulmonary vein full of blood, not air or 
4 THE BLOOD 
fuligo, as these men call it, God help them. Only there 
is no pulsation in the vein." {De Re Anatomic a, Venice, 
1559-) 
Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Harvey's master at 
Padua, published his work on the valves of the veins- 
De Venarum Ostiolis-in 1603. He did not discover 
them. Sylvius speaks of them in his hagoge (Venice, 
1555), and they were known to Amatus (1552), and 
even to Theodoretus, Bishop of Syria, who lived, as John 
Hunter said of Sennertus, " the Lord knows how long 
ago." But Fabricius studied them most carefully ; 
and in anatomy he left nothing more to be said about 
them. In physiology, his work was of little value ; for 
he held that they were designed " to retard the blood 
in some measure, lest it should run pell-mell into the 
feet, hands, and fingers, there to be impacted : " they 
were to prevent distension of the veins, and to ensure 
the due nourishment of all parts of the body. It is 
true that he compared them to the locks or weirs of a 
river, but he understood neither the course nor the force 
of the blood : as Harvey said of him, " The man who 
discovered these valves did not rightly understand their 
use ; neither did they who came after him." 1 Men 
had no idea of the rapidity and volume of the circula- 
1 "Clarissimus Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, peritissimus 
anatomicus et venerabilis senex, vel (ut voluit doctissimus Riolanus) 
Jacobus Silvius, primus in venis membraneas valvulas delineavit. . . . 
Harum valvularum usum rectum inventor non est assecutus, nec alii 
addiderunt; non est enim ne pondere deorsum sanguis in inferiora totus 
ruat; sunt namque in jugularibus deorsum spectantes, et sanguinem 
sursum ferri prohibentes." (Harvey, De Motu Cordis.') 
5 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
tion ; they thought of a sort of Stygian tide, oozing 
this way or that way in the vessels-Caesalpinus was 
of opinion that it went one way in the daytime and 
another at night-nor did they see that the pulmonary 
circulation and the general circulation are one system, 
the same blood covering the whole course. 
II 
Harvey (1578-1657) 
The De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus 
was published at Frankfort, in 1621. And it begins 
with these words-Cum multis vivorum dissectionibus, 
uti ad manum dabantur :- 
" When by many dissections of living animals, as they 
came to hand, I first gave myself to observing how I might 
discover, with my own eyes, and not from books and the 
writings of other men, the use and purpose of the move- 
ment of the heart in animals, forthwith I found the matter 
hard indeed, and full of difficulty : so that I began to think, 
with Frascatorius, that the movement of the heart was 
known to God alone. For I could not distinguish aright 
either the nature of its systole and diastole, nor when nor 
where dilatation and contraction took place; and this 
because of the swiftness of the movement, which in many 
animals in the twinkling of an eye, like a flash of light- 
ning, revealed itself to sight and then was gone ; so that I 
came to believe that I saw systole and diastole now this 
way now the other, and movements now apart and now 
together. Wherefore my mind wavered ; I had nothing 
assured to me, neither decided by me nor taken from other 
6 THE BLOOD 
men : and I did not wonder that Andreas Laurentius had 
written that the movement of the heart was what the ebb 
and flow of the Euripus had been to Aristotle. 
" At last, having daily used greater disquisition and dili- 
gence, by frequent examination of many and various 
living animals, and many observations put together, I came 
to believe that I had succeeded, and had escaped and got 
out of this labyrinth, and therewith had discovered what 
I desired, the movement and use of the heart and the 
arteries. And from that time, not only to my friends, but 
also in public in my anatomical lectures, after the manner 
of the Academy, I did not fear to set forth my opinion in 
this matter." 
It is plain, from Harvey's own words, that he gives 
to experiments on animals the first place among his 
methods of work. Take only the headings of his first 
four chapters :- 
i. Causa, quibus ad scribendum auctor permotus fuerit. 
ii. Ex vivorum dissectione, qualis fit cordis motus. 
iii. Arteriarum motus qualis, ex vivorum dissectione. 
iv. Motus cordis et auricularum qualis, ex vivorum 
dissectione. 
He thrusts it on us, he puts it in the foreground. 
Read the end of his Preface :- 
" Therefore from these and many more things of the 
kind, it is plain (since what has been said by men before 
me, of the movement and use of the heart and arteries, 
appears inconsistent or obscure or impossible when one 
carefully considers it) that we shall do well to look deeper 
into the matter ; to observe the movements ot the arteries 
7 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
and the heart, not only in man, but in all animals that 
have hearts ; and by frequent dissection of living animals, 
and much use of our own eyes, to discern and investigate 
the truth." 
Finally, take the famous passage in the eighth 
chapter, De copia sanguinis transeuntis per cor e venis 
in arterias, et de circulari motu sanguinis :- 
" And now, as for the great quantity and forward move- 
ment of this blood on its way, when I shall have said 
what things remain to be said-though they are well 
worth considering, yet they are so new and strange that I 
not only fear harm from the envy of certain men, but am 
afraid lest I make all men my enemies ; so does custom, 
or a doctrine once imbibed and fixed down by deep roots, 
like second nature, hold good among all men, and rever- 
ence for antiquity constrains them. Be that as it may, the 
die is cast now : my hope is in the love of truth, and the 
candour of learned minds. I bethought me how great was 
the quantity of this blood. Both from the dissection of 
living animals for the sake of experiment, with opening 
of the arteries, with observations manifold ; and from the 
symmetry and size of the ventricles and of the vessels 
entering and leaving the heart-because Nature, doing 
nothing in vain, cannot in vain have given such size to 
these vessels above the rest-and from the harmonious and 
happy device of the valves and fibres, and all other fabric 
of the heart ; and from many other things-when I had 
again and again carefully considered it all, and had turned 
it over in my mind many times-I mean the great 
quantity of the blood passing through, and the swiftness 
of its passage-and I did not see how the juices of the food 
jn the stomach could help the veins from being emptied 
8 THE BLOOD 
and drained dry, and the arteries contrariwise from being 
ruptured by the excessive flow of blood into them, unless 
blood were always getting round from the arteries into 
the veins, and so back to the right ventricle-I began to 
think to myself whether the blood had a certain movement 
as in a circle, which afterward I found was true." 
Those who are opposed to all experiments on 
animals do not hesitate to assure Harvey that he was 
wrong in saying that these experiments helped him : 
really, they only confused him. Mr. Berdoe, in the 
Zoophilist for July, 1899, says- 
" I will give you his (Harvey's) exact words-' At 
length, and by using greater and daily diligence and 
investigation, making frequent inspection of many and 
various animals, and collating numerous observations, I 
thought that I had attained to the truth.' You see he 
says ' frequent inspection ' of many animals, and collating 
' numerous observations.' I take it this means anatomical 
dissections, descriptions of which occupy a great portion of 
his book." 
Mr. Berdoe here quotes Bowie's translation (1889). 
Harvey's exact words are, Multa frequenter et varia 
animalia viva introspiciendo. The translator left out 
viva. 
Mr. Abiathar Wall, in an essay written against 
experiments on animals, quotes the opening sentences 
of Harvey's book, When by many dissections .... 
had been to Aristotle; there he stops quoting, and goes 
9 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
on thus- Perplexed and baffled, Harvey then went back 
to examining the anatomy of the dead body. 
And Mr. Adams, in a book called The Coward 
Science, simply says-Both Harvey and Hunter state 
plainly the manner in which their respective discoveries 
were suggested. In neither case are these discoveries 
ascribed to vivisection. 
There is yet another way of telling Harvey that he 
did not know what he was talking about : there is 
Sir Robert Boyle's letter :- 
" I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey, in 
the only discourse I had with him, which was but a while 
before he died, what were the things which induced him to 
think of the circulation of the blood, he answered me that 
when he took notice that the valves in the veins of so 
many parts of the body were so placed that they gave free 
passage of the blood towards the heart, but opposed the 
passage of the venal blood the contrary way, he was invited 
to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature had not 
so placed so many valves without design ; and no design 
seemed more probable than that, since the blood could 
not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the 
veins to the limbs, it should be sent by the arteries, and 
return through the veins ; whose valves did not oppose its 
course that way." 
And this letter has been quoted against all experi- 
ments on animals, without the words in the only 
discourse .... before he died. Which makes a differ- 
ence : for Harvey lived to fourscore years-" an old 
man far advanced in years and occupied with other 
10 THE BLOOD 
cares." So he spoke of himself. Moreover, Sir 
Robert Boyle only says that anatomy suggested some- 
thing to him, invited him to imagine something, gave 
him a theory. And it is stupid, or worse than stupid, 
to attempt to set this letter against Harvey's exact 
words. 
Ill 
After Harvey 
i . The Capillaries. 
The capillary vessels were not known in Harvey's 
time : the capillamenta of Caesalpinus were not the 
capillaries, but the vevpa of Aristotle. The first 
account of the capillaries is in two letters De 
Pulmonibus^ 1661, from Malpighi, professor of 
medicine at Bologna, to Borelli, professor of 
mathematics at Pisa. It has been said, in an off-hand 
way, that anybody could have discovered the circu- 
lation with a dead body and an injecting syringe. 
That is just what Malpighi tried. He says, in his 
first letter- 
" This enigma hitherto distracts my mind, though for 
its solution I have made many and many attempts, all in 
vain, with air and various coloured fluids. Having injected 
ink with a syringe into the pulmonary artery, I have again 
and again seen it escape at several points. The same 
thing happens with an injection of mercury. These 
experiments do not give us the natural pathway of the 
blood." 
11 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
But in his second letter he writes that he has 
examined, with a microscope of two lenses, the lung 
and the mesentery of a frog, and has seen the capillaries, 
and the blood in them :- 
" Such is the divarication of these little vessels, coming 
off from the vein and the artery, that the order in which 
the vessel ramifies is no longer preserved, but it looks like 
a network woven from the offshoots of both vessels." 
But, in spite of the work of Malpighi, Leeuwenhoek, 
and others, it took nearly half a century before Harvey's 
teaching was believed by all men-Tantum consuetudo 
apud omnes valet. 
2. The Blood-pressure. 
Harvey had seen the facts of blood-pressure-the 
great quantity of blood passing through, and the swiftness 
of its passage-but he had not measured it. Keill's 
experiments on the blood-pressure (1718) were inexact 
and of no value : and the first exact measurements 
were made by Stephen Hales, who was rector of 
Farringdon and minister of Teddington, and a Fellow 
of the Royal Society. In 1733, he published, in two 
volumes, his Statical Essays containing Hcemostaticks : 
or an Account of some Hydraulick and Hydrostatical 
Experiments made on the Blood and Blood-vessels of 
Animals;- 
" Finding but little satisfaction in what had been 
attempted on this subject by Borcllus and others, T 
12 THE BLOOD 
endeavoured about twenty-five years since, by proper 
experiments, to find what was the real force of the blood 
in the crural arteries of dogs, and about six years after- 
wards I repeated the like experiments on two horses, and 
a fallow doe ; but did not then pursue the matter any 
further, being discouraged by the disagreeableness of 
anatomical dissections. But having of late years found by 
experience the advantage of making use of the statical way 
of investigation, not only in our researches into the nature 
of vegetables, but also in the chymical analysis of the air ; 
I was hence induced to hope for some success, if the same 
method of enquiry were applied to animal bodies." 
He then gives an account of the famous experiment 
where he measured, in a vertical glass tube, the blood- 
pressure in the crural artery of a mare. 
3. Collateral Circulation. 
After Hales, came John Hunter, who was five years 
old when the Statical Essays were published. His 
experiments on the blood were mostly concerned with 
its properties, not with its course; but one great 
experiment must be noted here, that puts him in line 
with Harvey, Malpighi, and Hales. He got from it 
his knowledge of the collateral circulation : how the 
obstruction of an artery is followed by enlargement of 
the vessels in its neighbourhood, so that the parts 
beyond the obstruction shall not suffer from want of 
blood : and the facts of collateral circulation were 
fresh in his mind when, a few months later, he con- 
13 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
ceived and performed his operation for aneurysm 
(December, 1785). The "old operation " gave him 
no help here ; and " Anel's operation " was but a 
single instance, and no sure guide for Hunter, because 
Anel's patient had a different sort of aneurysm. 
Hunter knew that the collateral circulation could be 
trusted to nourish the limb, if the femoral artery were 
ligatured in " Hunter's canal " for the cure of popliteal 
aneurysm ; and he got this knowledge from the 
experiment that he had made on one of the deer in 
Richmond Park, to see the influence of ligature of 
the carotid artery on the growth of the antler. The 
following account of this experiment was given by Sir 
Richard Owen, who had it from Mr. Clift, Hunter's 
devoted pupil and friend :- 
"In the month of July, when the bucks' antlers were 
half-grown, he caused one to be caught and thrown ; and, 
knowing the arterial supply to the hot ' velvet ' as the 
keepers call it, Hunter cut down upon and tied the 
external carotid ; upon which, laying his hand upon the 
antler, he found that the pulsations of the arterial channels 
stopped, and the surface soon grew cold. The buck was 
released, and Hunter speculated on the result-whether 
the antler, arrested at midgrowth, would be shed like the 
full-grown one, or be longer retained. A week or so 
afterward, he drove down again to the park, and caused 
the buck to be caught and thrown. The wound was 
healed about the ligature ; but on laying his hand on the 
antler, he found to his surprise that the warmth had 
returned, and the channels of supply to the velvety forma- 
14 THE BLOOD 
tive covering were again pulsating. His first impression 
was that his operation had been defective. To test this, 
he had the buck killed and sent to Leicester Square. The 
arterial system was injected. Hunter found that the 
external carotid had been duly tied. But certain small 
branches, coming off on the proximal or heart's side of the 
ligature, had enlarged ; and, tracing-on these, he found 
that they had anastomosed with other small branches from 
the distal continuation of the carotid, and these new 
channels had restored the supply to the growing antler. 
.... Here was a consequence of his experiment he had 
not at all foreseen or expected. A new property of the 
living arteries was unfolded to him : capillaries can enlarge 
according to a ' stimulus of necessity.' " 
All the anatomists, from Vesalius onward, had over- 
looked this physiological change in the living body, 
brought about by disease. And the surgeons, since 
anatomy could not help them, had been driven by the 
mortality of the " old operationto the practice of 
amputation. 
To Hunter's study of the collateral circulation and 
of aneurysm must be added all his work on the nature 
and properties of the blood itself. 
After Hunter, came the use of the mercurial mano- 
meter (Poiseuille, 1828, and Ludwig, 1847), f°r a 
more accurate estimate of the blood-pressure than 
Hales had attempted ; the observations on the sounds 
of the heart, made by sub-committees of the British 
Association (1835-1840) ; Hering's work on the 
15 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
endocardial pressure (1849) 5 and the use of recording 
instruments by Volckmann (1850) and Chauveau and 
Marey (1863), for obtaining permanent tracings of 
the pressure-curves. Afterward came the use of the 
sphygmograph in practice. Finally, after the dis- 
covery of the vaso-motor nerves, and with the advance 
of physics and organic chemistry, came the study of 
those more abstruse problems of the circulation that 
the older physiologists had not so much as considered : 
the multiple influences of the central nervous system, 
the relations between blood-pressure and secretion, the 
automatism of the heart-beat, the influence of gravita- 
tion, and other finer and more complex issues of 
physiology. 
16 II 
THE LACTEALS 
I "'HE lacteal vessels in the mesentery were seen 
JL long ago, but not understood. Both Galen 
and Erasistratus had observed the milk-white threads, 
filled with chyle ; but had not traced them to the 
thoracic duct, that carries their contents into a vein 
near the heart. The lacteals, without the thoracic 
duct, were like a riddle without its answer ; and from 
the time of Galen down to the time of Harvey, men 
failed to study them. What Galen and Erasistratus 
had seen, Asellius and Pecquet discovered ; and 
Harvey gives a careful review of this discovery in his 
letters to Nardi (May, 1652) and to Morison 
(November, 1653). He does not accept it ; but the 
point is that he recognises it as a new thing, a dis- 
covery. Asellius (1622), by a single experiment, 
demonstrated the flow of chyle, and brought men to 
see the facts about it:- 
17 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
"I observed that the nerves of the intestines were 
quite distinct from these white threads, and ran a different 
course. Struck with this new fact, I was silent for a time, 
thinking of the bitter warfare of words among anatomists, as 
to the mesenteric veins and their purposes. When I 
came to myself, to satisfy myself by an experiment, I pierced 
one of the largest cords with a scalpel. I hit the right 
point, and at once observed a white liquid like milk flowing 
from the divided vessel." 
And he goes on to describe his pleasure at the won- 
derful sight : how he cried Eureka, and called his 
friends to see it. 
Jehan Pecquet (1647), in the course of an experi- 
ment on the heart, observed the flow of chyle into 
the subclavian vein, and its identity with the chyle in 
the lacteals : and, by further experiment, he found the 
thoracic duct, and the chyle flowing up it :- 
" I perceived a white substance, like milk, flowing from 
the vena cava ascendens into the pericardium, at the place 
where the right auricle had been. ... I found these 
vessels (the thoracic duct) all along the dorsal vertebrae, 
lying on the spine, beneath the aorta. They swelled 
below a ligature ; and when I relaxed it, I saw the milk 
carried to the orifices that I had observed in the subclavian 
veins." 
The Zoophilist says that " Aselli died in ignorance 
of the true bearing of his discovery. And twenty 
years later the anatomist Pecquet blew the theories of 
18 THE LACTEALS 
the vivisectionists to the winds." But here are Jehan 
Pecquet's exact words. And what he found had been 
overlooked by Vesalius and all the great anatomists of 
the Renaissance. 
19 in 
THE GASTRIC JUICE 
THE following account of the first experiments 
on digestion is taken from Claude Bernard's 
Physiologic Operatoire^ 1879 :- 
" The true experimental study of digestion is of com- 
paratively recent date ; the ancients were content to find 
comparisons, more or less happy, with common facts. 
Thus, for Hippocrates, digestion was a ' coction ' : for 
Galen, a ' fermentation ' as of wine in a vat. In later 
times, van Helmont started this comparison again : for 
him, digestion was a fermentation like that of bread : as 
the baker, having kneaded the bread, keeps a little of the 
dough to leaven the next lot kneaded, so, said van Helmont, 
the intestinal canal never completely empties itself, and 
the residue that it keeps after each digestion becomes the 
leaven that shall serve for the next digestion. 
" The first experimental studies on the digestion date 
from the end of the seventeenth century, when the 
Academy of Florence was the scene of a famous and long 
controversy between Borelli and Valisnieri. The former 
saw nothing more in digestion than a purely mechanical 
20 THE GASTRIC JUICE 
act, a work of attrition whereby the ingesta were finely 
divided and as it were pulverised : and in support of this 
opinion Borelli invoked the facts that he had observed 
relating to the gizzard of birds. We know that this sac, 
with its very thick muscular walls, can exercise on its 
contents pressure enough to break the hardest bodies. 
Identifying the human stomach with the bird's gizzard, 
Borelli was led to attribute to the walls of the stomach an 
enormous force, estimated at more than a thousand 
pounds ; whose action, he said, was the very essence of 
digestion. Valisnieri, on the contrary, having had occa- 
sion to open the stomach of an ostrich, had found there a 
fluid which seemed to act on bodies immersed in it ; this 
fluid, he said, was the active agent of digestion, a kind of 
aqua fortis that dissolved food. 
"These two opposed views, resulting rather from obser- 
vations than from regularly instituted experiments, were 
the starting-point of the experimental researches under- 
taken by Reaumur in 1752. To resolve the problem set 
by Borelli and Valisnieri, Reaumur made birds swallow 
food enclosed in fenestrated tubes, so that the food, pro- 
tected from the mechanical action of the walls of the 
stomach, was yet exposed to the action of the gastric fluid. 
The first tubes used (glass, tin, &c.) were crushed, bent, 
or flattened by the action of the walls of the gizzard ; and 
Reaumur failed to oppose to this force a sufficient resist- 
ance, till he employed leaden tubes thick enough not to be 
flattened by a pressure of 484 pounds : which was, in fact, 
the force exercised by the contractile walls of the gizzard 
in turkeys, ducks, and fowls under observation. These 
leaden tubes-filled with ordinary grain, and closed only 
by a netting that let pass the gastric juices-these tubes, 
after a long stay in the stomach, still enclosed grain wholly 
intact, if it had not been crushed before the experiment. 
When they were filled with meat it was found changed, 
21 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
but not digested. Reaumur was thus led at first to con- 
sider digestion, in the gallinaces, a pure and simple 
trituration. But, repeating these experiments on birds of 
prey, he observed that digestion in them consists essen- 
tially in dissolution, without any especial mechanical 
action, and that it is the same with the digestion of meat 
in all animals with membranous stomachs. To procure 
this dissolving fluid, Reaumur made the birds swallow 
sponges with threads attached : withdrawing these sponges 
after a definite period, he squeezed the fluid into a glass, 
and tested its action on meat. That was the first attempt 
at artificial digestion in vitro. He did not carry these last 
investigations very far, and did not obtain very decisive 
results : nevertheless he must be considered as the dis- 
coverer of artificial digestion." 
After Reaumur, the Abbe Spallanzani (1777) made 
similar observations on many other animals, including 
carnivora. He showed that even in the gallinaceae 
there was dissolution of food, not mere trituration : 
and observed how after death the gastric fluid may 
under certain conditions act on the walls of the 
stomach itself. 
"Henceforth the experimental method had cut the 
knot of the question raised by the theories of Borelli and 
Valisnieri : digestion could no longer be accounted any- 
thing but a dissolution of food by the fluid of the stomach, 
the gastric juice. But men had still to understand this 
gastric juice, and to determine its nature and mode of 
action. Nothing could be more contradictory than the 
views on this matter. Chaussier and Dumas, of Mont- 
pellier, regarded the gastric juice as of very variable com- 
22 THE GASTRIC JUICE 
position, one time alkaline, another acid, according to the 
food ingested. Side by side with these wholly theoretical 
opinions, certain results of experiments had led to ideas 
just as erroneous, for want of rigorous criticism of methods; 
it was thus that Montegre denied the existence of the 
gastric juice as a special fluid ; what men took for gastric 
juice, he said, was nothing but the saliva turned acid in 
the stomach. To prove his point, he made the following 
experiment : he masticated a bit of bread, then put it out 
on a plate : it was at first alkaline, then at the end of some 
time it became acid. In those days (1813) this experi- 
ment was a real embarrassment to the men who believed 
in the existence of a special gastric juice : we have now 
no need to refute it. 
" These few instances suffice to show how the physiolo- 
gists were unsettled as to the nature and properties of the 
gastric juice. Then (1823) the Academy had the happy 
idea of proposing digestion as a subject for a prize. 
Tiedemann and Gmelin in Germany, Leuretand Lassaigne 
in France, submitted works of equal merit, and the 
Academy divided the prize between them. The work of 
Tiedemann and Gmelin is of especial interest to us on 
account of the great number of their experiments, from 
which came not only the absolute proof of the existence 
of the gastric juice, but also the study of the transforma- 
tion of starch into glucose. Thus the theory of digestion 
entered a new phase : it was finally recognised, at least 
for certain substances, that digestion is not simply dissolu- 
tion, but a true chemical transformation." (Cl. Bernard, 
loc. cit.) 
In 1825 Dr. William Beaumont, a surgeon in the 
United States army, began his famous experiments on 
Alexis St. Martin, a young Canadian travelling for 
23 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
the American Fur Company, who was shot in the 
abdomen on June 6, 1822, and recovered, but was 
left with a permanent opening in his stomach. Since 
the surgery of those days did not favour an operation 
to close this fistula, Dr. Beaumont took St. Martin 
into his service, and between 1825 and 1833 made a 
vast number of experiments on him. These he pub- 
lished,1 and they were of great value. But, for the 
purpose of this book, it is to be noted that the ground 
had been cleared already, fifty years before, by Reaumur 
and Spallanzani :- 
" 1 make no claim to originality in my opinions, as it 
respects the existence and operation of the gastric juice. 
My experiments confirm the doctrines (with some modi- 
fications) taught by Spallanzani, and many of the most 
enlightened physiological writers." (Preface to Dr. Beau- 
mont's book.) 
Further, it is to be noted that Alexis St. Martin's 
case proves that a gastric fistula is not painful. Scores 
of experiments were made on him, off and on, for nine 
years :- 
" During the whole of these periods, from the spring of 
1824. to the present time (1833), he has enjoyed general 
good health, and perhaps suffered much less predisposition 
to disease than is common to men of his age and circum- 
stances in life. He has been active, athletic, and vigorous; 
exercising, eating, and drinking like other healthy and 
1 Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology 
of Digestion. By William Beaumont, M.D. Edinburgh, 1838. 
24 THE GASTRIC JUICE 
active people. For the last four months he has been 
unusually plethoric and robust, though constantly sub- 
jected to a continuous series of experiments on the interior 
of the stomach ; allowing to be introduced or taken out 
at the aperture different kinds of food, drinks, elastic 
catheters, thermometer tubes, gastric juice, chyme, &c., 
almost daily, and sometimes hourly. 
" Such have been this man's condition and circumstances 
for several years past ; and he now enjoys the most perfect 
health and constitutional soundness, with every function 
of the system in full force and vigour." (Dr. Beaumont, 
loc. cit., p. 20.) 
In 1834 Eberle published a series of observations on 
the extraction of gastric juice from the mucous mem- 
brane of the stomach after death; in 1842 Blondlot 
of Nancy studied the gastric juice of animals by the 
method of a fistula, such as Alexis St. Martin had 
offered for Dr. Beaumont's observation. After 
Blondlot, came experiments on the movements of 
the stomach, and on the manifold influences of the 
nervous system on digestion. 
It has been said, times past number, that an animal 
with a fistula is in pain. It is not true. The case of 
St. Martin is but one out of a multitude of these 
cases : an artificial orifice of this kind is not painful. 
25 IV 
GLYCOGEN 
CLAUDE BERNARD'S discovery of glycogen 
in the liver had a profound influence both 
on physiology and on pathology. Take first its 
influence on pathology. Diabetes was known to 
Celsus, Aretaeus, and Galen ; Willis, in 1674, and 
Morton, in 1675, noted the distinctive sweetness 
of the urine ; and their successors proved the presence 
of sugar in it. Rollo, in 1787, observed that vegetable 
food was bad for diabetic patients, and introduced the 
strict use of a meat diet. But Galen had believed 
that diabetes was a disease of the kidneys, and most 
men still followed him : nor did Rollo greatly advance 
pathology by following not Galen, but Aretaeus. 
Later, with the development of organic chemistry, 
came the work of Chevreuil (1815), Tiedemann 
and Gmelin (1823), an^ °ther illustrious chemists : 
and the pathology of diabetes grew more and more 
difficult :- 
26 GLYCOGEN 
"These observations gave rise to two theories : the one, 
that sugar is formed with abnormal rapidity in the intes- 
tine, absorbed into the blood, and excreted in the urine ; 
the other, that diabetes is due to imperfect destruction of 
the sugar, either in the intestine or in the blood. Some 
held that it underwent conversion into lactic acid as 
was passing through the intestinal walls, while others 
believed it to be destroyed in the blood by means of the 
alkali therein contained." 1 
Thus, before Claude Bernard (1813-1878), the 
pathology of diabetes was almost worthless. And, in 
physiology, his work was hardly less important than 
the work of Harvey. A full account of it, in all 
its bearings, is given in Sir Michael Foster's Life of 
Claude Bernard (Fisher Unwin, 1899). 
In his Lemons sur le Diabete et la Glycogenese Animale 
(Paris, 1877), there is a sentence that has been mis- 
quoted many times :- 
Sans doute, nos snains sont vides aujourd' hui, mats 710tre 
bouche peut etre pleine de legitimes promesses pour dauenir. 
This sentence has been worked so hard that some 
of the words have got rubbed off it : and the state- 
ment generally made is of this kind :- 
Claude Bernard himself confessed that his hand's were 
empty, but his mouth was full of promises. 
Of course, he did not mean that he was wrong in 
his facts. But, in this particular lecture, he is 
1 ^ynolds' System of Medicine, vol. v. : Art., Diabetes Mellitus. 
27 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
speaking of the want of more science in practice, 
looking forward to a time when treatment should be 
based on science, not on tradition. Medicine, he says, 
is neither science nor art. Not science-Trouverait- 
on aujourd'hui un seul medecin raisonnable et instruit 
osant dire qfil prevoit d'une manure certaine la marche 
et Tissue d^une maladie ou Tefft d'une remade ? Not 
art, because art has always something to show for 
its trouble : a statue, a picture, a poem-Le medecin 
artiste ne cree rien, et ne laisse aucune oeuvre d'art, 
a moins d'appliquer ce titre a la guerison du malade. 
Mais quand le malade meurt, est-ce egalement son 
oeuvre T Et quand il guerit, peut-il distinguer sa part 
de celle de la nature T 
To Claude Bernard, experiments on animals for the 
direct advancement of medicine seemed a new thing : 
new, at all events, in comparison with the methods 
of some men of his time. He was only saying what 
a great English physiologist had said in 1875 to the 
Royal Commission :- 
It is my profound conviction that a future will come, it 
may be a somewhat distant future, in which the treatment 
of disease will be really guided by science, fust as com- 
pletely as mechanical science has come to be the guide of the 
mechanical arts, do I believe, and I feel confident, that 
physiological science will eventually come to be the guide of 
medicine and surgery. 
Anyhow^ lecturing a quarter of a century ago on 
diabetes, his special subject, Claude Bernard spoke 
28 GLYCOGEN 
out his longing to compel men into the ways of 
science, to give them some immediate sign which 
they could not refuse to see :- 
" At this present time, medicine is passing from one 
period to another. The old traditions are losing ground, 
and scientific medicine {la medecine experiment-ale} has got 
hold of all our younger men : every day it gains ground, 
and will establish itself against all its critics, and in spite 
of the excesses of those who are over-zealous for its 
honour. . . . And when men ask us what are the results 
of scientific medicine, we are driven to answer that it is 
scarcely born, that it is still in the making. Those who 
care for nothing but an immediate practical application 
must remember Franklin's words, What is the use of a 
new-born child, but to become a man ? If you deliberately 
reject scientific medicine, you fail to see the natural 
development of man's mind in all the sciences. Without 
doubt, our hands are empty to-day, but our mouth may 
well be filled with legitimate promises for the future." 
He died in 1878. The following account of his 
discovery of glycogen is taken from his Nouvelle 
Fonction du Foie (Paris, 1853) •- 
" My first researches into the assimilation and destruc- 
tion of sugar in the living organism were made in 1843 : 
and in my inaugural thesis (Dec., 1843) I published my 
first experiments on the subject. I succeeded in demon- 
strating a fact hitherto unknown, that cane-sugar cannot 
be directly destroyed in the blood. If you inject even 
a very small quantity of cane-sugar, dissolved in water, 
into the blood or under the skin of a rabbit, you find 
it again in the urine unchanged, with all its chemical 
29 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
properties the same. ... I had soon to give up my first 
point of view, because this question of the existence of 
a sugar-producing organ, that I had thought such a hard 
problem of physiology, was really the first thing revealed 
to me, as it were of itself, at once." 
He kept two dogs on different diets, one with 
sugar, the other without it; then killed them during 
digestion, and tested the blood in the hepatic veins :- 
" What was my surprise, when I found a considerable 
quantity of sugar in the hepatic veins of"the dog that had 
been fed on meat only, and had been kept for eight days 
without sugar : just as I found it in the other dog that 
had been fed for the same time on food rich in sugar. . . . 
"Finally, after many attempts-aprbs beaucoup d'essais et 
plusieurs illusions que je fus oblige de rectifier par des 
tatonnements-I succeeded in showing, that in dogs fed on 
meat the blood passing through the portal vein does not 
contain sugar before it reaches the liver ; but when it 
leaves the liver, and comes by the hepatic veins into the 
inferior vena cava, this same blood contains a considerable 
quantity of a sugary substance (glucose)." 
His further discovery, that this formation of sugar 
is increased by puncture of the floor of the fourth 
ventricle, was published in 1849. It 's impossible 
to exaggerate the importance of Claude Bernard's 
single-handed work in this field of physiology and 
pathology :- 
" As a mere contribution to the history of sugar within 
the animal body, as a link in the chain of special pro- 
blems connected with digestion and nutrition, its value 
30 GLYCOGEN 
was very great. Even greater, perhaps, was its effect 
as a contribution to general views. The view that the 
animal body, in contrast to the plant, could not construct, 
could only destroy, was, as we have seen, already being 
shaken. But evidence, however strong, offered in the 
form of numerical comparisons between income and 
output, failed to produce anything like the conviction 
which was brought home to every one by the demon- 
stration that a substance was actually formed within the 
animal body, and by the exhibition of the substance so 
formed. 
"No less revolutionary was the demonstration that the 
liver had other things to do in the animal economy besides 
secreting bile. This, at one blow, destroyed the then 
dominant conception that the animal body was to be 
regarded as a bundle of organs, each with its appropriate 
function, a conception which did much to narrow inquiry, 
since when a suitable function had once been assigned 
to an organ there seemed no need for further investiga- 
tions. . . . 
"No less pregnant of future discoveries was the idea 
suggested by this newly found-out action of the hepatic 
tissue, the idea happily formulated by Bernard as ' internal 
secretion.' No part of physiology is at the present day 
being more fruitfully studied than that which deals with 
the changes which the blood undergoes as it sweeps 
through the several tissues, changes by the careful adapta- 
tion of which what we call the health of the body is 
secured, changes the failure or discordance of which 
entails disease. The study of these internal secretions 
constitutes a path of inquiry which has already been trod 
with conspicuous success, and which promises to lead to 
untold discoveries of the greatest moment ; the gate to 
this path was opened by Bernard's work." (Sir M. Foster, 
loc. cit.) 
31 V 
THE PANCREAS 
HERE again Claude Bernard's name must be put 
first. Before him, the diverse actions of the 
pancreatic juice had hardly been studied. Vesalius 
(1543), greatest of all anatomists, makes no mention 
of the duct of the pancreas, and speaks of the gland 
itself as though its purpose were just to support the 
parts in its neighbourhood-ut ventriculo instar sub- 
sterniculi ac pulvinaris subjiciatur. The duct was 
discovered by Wirsung, about 1640 : but anatomy 
could not see the things that belong to physiology. 
Lindanus (1653) said, I cannot doubt that the pancreas 
expurgates, in the ordinary course of Nature, those im- 
purities of the blood that are too crass and inept to be tamed 
by the spleen: and, in the extraordinary course, all black 
bile, begotten of disease or intemperate living. Wharton 
(1656) said, It ministers to the nerves, taking up certain 
of their superfluities, and remitting them through its duct 
32 THE PANCREAS 
into the intestines. And Tommaso Bartholini (1666) 
called it the biliary vesicle of the spleen. 
This chaos of ideas was brought into some sort of 
order by Regnier de Graaf, pupil of Francois de Bois 
(Sylvius). De Bois had guessed that the pancreas 
must be considered not according to its position in the 
body, but according to its structure : that it was 
analogous to the salivary glands. He urged his pupil 
to make experiments on it : and de Graaf says- 
" I put my hand to the work : and though many times 
I despaired of success, yet at last, by the blessing of God 
on my work and prayers, in the year 1662 I discovered a 
way of collecting the pancreatic juice." 
And, by further experiment, he refuted Bartholini's 
theory that the pancreas was dependent on the spleen. 
Sylvius had supposed that the pancreatic juice was 
slightly acid, and de Graaf failed to note this mistake ; 
but it was corrected by Bohn's experiments in 
1710. 
Nearly two hundred years come between Regnier 
de Graaf and Claude Bernard : it is no wonder that 
Sir Michael Foster says that de Graaf's work was 
"very imperfect and fruitless." So late as 1840, there 
was yet no clear understanding of the action of the 
pancreas. Physiology could not advance without 
organic chemistry : de Graaf could no more discover 
the amylolytic action of the pancreatic juice than 
Galvani could invent wireless telegraphy. The 
33 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
physiologists had to wait till chemistry was ready to 
help them :- 
" Of course, while physical and chemical laws were still 
lost in a chaos of undetermined facts, it was impossible that 
men should analyse the phenomena of life : first, because 
these phenomena go back to the laws of chemistry and 
physics ; and next, because they cannot be studied with- 
out the apparatus, instruments, and all other methods of 
analysis that we owe to the laboratories of the chemists and 
the physicists." (Cl. Bernard, Phys. Oper. p. 6l.) 
Therefore de Graaf failed, because he got no help 
from other sciences. But it cannot be called failure ; 
he must be contrasted with the men of his time, 
Lindanus and Bartholini, facts against theories, not 
with men of this century. And Claude Bernard went 
back to de Graaf's method of the fistula, having to 
guide him the facts of chemistry observed by Valentin, 
Tiedemann and Gmelin, and Eberle. His work 
began in 1846, and the Academic des Sciences awarded 
a prize to it in 1850 :- 
"Let this vague conception (the account of the pancreas 
given in Johannes Muller's Text-book of Physiology) be 
compared with the knowledge which we at present have of 
the several distinct actions of the pancreatic juice, and of 
the predominant importance of this fluid not only in 
intestinal digestion, but in digestion as a whole, and it will 
be at once seen what a great advance has taken place in 
this matter since the early forties. That advance we owe 
in the main to Bernard. Valentin, it is true, had in 1844 
not only inferred that the pancreatic juice had an action 
34 THE PANCREAS 
on starch, but confirmed his view by actual experiment 
with the juice expressed from the gland ; and Eberle had 
suggested that the juice had some action on fat ; but 
Bernard at one stroke made clear its threefold action. He 
showed that it on the one hand emulsified, and on the 
other hand split up, into fatty acids and glycerine, the 
neutral fats ; he clearly proved that it had a powerful 
action on starch, converting it into sugar ; and lastly, he 
laid bare its remarkable action on proteid matters." (Sir 
Michael Foster, loc. cit.} 
Finally came the discovery that the pancreas-apart 
from its influences on digestion-contributes its share, 
like the ductless glands, to the general chemistry of 
the body :- 
" It was discovered, a few years ago, by von Mering and 
Minkowski, that if, instead of merely diverting its secre- 
tion, the pancreas is bodily removed, the metabolic pro- 
cesses of the organism, and especially the metabolism of 
carbo-hydrates, are entirely deranged, the result being the 
production of permanent diabetes. But if even a very 
small part of the gland is left within the body, the carbo- 
hydrate metabolism remains unaltered, and there is no 
diabetes. The small portion of the organ which has been 
allowed to remain (and which need not even be left in its 
proper place, but may be transplanted under the skin or 
elsewhere) is sufficient, by the exchanges which go on 
between it and the blood generally, to prevent those serious 
consequences to the composition of the blood, and the 
general constitution of the body, which result from the 
complete removal of this organ." (Prof. Schafer, 1894..) 
Here, in this present study of " pancreatic diabetes," 
35 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
by Dr. Vaughan Harley and others, are facts as 
important as any that Bernard made out: in no way 
contradicting his work, but added to it. The pancreas 
is no longer taken to be only a sort of salivary gland 
out of place : over and above the secretion that it 
pours into the intestines, it has an " internal secretion," 
a constituent of the blood : it belongs not only to the 
digestive system, but also, like the thyroid gland and 
the supra-renal capsules, to the whole chemistry of the 
blood and the tissues. So far has physiology come, 
unaided by anatomy, from the fantastic notions of 
Lindanus and the men of his time : and has come 
every inch of the way by the help of experiments on 
animals. 
36 VI 
THE GROWTH OF BONE 
'"T^HE work of du Hamel proved that the periosteum 
A is one chief agent in the growth of bone. 
Before him, this great fact of physiology was unknown ; 
for the experiments made by Anthony de Heide 
(1684), who studied the production of callus in the 
bones of frogs, were wholly useless, and serve only to 
show that men in his time knew nothing about the 
natural growth of bone :- 
" From these experiments it appears--forsan probatur- 
that callus is generated by extravasated blood, whose fluid 
particles being slowly exhaled, the residue takes the form 
of the bone : which process may be further advanced by 
deciduous halitus from the ends of the broken bone." 
And Clopton Havers, in his Osteologia Nova (London, 
1691) goes so far the wrong way that he attributes to 
the periosteum not the production of bone, but the 
prevention of over-production ; the periosteum is put 
37 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
round the shaft of a bone to compress it, and prevent 
it from growing too large. 
Du Hamel's discovery (1739-1743) came out of a 
chance observation, made by John Belchier,1 that the 
bones of animals fed near dye-works were stained with 
the dye. Belchier therefore put a bird on food mixed 
with madder, and found that its bones had taken up 
the stain. Then du Hamel studied the whole subject 
by a series of experiments. To estimate the advance 
that he gave to physiology, contrast de Heide's fanciful 
language with the title of one of du Hamel's papers- 
^uatrieme Memoire sur les Os, dans lequel on se propose 
de rapporter de nouvelles preuves qui etablissent que les os 
croissent en grosseur par ^addition de couches osseuses qui 
tirent leur origine du perioste, comme le corps ligneux des 
Arbres augmente en grosseur par d audition de couches 
ligneuses qui se forment dans Vecorce. Or take an 
example of du Hamel's method :- 
'' Three pigs were destined to clear up my doubts. 
The first, six weeks old, was, fed for a month on ordinary 
1 "An Account of the Bones of Animals being changed to a red Colour 
by Aliment only.'' By John Belchier, F.R.S., Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 
1735-36. There is a letter from Sir Hans Sloane, then President of the 
Royal Society, to M. Geoffroy, member of the French Academy :- 
" M. Belchier, chirurgien, membre de cette Societe, dmant un jour chez 
un Teinturier qui travaille en Toiles peintes, remarqua que dans un Pore 
frais qu'on avoit servi sur table, et dont la chair etoit de bon gout, les os 
etoient rouges. Il demanda la cause d'un effet si singulier, et on lui dit 
que ces sortes de Teinturiers se servoient de la racine de RubiaTinctorum, 
ou garence, pour fixer les couleurs deja imprimees sur les Toiles de cotton, 
qu'on appelle en Angleterre callicoes." This passage of dye into the 
bones of animals had been noted so far back as 1573, by Antoine 
Mizald, a doctor in Paris-Erytkrodanum, wilga rubia tinctorum, ossa 
fecudutn rubenti et sandycino colore imbuit. 
38 THE GROWTH OF BONE 
food, with an ounce daily of madder-juice-garence grappe 
-put in it. At the end of the month, we stopped the 
juice, and fed the pig in the ordinary way for six weeks, 
and then killed it. The marrow of the bones was 
surrounded by a fairly thick layer of white bone : this 
was the formation of bone during the first six weeks of 
life, without madder. This ring of white bone was sur- 
rounded by another zone of red bone : this was the 
formation of bone during the administration of the 
madder. Finally, this red zone was covered with a 
fairly thick layer of white bone : this was the layer 
formed after the madder had been left off. ... We shall 
have no further difficulty in understanding whence tran- 
sudes the osseous juice that was thought necessary for the 
formation of callus and the filling-up of the wounds of the 
bones, now we see that it is the periosteum that fills up the 
wounds, or is made thick round the fractures, and after- 
ward becomes of the consistence of cartilage, and at last 
acquires the hardness of bones." 
These results, confirmed by Bazan (1746) and 
Boehmer (1751), were far beyond anything that had 
yet been known about the periosteum. But the 
growth of bone is a very complex process : the 
naked eye sees only the grosser changes that come 
with it ; and du Hamel's ingenious comparison 
between the periosteum and the bark of trees was 
too simple to be exact. Therefore his work was 
opposed by Haller, and by Dethleef, Haller's pupil : 
and the great authority of Haller's name, and the 
difficulties lying beyond du Hamel's plain facts, 
brought about a long period of uncertainty. Borde- 
39 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
nave (1756) found reasons for supporting Haller ; and 
Fougeroux (1760) supported du Hamel. Thus men 
came to study the whole subject with more accuracy 
-the growth in length, as well as the growth in 
thickness ; the medullary cavity, the development 
of bone, the nutrition and absorption of bone. 
Among those who took up the work were Bichat, 
Hunter, Troja, and Cruveilhier : and they recognised 
the surgical aspect of these researches in physiology. 
After them, the periosteal growth of bone became, as 
it were, a part of the principles of surgery. From this 
point of view of practice, issued the experiments made 
by Syme (1837) and Stanley (1849). Finally, with 
the rise of anaesthetics and of the antiseptic method, 
came the work of Ollier, of Lyon, whose good 
influence on the treatment of these cases can hardly 
be over-estimated. 
40 VII 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
FROM Galen to the Renaissance, the facts of 
physiology made no great advance. The 
authority of Gaien, long after the Renaissance, still 
held good : men forgot his experimental work, and 
worshipped his name and his doctrines. The ghost or 
Galen was not laid even by Paracelsus and Vesalius ; 
it haunted our own College of Physicians so late as 
the middle of the seventeenth century. And this 
neglect of Galen's method of experiments on animals 
is well seen in the history of the physiology of the 
nervous system. Sir Charles Bell took up the ex- 
perimental study of the nervous system where Galen 
had left it; you go from the time of Commodus to 
the time of George the Third, and find Bell putting 
the finishing touch to Galen's work. It is true that 
experiments had been made on the nervous system by 
the men who came before Bell ; but they had got 
overwhelmed with theories. Some of these theories 
41 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
have but lately gone-the nonsense of phrenology, 
the doctrine that the brain " moves as a whole," the 
popular belief that its surface is sensitive to touch.1 
To see how imagination had run riot over the 
nervous system, take Dr. Risien Russell's list of 
theories about the cerebellum :- 
" Galen was of opinion that the cerebellum must be the 
originator of a large amount of vital force. After him, 
and up to the time of Willis, the prevalent idea seems to 
have been that it was the seat of memory; while Bourillon 
considered it the seat of instinct and intelligence. Willis 
supposed that it presided over involuntary movements and 
organic functions ; and this view, though refuted by 
Haller, continued in the ascendency for some time. Some 
believed strongly in its influence on the functions of 
organic life ; and according to some, diseases of the cere- 
bellum appeared to tell on the movements of the heart. . . . 
Haller believed it to be the seat of sensations, as well as the 
source of voluntary power ; and there were many sup- 
porters of the theory that the cerebellum was the seat of the 
sensory centres. Renzi considered this organ the nervous 
centre by which we perceive the reality of the external 
world, and direct and fix our senses on the things round 
us. Gall, and later Broussais, and others, held that this 
organ presided over the instinct of reproduction, or the 
propensity to love ; while Carus regarded it as the seat of 
1 Aristotle, who more than once speaks of experiments on animals, 
says, " In no animal has the blood any feeling when touched, any more 
than the excretions ; nor has the brain, or the marrow, any feeling when 
touched." Or we may take Sir Charles Bell's word for it : "I have had 
my finger deep in the anterior lobes of the brain, when the patient, being 
at the time acutely sensible, and capable of expressing himself, complained 
only of the integument." But the fact is so well known that there is 
no need to quote evidence for it. 
42 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
the will also. Rolando looked on it as the source of origin 
of all movements. Jessen adduced arguments in favour of 
its being the central organ of feeling, or of the soul, and 
the principal seat of the sensations." 
If a better understanding of the nervous system 
could have been got without experiments on animals, 
why had men to wait so long for it ? The Italian 
anatomists had long ago given them all the anatomy 
that could help them. The hospitals, and practice, 
had given them many hundred years of clinical facts; 
nervous diseases and head injuries were common enough 
in the Middle Ages ; and by the time of Ambroise 
Pare, if not before, post-mortem examinations were 
allowed. The one thing wanted was the experimental 
method ; and, for want of it, the physiology of the 
nervous system stood still. Then, in 1811, came 
Bell's work. It is most true, that the experimental 
method is but a part of the science of medicine ; that 
experiment and experience ought to go together like 
the convexity and the concavity of a curve. But it is 
true also that men owe their deliverance from igno- 
rance about the nervous system rather to experiments 
on animals than to any other method of observing 
facts. Galen showed the way; Bell, Magendie, 
Marshall Hall, and Claude Bernard, led the way out; 
and the men who followed them are our leaders now. 
i. Sir Charles Bell. 
The great authority of Sir Charles Bell has been 
43 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
quoted a thousand times against all experiments on 
animals :- 
" Experiments have never been the means of discovery ; 
and a survey of what has been attempted of late years in 
physiology, will prove that the opening of living animals 
has done more to perpetuate error than to confirm the 
just views taken from the study of anatomy and natural 
motions." 
He wrote, of course, in the days before bacteriology, 
before anaesthetics ; he had in his mind neither inocu- 
lations, nor any observations made under chloroform 
or ether, but just "the opening of living animals." 
He had also in his mind, and always in it, a great 
dislike against the school of Magendie. Let all that 
pass ; our only concern here is to know whether these 
words are true of his own work. 
They occur in a paper, " On the Motions of the 
Eye, in Illustration of the Uses of the Muscles and 
Nerves of the Orbit"; communicated by Sir Humphry 
Davy to the Royal Society, and read March 20, 
1823.1 This essay was one of a series of papers on 
the nervous system, presented to the Royal Society 
during the years 1821-1829. In 1830, having 
already published four of these papers under the title, 
"The Exposition of the Nervous System," Bell pub- 
lished all six of them, under the title, " The Nervous 
System of the Human Body." 
1 This paper includes an " Experimental Enquiry into the Action of 
these Muscles," giving an account of an experiment on the eye. 
44 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
In his Preface to this book (1830) he quotes the 
earliest of all his printed writings on the nervous 
system, a pamphlet, printed in 1811, under the title, 
"An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain, Submitted 
for the Observation of the Author's Friends." We 
have therefore two statements of his work, one in 
1811, the other in 1823 and 1830. The first of 
them was written when his work was still new before 
his eyes. 
Those who say that experiments did not help Bell 
in his great discovery-the difference between the 
anterior and the posterior nerve-roots-appeal to 
certain passages in the 1830 volume :- 
" In a foreign review of my former papers, the results 
have been considered as a further proof in favour of ex- 
periments. They are, on the contrary, deductions from 
anatomy ; and I have had recourse to experiments, not to 
form my own opinions, but to impress them upon others. 
It must be my apology that my utmost efforts of persuasion 
were lost, while I urged my statements on the grounds of 
anatomy alone. I have made few experiments ; they 
have been simple and easily performed, and I hope are 
decisive. . . . 
" My conceptions of this matter arose by inference 
from the anatomical structure ; so that the few experi- 
ments which have been made were directed only to the 
verification of the fundamental principles on which the 
system is established." 
If it were not for the 1811 pamphlet, the opponents 
of all experiments on animals might claim Sir Charles 
45 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Bell on their side. But while his work was still a 
new thing, he spoke in another way of it :- 
"I found that injury done to the anterior portion of 
the spinal marrow convulsed the animal more certainly 
than injury to the posterior portion ; but I found it 
difficult to make the experiment without injuring both 
portions. 
" Next, considering that the spinal nerves have a double 
root, and being of opinion that the properties of the nerves 
are derived from their connexions with the parts of the 
brain, I thought that 1 had an opportunity of putting my 
opinion to the test of experiment, and of proving at the same 
time that nerves of different endowments were in the 
same cord (nerve-trunk) and held together by the same 
sheath. 
" On laying bare the roots of the spinal nerves, I found 
that I could cut across the posterior fasciculus of nerves, 
which took its origin from the posterior portion of the 
spinal marrow, without convulsing the muscles of the 
back ; but that on touching the anterior fasciculus with 
the point of the knife, the muscles of the back were im- 
mediately convulsed. 
" Such were my reasons for concluding that the cerebrum 
and cerebellum were parts distinct in function, and that 
every nerve possessing a double function obtained that by 
having a double root. 1 now saw the meaning of the 
double connexion of the nerves with the spinal marrow ; 
and also the cause of that seeming intricacy in the con- 
nexions of nerves throughout their course, which were 
not double at their origins." 
It is impossible to reconcile the 1830 sentences with 
this vivid personal account of himself; I had an oppor- 
46 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
tunity of putting my opinion to the test of experiment . . . 
an opportunity of proving. . . . Such were my reasons for 
concluding. ... I now saw. ... It is just what all 
men of science say of their experiments : the very 
phrase of Archimedes, and Asellius, and de Graaf. 
If Sir Charles Bell had been working at the facts of 
chemistry or of botany, who would have doubted the 
meaning of these words ? 
This same inconsistency of sentences occurs else- 
where in his " Nervous System of the Human Body." 
In one place he says that he has made few experi- 
ments : They have been simple, and easily performed, 
and I hope are decisive. In another he says, w After 
making several experiments on the cerebrum and cerebellum, 
I laid the question of their functions entirely aside, and 
confined myself to the investigation of the spinal 
marrow and the nerves ; a subject which I found more 
within my power, and which forms the substance of 
the present volume." 
Or take his account of the cranial nerves :- 
" It was necessary to know, in the first place, whether 
the phenomena exhibited on injuring the separate roots 
corresponded with what was suggested by their ana- 
tomy. . . . 
" Here a difficulty arose. An opinion prevailed that 
ganglions were intended to cut off sensation ; and every 
one of these nerves, w'hich I supposed were the instru- 
ments of sensation, have ganglions on their roots. Some 
very decided experiment was necessary to overturn this 
dogma. (Account of the experiment.) By pursuing the 
47 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
inquiry, it was found that a ganglionic nerve is the sole 
organ of sensation in the head and face : ganglions were 
therefore no hindrance to sensation ; and thus my opinion 
was confirmed. ... It now became obvious why the third, 
sixth, and ninth nerves of the encephalon were single 
nerves in their roots. . . . 
" Observing that there was a portion of the fifth nerve 
which did not enter the ganglion of that nerve, and being 
assured of the fact by the concurring testimony or 
anatomists, I conceived that the fifth nerve was in fact 
the uppermost nerve of the spine. . . . This opinion was 
confirmed by experiment. . . . (Account of an experiment 
on the dead body). On dividing the root of the nerve 
in a living animal, the jaw fell relaxed. Thus its functions 
are no longer matter of doubt : it is at once a muscular 
nerve and a nerve of sensibility. And thus the opinion is 
confirmed, that the fifth nerve is to the head, what the 
spinal nerves are to the other parts of the body, in respect 
to sensation and volition." 
The value of the experimental method could hardly 
be stated in more emphatic words. He supposed 
something, conceived it, had an opinion about it. 
Anatomy had suggested something to him. He put 
his opinion to the test of phenomena, that is to say, 
to the test of visible facts ; and then his opinion was 
confirmed. As with the spinal nerve-roots, so with 
the fifth cranial nerve-his work was successful, because 
he followed the way of experiment. 
He was by nature of a most complex and sensitive 
temperament, full of contrary forces, one man in 1811, 
another in 1830. In 1811 he wrote, I now saw the 
48 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
meaning of the double connexion of the nerves; in 1830 he 
had come to hate the stupid sterile materialism of the 
French school : he beheld anatomy falling behind 
physiology, and his Windmill Street school perishing 
to make way for the Hospital schools and for the 
University of London. He was before everything 
else a great anatomist: he stood up for the honour 
of anatomy against the new physiology, and for the 
honour of the Monroes and the Hunters against 
Magendie : he hated the notion that any man should 
proceed to experiments on function till the very last 
secrets had been got out of structure. He died a few 
years afterward. The 1830 writings are his last 
stand for the defence of his country, his school, 
and his beloved anatomy, against the methods of 
Magendie; who said of himself, " I am a mere 
street scavenger, chiffonier, of science. With my 
hook in my hand and my basket on my back, I 
go about the streets of science, collecting what I 
find." 
This open conflict between Bell's first and last 
thoughts is a part of his character : he was brilliant, 
impulsive, changeable, inconsistent; and, what is more 
important, his honour kept him from trying to evade 
this trumpery charge of inconsistency ; and he re- 
printed the 1811 Preface in the book that he published 
in 1830. Doubtless he would have picked his words 
more carefully if he had foreseen that one of the 1830 
sentences would be wrested out of its place in his life's 
49 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
work, and used as false evidence against the very 
method that he followed.1 
His observations on the cranial nerves brought about 
an immediate change in the practice of surgery :- 
"Up to the time that Sir Charles Bell made his experi- 
ments on the nerves of the face, it was the common 
custom of surgeons to divide the facial nerve for the 
relief of neuralgia, tic douleureux; whereas it exercises, 
and was proved by Sir Charles Bell to exercise, no in- 
fluence over sensation, and its division consequently for the 
relief of pain was a useless operation." (Sir J. Erichsen.) 
2. Marshall Hall. 
Reflex action had been studied long before the 
time of Marshall Hall. Sir Robert Boyle (1663) 
had observed the movements and actions of decapi- 
tated vipers, flies, silkworms, and butterflies. Similar 
observations were made on frogs, eels, and other lower 
animals, by Redi, Woodward, Stuart, Le Gallois, and 
Sir Gilbert Blane. According to Richet, it was 
Willis who first gave the name reflex to these move- 
ments. 
It cannot be said that these first studies of reflex 
1 The relation of Magendie's work on the nerve-roots to Bell's work 
need not be considered here. The exact dates of Bell's observations are 
given by one of his pupils in the Preface to the 1830 volume. Magendie 
finally proved the sensory nature of the posterior nerve-roots : " The 
exact and full proof which he brought forward of the truth which Charles 
Bell had divined rather than demonstrated, that the anterior and posterior 
roots of spinal nerves have essentially different functions-a truth which 
is the very foundation of the physiology of the nervous system-is 
enough by itself to mark him as a great physiologist," (Sir M. Foster, 
loc. cit.) 
50 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
action did much for physiology. But the following 
translation from Prochaska (1800) shows how they 
cleared the way for Marshall Hall's work, by the 
proof that they gave of the liberation of nervous 
energy in the spinal cord 
" These movements of animals after decapitation must 
needs be by consent and commerce betwixt the spinal 
nerves. For a decapitated frog, if it be pricked, not only 
draws away the part that is pricked, but also creeps and 
jumps ; which cannot happen but by consent betwixt 
the sensory nerves and the motor nerves. The seat of 
which consent must needs be in the spinal cord, the only 
remaining portion of the sensorium. And this reflexion of 
sensory impressions into motor impressions is not accomplished 
in obedience to physical laws alone-wherein the angle of 
reflexion is equal to the angle of incidence, and reaction to 
action-but it follows special laws as it were written by 
Nature on the spinal cord, which we can know only by their 
effects, but cannot fathom with the understanding. But the 
general law, whereby the sensorium reflects sensory im- 
pressions into motor impressions, is the preservation of 
ourselves." 
It was not possible, in 1800, to go further, or to 
put the facts of reflex action more clearly: but this 
fine sentence gives no hint of the truth that guided 
Marshall Hall-that the " consent and commerce " 
of reflex action are to be found at definite points or 
levels in the spinal cord ; that the cord no more 
" works as a whole " than the brain. The greatness 
of Marshall Hall's work lies in his recognition of the 
51 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
divisional action of the cord : he proved the existence 
of definite centres in it, he discovered the facts of 
spinal localisation, and thus foreshadowed the discovery 
of cerebral localisation. In his earlier writings 
(1832-33) he showed how the movements of the 
trunk and of the limbs are only one sort of reflex 
action ; how the larynx, the pharynx, and the 
sphincter muscles, all act by the " consent and com- 
merce" of the spinal cord. Later, in 1837, he 
demonstrated the course of nerve-impulses along the 
cord from one level to another, the results of direct 
stimulation of the cord, and other facts of spinal 
localisation. He noted the different effects of opium 
and of strychnine on reflex action ; and he extended 
the doctrines of reflex action beyond physiology to 
the convulsive movements of the body in certain 
diseases.1 
3. Flourens. 
Beside his work on the nervous system, Flourens 
(1794-1867) studied the periosteal growth of bone, 
and the action of chloroform ;2 but he is best known 
by his experiments on the respiratory centre and the 
1 Contrast with Marshall Hall's writings a sentence quoted in 
Bryan's Antivivisection Evidences (1895) : "No experiments at all are 
needed for demonstrating the processes of reflex action." 
2 When Flourens died, Claude Bernard was appointed to his place in 
the French Academy; and, in the Discours de Reception (May 27, 
1869), said, "It is twenty-two years since the discovery of anaesthesia by 
ether came to us from the New World, and spread rapidly over Europe. 
M. Flourens was the first man who showed that chloroform is more 
active than ether." 
52 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
cerebellum. The men who interpreted the nervous 
system followed the anatomical course of that system: 
first the nerve-roots, then the cord, then the 
medulla oblongata and the cerebellum, and last the 
cerebral hemispheres ; a steady upward advance, from 
the observation of decapitated insects to the locali- 
sation of centres in the human brain. Flourens, by 
his work on the medulla oblongata, localised the 
respiratory centre, the nerve-cells for the reflex move- 
ments of respiration :- 
" M. Flourens a circonscrit ce centre avec une scrupu- 
leuse precision, et lui a donne le nom de nceud vital." 
(Cl. Bernard.) 
Afterward came the discovery of cardiac and other 
centres in the same portion of the nervous system. 
Flourens also showed that the cerebellum is concerned 
with the equilibration of the body, and with the co- 
ordination of muscular movements ; that an animal, 
a few days old, deprived of sensation and consciousness 
by removal of the cerebral hemispheres, was yet able 
to stand and move forward, but, when the cerebellum 
was removed, its muscles lost all co-ordinate action. 
(Recherches Experimentales., Paris, 1842.) And from 
his work, and the work of those who followed him, 
on the semicircular canals of the internal ear, came 
the evidence that these minute structures are the 
terminal organs of equilibration : that as the special 
senses have their terminal apparatus and their central 
53 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
apparatus, so the semicircular canals and the cere- 
bellum are the terminal and central apparatus for the 
sense of equilibrium. 
4. Claude Bernard. 
The discovery of the vaso-motor nerves, and of the 
control of the nervous system over the calibre of the 
arteries, was made by Claude Bernard at the outset 
of his work on the influence of the nervous system 
on the temperature.1 The evidence of Professor 
Sharpey before the Royal Commission of 1875 shows 
how things had been misjudged, before Bernard's 
time, in the light of views taken from the Study oj 
Anatomy and Natural Motions:- 
" I remember that Sir Charles Bell gave the increased 
size of the vessels in blushing, and their fulness of blood, 
as an example of the increased action of the arteries in 
driving on the blood. It turns out to be just the reverse, 
inasmuch as it is owing to a paralysis of the nerves 
governing the muscular coats of the arteries." 
Claude Bernard's first account of his work was 
communicated to the Society de Biologie in December, 
1851. The following description is taken from his 
Lemons de Physiologic Operatoire:- 
1 A full account of this discovery, and of its relation to the experi- 
ments of Brown Sequard, Waller, and Budge, is given by Sir Michael 
Foster in his Life of Claude Bernard ; and the question of priority 
between Bernard and Brown Sequard need not be considered here, for 
the experimental method was the only way open to either of them. 
54 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
" I will remind you how I was led to the discovery of 
the vaso-motor nerves. Starting from the clinical obser- 
vation, made long ago, that in paralysed limbs you find 
at one time an increase of cold, and at another an increase 
of heat, I thought this contradiction might be explained 
by supposing that, side by side with the general action of 
the nervous system, the sympathetic nerve might have 
the function of presiding over the production of heat ; 
that is to say, that in the case where the paralysed limb 
was chilled, I supposed the sympathetic nerve to be 
paralysed, as well as the motor nerves; while in the 
paralysed limbs that were not chilled the sympathetic 
nerve had retained its function, the systemic nerves alone 
having been attacked. 
" This was a theory, that is to say, an idea leading me 
to make experiments ; and for these experiments I must 
find a sympathetic nerve-trunk of sufficient size, going to 
some organ that was easy to observe, and must divide 
this trunk to see what would happen to the heat-supply 
of the organ. You know that the rabbit's ear, and the 
cervical sympathetic nerve of this animal, offered us the 
required conditions. So I divided the nerve; and imme- 
diately my experiment gave the lie direct to my theory- 
Je coupai done ce filet et aussitot P experience donna a mon 
hypothec le plus eclatant dementi. I had thought that the 
section of the nerve would suppress the function of 
nutrition, of calorification, over which the sympathetic 
system had been supposed to preside, and would cause 
the hollow of the ear to become chilled ; and here was 
just the opposite, a very warm ear, with great dilatation 
of its vessels. 
" I need not remind you how I made haste to abandon 
my first theory, and gave myself to the study of this new 
state of things. And you know that here was the starting- 
point of all my researches into the vaso-motor and thermic 
55 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
system ; and the study of this subject is become one of 
the richest fields of experimental physiology." 
Waller, in 1853, studied the vaso-motor centre 
in the spinal cord ; and Schiff, in 1856, found evidence 
of the existence of two kinds of vaso-motor nerves- 
those that constrict the vessels and those that dilate 
them. This view was finally established in 1858 by 
Claude Bernard's experiments on the chorda tympani 
and the submaxillary gland. 
The Lemons de Physiologie Operatoire were published 
in 1879. Twenty years later, Sir Michael Foster says 
of Bernard's work- 
" It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of 
these labours of Bernard on the vaso-motor nerves, since 
it is almost impossible to exaggerate the influence which 
our knowledge of the vaso-motor system, springing as it 
does from Bernard's researches as from its fount and origin, 
has exerted, is exerting, and in widening measure will 
continue to exert, on all our physiological and pathological 
conceptions, on medical practice, and on the conduct of 
human life. There is hardly a physiological discussion of 
any width in which we do not sooner or later come on 
vaso-motor questions. Whatever part of physiology we 
touch, be it the work done by a muscle, be it the various 
kinds of secretive labour, be it the insurance of the brain's 
well-being in the midst of the hydrostatic vicissitudes to 
which the changes of daily life subject it, be it that main- 
tenance of bodily temperature which is a condition of the 
body's activity; in all these, as in many other things, 
we find vaso-motor factors intervening. And if, passing 
56 Brain of a Monkey, with Motor Centres marked on it. 
(F>om Dr. C. E. Beevor's work on "The Diseases of the Nervous System.") THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
the insecure and wavering line which parts health from 
illness, we find ourselves dealing with inflammation, or 
with fever, or with any of the disordered physiological 
processes which constitute disease, we shall find, whatever 
be the tissue specially affected by the morbid conditions, 
that vaso-motor influences have to be taken into account. 
The idea of vaso-motor action is woven as a dominant 
thread into all the physiological and pathological doctrines 
of to-day ; attempt to draw out that thread, and all that 
would be left would appear as a tangled heap." 
5. Cerebral Localisation. 
Finally, moving upward along the anatomy of 
the nervous system, physiology came to study the 
motor centres and special-sense centres of the cerebral 
hemispheres. And it is one of many instances how 
science and practice work together, that the study 
of these centres began not in experiment but in 
experience. The first fact of cerebral localisation 
came out of Bouillard's series of cases (1825) ; then 
Dax (1836), then Broca (1861). Clinical observation 
and post-mortem examination found the speech-centres ; 
physiological experiments had nothing to do with it. 
But at once, so soon as practice gave the word to 
science, physiology set to work. These clinical facts 
had been there all the time ; loss of speech had gone 
with disease or injury of " Broca's convolution " ever 
since man had been on the earth, and nobody had 
observed and recorded the sequence. Then, after 
1861, everything was changed, and in a few years 
57 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
physiology had mapped out a large part of the surface 
of the brain, had discovered its departmental work, 
divided and subdivided its convolutions, and charted 
and settled once and for ever the amazing geography 
of the motor centres. There is nothing more wonder- 
ful in the whole kingdom of science. 
The story of Broca's convolution is told in Hamil- 
ton's Text-book of Pathology :- 
"In 1825, Bouillard collected a series of cases to show 
that the faculty of speech resided in the frontal lobes. In 
the year 1836 M. Dax, in a paper read to the Medical 
Congress of Montpellier, stated as a result of his researches 
that, where speech was lost from cerebral causes, he 
believed the lesion was invariably found in the left 
cerebral hemisphere, and that the accompanying paralysis 
of the right side of the body is consequent upon this. 
This paper for long lay buried in the annals of medical 
literature, but was unearthed years afterwards by his son, 
and presented to the French Academy. Bouillard's views 
were also disinterred by Aubertin, and in the year 1861 
were brought by him before the notice of the Anthropo- 
logical Society of Paris. Broca, who was present at the 
meeting, had a patient under his care at the time who had 
been aphasic (without power of speech) for twenty-one 
years, and who was in an almost moribund state. The 
autopsy proved of great interest, as it was found that the 
lesion was confined to the left side of the brain, and to 
what we now call the third frontal convolution. Broca 
was struck with the coincidence ; and when a similar case 
came under his care afterwards, unaware of what had been 
done by Dax, he postulated the conclusion that the in- 
tegrity of the third frontal convolution, and perhaps also 
58 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
part of the second, is essential to speech. In a subsequent 
series of fifteen typical cases examined, it was found that 
the lesion had destroyed, among other parts, the posterior 
part of the third frontal in fourteen. In the fifteenth case 
the destruction had taken place in the island of Reil and 
temporal lobe." 
After 1861 physiology took the lead, and kept it. 
But, through all the work, science and practice have 
kept touch together : and there is nothing more 
splendid in the whole history of their co-operation 
than this triumphant mapping-out of the surface of 
man's brain. No need to put here the names of 
the men who did it, for they are household words, the 
names of the very elect in the science and art of 
medicine and surgery. 
These instances are but a part of the results gained 
by experiments in physiology. Nothing has been said 
of the work of Boyle, Hunter, Lavoisier, Haldane, 
Despretz, and Regnault, on animal heat and respira- 
tion ; of Petit, Dupuy, Breschet, and Reid, on the 
sympathetic system ; of Galvani, Volta, Haller, du 
Bois-Reymond, and Pfliiger, on muscular contractility. 
And, for good reasons, more has been said of the past 
than of the present. First, because it was necessary 
to put an end to the false statements that are made, 
by those who are opposed to all experiments on 
animals, about the work done in the past. Next, 
59 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
because physiology, in the present, is wrought to finer 
issues, that are not all intelligible for general reading. 
Next, because it is impossible now to isolate physiology ; 
to say, 'for example, that the study of the internal 
secretions, or of natural immunity, or of the inter- 
dependence in action of organs that are independent 
in structure, belongs to physiology alone, not also to 
pathology. For it is impossible to have back the 
simpler problems of the past, to discover the circulation 
of the blood twice, " as though a miracle could be 
encored." But the experimental method, alike in the 
past and in the present, has been the chief way of 
advance ; as Mr. Darwin said, in his evidence before 
the Royal Commission of 1875: "I am fully con- 
vinced that physiology can progress only by the aid of 
experiments on living animals. I cannot think of any 
one step which has been made in physiology without 
that aid." 
60 EXPERIMENTS IN 
PATHOLOGY, BACTERIOLOGY, AND 
THERAPEUTICS I 
INFLAMMATION 
PATHOLOGY is a younger science than phy- 
siology, because the use of the microscope was 
the beginning of pathology : and the microscope, only 
sixty years ago, was very different from the microscope 
to-day. The great pathologists of that time- had not 
the lenses, microtomes, and staining-fluids of their 
successors. And now, within the world of pathology, 
the New World of bacteriology has been found. Go 
back only twenty-five years, to the date of the Royal 
Commission on experiments on animals, 1875 : read 
the evidence of the witnesses, how little is said about 
pathology, and of bacteriology hardly a word. They 
" believe they are beginning to get an idea of the 
nature of tubercle." Take what Sir John Simon says, 
in his evidence, about anthrax-a magnificent prophecy, 
that yet failed to influence the authorities who drafted 
the Act:- 
63 EXPERIMENTS ON'ANIMALS 
"We are going through a progressive work that has 
many stages, and are now getting more precise knowledge 
of the contagium. By these experiments on sheep it has 
been made quite clear that the contagium of sheep-pox 
(anthrax) is something of which the habits can be studied, as 
the habits of a fern or a moss can be studied: and we look 
forward to opportunities of thus studying the contagium outside 
the body which it infects. This is not a thing to be done in a 
day, nor perhaps in ten years, but must extend over a long 
period of time. Dr. Klein's present paper represents one 
very important stage of a vast special study. He gives the 
identification of the contagium as something which he has 
studied to the end in the infected body, and which can now in 
a future stage be studied outside the bodyf 
Or take Koch's first account of the tubercle-bacillus, 
March 24, 1882-less than eighteen years ago :- 
" Henceforth, in our warfare against this fearful scourge 
of our race, we have to reckon not with a nameless some- 
thing, but with a definite parasite, whose conditions of life 
are for the most part already known, and can be further 
studied. . . . Before all things, we must shut off the sources 
of the infection, so far as it is in the power of man to do 
this." 1 
These conditions of life have been studied, in all 
species of bacteria, with amazing accuracy. It has 
been proved, past possibility of doubt, that the patho- 
1 "In Zukunft wird man es im Kampf gegen diese schreckliche Plage 
des Menschengeschlechtes nicht mehr mit einem unbestimmten Etwas, 
sondern mit einem fassbaren Parasiten zu thun haben, dessen Lebens- 
bedingungen zum grbssten Theil bekannt sind und noch weiter erforscht 
werden. Es miissen vor alien Dingen die guellen, aus denen der 
Infections-stoff fliesst, so weit es in menschlichen Macht liegt, ver- 
schlossen werden." 
64 INFLAMMATION 
genic bacteria are the cause of infective diseases ; they 
have fulfilled Koch's postulates-that they should be 
found in the diseased tissues, be cultivated outside the 
body, reproduce the same disease in animals, and be 
found again in the tissues of those animals. By an 
immeasurable amount of hard work crowded into a 
few years, this newer world of bacteriology has been 
entered and subdued. The Commissioners of 1875, 
speaking of physiological experiments only, said, " It 
would require a voluminous treatise to exhibit in a 
consecutive statement the benefits that medicine and 
surgery have derived from these discoveries." If phy- 
siology in 1875 required a treatise, bacteriology in 
1900 will want a shelf. 
But the advance of modern pathology is not all due 
to bacteriology. Take, for example, inflammation. 
Long before bacteria came to be studied, every other 
fact of inflammation had been watched under the 
microscope : the most minute changes in the affected 
tissues, the slowing and arrest of the blood in the 
capillaries, and the escape of blood-cells out of the 
capillaries into the tissues. Everything had been 
made ready for the fuller interpretation that was 
coming from bacteriology : the old naked-eye de- 
scriptions of inflammation were left behind : men set 
aside the definition of Celsus, that it was rubor et 
tumor cum calore et dolore-words that sound like 
Moliere's jest about the vis dormitiva of opium-they 
watched inflammation under the microscope, in such 
65 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
transparent structures as the frog's web and mesentery, 
.the bat's wing, and the tadpole's tail. It was thus 
that Wharton Jones observed the rhythmical con- 
traction of the veins in the bat's wing. The dis- 
covery of the escape of the leucocytes (white 
blood-cells) was made by Waller and Cohnheim. 
To those who are opposed to all experiments on 
animals it may seem a small thing that a blood-cell 
should be on one side or the other of a microscopic 
film in a tadpole's tail. But this migration of amoeboid 
cells from the capillaries into the tissues, the first 
move of the blood in the fight against disease, is now 
seen in the light of Metchnikoff's work as a fact of 
the utmost importance. And the whole doctrine 
of inflammation goes back to the observation, under 
the microscope, of living tissues inflamed by the 
scratch of a needle or the touch of an acid. 
66 II 
SUPPURATION AND "BLOOD- 
POISONING " 
ALL suppuration, and all forms of " blood- 
poisoning"-abscesses, boils, carbuncles, ery- 
sipelas, puerperal fever, septicaemia, pyaemia-are due 
to minute organisms, various kinds of micrococcus. It 
has indeed been shown that suppuration may, in ex- 
ceptional conditions, occur without micro-organisms: 
but practically every case of suppuration is a case of 
infection either from without or from within the 
body. There is no room here for any account of the 
work spent on these micrococci: on their identifica- 
tion, isolation, culture, and inoculation. It is the 
same with all the pathogenic bacteria-each kind has 
its own habits, phases, and idiosyncrasies, antagonisms, 
and preferences : nothing is left unstudied-the influ- 
ences of air, light, heat, and chemistry ; all the facts 
of their growth, division, range of variation, grades of 
virulence, vitality, and products; the entire life and 
67 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
death of each species, and everything that it is, and 
does, and can be made to do :- 
" Doubtless immense progress has been made during 
the last two or three decades, but a vast amount still 
remains to be done. We have only touched the fringe 
of the explanation of the difficult problems of immunity, 
of the extraordinary variations in virulence and effects of 
the same organism, and of the important question of cure 
in, and prevention of, infective diseases ; while the 
chemistry of the products of bacterial activity is but 
in its infancy." (Hewlett, Manual of Bacteriology, 1898.) 
The difficulties of bacteriology are written across 
every page of the text-books: above all, the difficulties 
of attenuating or intensifying the virulence of bac- 
teria, and of immunising animals, and of procuring 
from them an immunising serum of exact and constant 
strength. Every antitoxin is the outcome of an im- 
measurable expenditure of hard international work, 
unsurpassed in all science for the fineness of its 
methods and the closeness of its arguments. 
But the Zoophilist (March, 1898) has a ready 
explanation for all the problems of bacteriology :- 
" We are often asked if there is any germ of truth at all 
in the serum treatment of disease. There is ; and it is 
as well that our readers should know exactly what it is. 
In infectious diseases, a proportion of the delicate blood- 
corpuscles die and become waste matter in the blood. 
If the patient be of good constitution, his system soon 
eliminates this dead matter. Now all serums being very 
68 SUPPURATION & "BLOOD-POISONING" 
liable to decomposition are preserved by a small propor- 
tion of carbolic acid, and this being injected hypoder- 
mically acts antiseptically in the blood, and so assists 
nature in getting rid of the decomposing corpuscles." 1 
The older theories of disease had attributed in- 
fection to the intemperature of the weather, the 
powers of the air, or the work of the devil : later, 
men recognised that there must be a materies morbid 
something particulate, perhaps something alive ; but 
it was still " a nameless something " : they over- 
estimated the constitutional, personal aspect of a case 
of infective disease, against the facts of local infection 
or inoculation with a specific organism, and studied 
with infinite care everything but the real cause of the 
trouble. Read the life of Semelweiss ; or the story 
told of Pasteur by M. Roux, in his L'CEuvre Medicale 
de. Pasteur (Agenda du Chimiste^ 1896, p. 528) :- 
"Dans le pus des abces chauds et dans celui des furoncles 
on constate un petit organisme arrondi, dispose en amas 
qu'on cultive facilement dans le bouillon. On le retrouve 
dans 1'osteomyelite infectieuse des enfants. Pasteur 
affirme que 1'osteomyelite et le furoncle sont deux formes 
d'une meme maladie, et que 1'osteomyelite est le furoncle 
de 1'os. En 1878, cette assertion a fait rire bien les 
chirurgiens. 
" Dans les infections puerperales, les caillots renferment 
un microbe a grains arrondis se disposant en files. Cet 
1 As Ambroise Pare said of the spells and magic of his time, It is 
pleasant to know this way of practising medicine. But the Zoophilist can 
appeal to one American journal, with a medical title, to support this 
amazing method of " assisting Nature." 
69 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
aspect en chapelet est surtout manifeste dans les cultures. 
Pasteur n'hesite pas a declarer que cet organisme micros- 
copique est la cause la plus frequente des infections chez 
les femmes accouchees. Un jour, dans une discussion sur 
la fievre puerperale a l'Academie de medecine, un de ses 
collegues le plus ecoutes dissertait eloquemment sur les 
causes des epidemies dans les maternites. Pasteur 1'inter- 
rompt de sa place : ' Ce qui cause 1'epidemie, ce n'est rien 
de tout cela : c'est le medecin et son personnel qui trans- 
portent le microbe d'une femme malade a une femme 
saine.' Et comme 1'orateur repondit qu'il craignait fort 
qu'on ne trouve jamais ce microbe, Pasteur s'elance vers le 
tableau noir, dessine 1'organisme en chapelet de grains en 
disant : 'Tenez, voici sa figure." 
That is the note of modern pathology-Tenez, void 
sa figure. Contrast the older teaching about erysipelas, 
typhoid fever, or tetanus, with the present know- 
ledge that men have of these infective diseases : go 
back only twenty years, and you are in another world. 
And, of course, pathology and surgery have advanced 
together. The antiseptic method was based on 
bacteriology, resting as it did on the proof afforded by 
Pasteur that putrefaction was caused by bacteria, and 
not by the oxygen of the air as had been previously 
believed. 
And the study of the micrococci has not only 
proved and made perfect the present methods of 
surgery ; it has also discovered a serum for the treat- 
ment of cases of micrococcic infection. Take, for 
example, the disease called ulcerative endocarditis, the 
growth of micrococci on the valves of the heart, 
70 SUPPURATION & "BLOOD-POISONING" 
whence they are carried by the blood into different 
parts of the body. Several cases have lately been 
reported, where recovery from this most hopeless 
disease has followed the use of the antistreptococcic 
serum.1 It has also given excellent results in cases 
of puerperal fever, and in cases of dissection wounds. 
Already, though it is a new thing, it has saved many 
lives, and is steadily gaining ground in practice. It 
has also been used, to avert the risk of infection, before 
certain operations where the antiseptic method cannot 
be strictly enforced. 
1 See, among these, two of special interest: Lancet, January 21 and 
February 11, 1899; and the recent debate at the annual meeting of 
the British Medical Association at Portsmouth, August, 1899. 
71 III 
ANTHRAX 
T N animals, anthrax is also called charbon^ splenic 
1 fever, or splenic apoplexy.1 In man, the name of 
malignant pustule is given to the sloughing sore at the 
point of accidental inoculation ; and the name of wool- 
sorters disease is given to those cases of anthrax where 
the lungs are affected by inhalation of the spores of the 
bacillus. Anthrax occurs mostly among butchers, hide- 
dressers, wool-sorters, and rag-pickers : among animals, 
in sheep, cattle, horses, and swine.2 Wool-sorters' 
1 The Board of Agriculture has lately issued a new Anthrax Order 
(1899), enforcing early notification, examination of suspected animals, 
deep burial of carcasses in quicklime, &c. The skin of the carcass must 
not be cut, its nostrils must be plugged, &c. " Formerly, farmers believed 
that anthrax was the result of feeding cattle upon too highly nutritious or 
artificial foods, and that death was the result of apoplexy. It would be 
well if farmers, and the public generally, took the proper view of the 
illness." (British Medical Journal, February 4, 1899.) 
2 " Many of the outbreaks of anthrax in this country have been in the 
neighbourhood of Bradford, and have been traced to the use of infected 
wool-refuse as manure. A map published by the Board of Agriculture 
shows that the outbreaks of anthrax are most frequent in those counties 
of Great Britain where dry foreign wools, hairs, hides, and skins are 
manufactured into goods. In 1892 there were forty-two outbreaks of 
72 ANTHRAX 
disease was first noticed in the Bradford worsted 
district after the introduction of alpaca and mohair as 
textile materials in 1837. 
The bacillus anthracis was first seen no less than 
fifty years ago. Pollender in 1844, Roger and Davaine 
in 1850, noted the petits batonnets in the blood of sheep 
dead of the disease, and thought they were some sort 
of microscopic blood-crystals: it was not till 1863, 
after Pasteur's study of lactic-acid fermentation, that 
Davaine realised they were living organisms. After- 
ward, Koch succeeded in making cultures of them, 
and reproduced the disease by inoculating animals 
with these cultures; yet it was said, so late as 1876, 
that the bacillus anthracis was not the cause of anthrax, 
but only the sign of it : " Along with the bacilli, there 
are blood cells and blood-plasma, and these contain the 
true amorphous virus of anthrax." Then came 
Pasteur's work, and reached its end in the experi- 
ments at Chartres, and the famous test-inoculations 
(1881) at Pouilly-le-Fort. 
In the Agenda du Chimiste (1896) M. Roux gives 
the following account of this work, which he had 
watched from first to last :- 
"Vaccination against charbon has now been put to the test 
of practice for fourteen years. Wherever it is adopted, there 
anthrax in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as against two in tne North 
Riding and one in the East Riding. . . . An undoubted fact in con- 
nection with anthrax is its tendency to recur on certain farms. During 
1895, the disease reappeared on 23 farms or other premises in England, 
and 6 in Scotland, where it had been reported in the previous year." 
(Dr. Poore's Milroy Lectures, On the Earth in relation to Contagia, 1899.) 
73 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
the losses from charbon have become insignificant. It was 
followed by vaccination against swine-measles, rouget des 
pores, the special study of our poor friend Thuillier.1 But 
the immediate result of Pasteur's vaccinations is their least 
merit : they have given men absolute faith in a science 
that could show such good works, they have started a 
movement that is irresistible ; above all, they have set 
going the whole study of immunity, which is bringing us 
at last to a right way of treating infective diseases. 
" Virulence is a quality that microbes can lose ; or they 
can acquire it. Suppose we came across the anthrax- 
bacillus so far attenuated, in the way of Nature, that it had 
lost all power to kill-of course we should fail to recognise 
it ; we should take it for an ordinary bacillus of putre- 
faction : you must watch it through each phase of its 
attenuation, to know that the harmless organism is the 
descendant of the fatal virus. But you can give back to 
it the virulence that it has lost, if you put it, to begin 
with, under the skin of a very delicate subject, a mouse 
only one day old. With the blood of this mouse inoculate 
another, a little older, and it will die. Passing by this 
method from younger to older mice, we come to kill 
adult mice, guinea-pigs, then rabbits, then sheep, &c. 
Thus, by transmission, the virus gains strength as it goes. 
Doubtless this increase of virulence, that we bring about 
by experiment, occurs also in Nature; and it is easy to see 
how a microbe, usually harmless to this or that species of 
animals, might become deadly to it. Is not this the way 
that infective diseases have appeared on the earth from age 
to age ? 
" See how far we have come, from the old metaphysical ideas 
about virulence, to these microbes that we can turn this way 
1 M. Thuillier was a member of the French Cholera Commission 
(Egypt, 1883), and died of cholera at his work. 
74 ANTHRAX 
or that way-stuff so plastic that a man can work on it, and 
fashion it as he likes " 
Pasteur's note on the attenuation of anthrax was 
presented to the Academic des Sciences on February- 
28, 1881 ; and the test-inoculations at Pouilly-le- 
Fort were made in May of that year. It was hardly to 
be expected that every country, in every year, should 
obtain such results as France now takes as a matter of 
course ; and at one time, about sixteen years ago, there 
was in Hungary a " conscientious objection " to the 
inoculation of herds against the disease.1 In Italy 
last year, from May I, 1897, to April 30, 1898, the 
issue of anticharbon vaccine from one institute alone, 
the Sero-Therapeutic Institute at Milan, was 165,000 
tubes, enough to inoculate 33,734 cattle and 98,792 
sheep. And in France, between 1882 and 1893, more 
than three million sheep, and nearly half a million 
cattle, were inoculated. 
The work done in France was published by M. 
Chamberland, in the Annales de U Institut Pasteur^ 
March, 1894. The following translation of his 
memoir-Resultats pratiques des Vaccinations contre le 
Charbon et le Rouget en France-shows something of 
the national influence of the Pasteur Institute :- 
1. Charbon. 
After the famous experiments at Pouilly-le-Fort, 
1 The initial failures, here and there, in 1882-84, are still paraded as 
evidence against experiments on animals. See the Zoophilist, February 
and July, 1893, and Bryan, ^ntivivisection Evidences, 1895. 
75 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
MM. Pasteur and Roux entrusted to me the whole 
method and practice of the vaccinations against 
charbon. Twelve years have passed, and it is now 
time to put together the results, and to make a final 
estimate of the value of these preventive inocu- 
lations. 
Every year, we ask the veterinary surgeons to report 
I. The number of animals they have vaccinated. 
2. The number that have died after the first vaccination. 
3. The number that have died after the second vaccina- 
tion, within the twelve days following it. 
4. The number that have died during the rest of the 
year. 
5. The average annual mortality before the practice of 
vaccination. 
The sum total of all the reports is given in the 
tables. (See opposite page.) 
Comparing the figures in the fourth column with 
those in the second, we see that a certain number or 
veterinary surgeons neglect to send their reports at the 
end of the year. The number of reports that come to 
us even tends to get less each year. The fact is that 
many veterinary surgeons who do vaccinations every 
year content themselves with writing, ' The results are 
always very good ; it is useless to send you reports that 
are always the same.' 
We have every reason to believe, as a matter of fact, 
that those who send no reports are satisfied ; for if any- 
76 ANTHRAX 
VACCINATION AGAINST CHARBON (FRANCE) 
Sheep. 
Total 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1893 
Years. 
b> 
*00 
270,040 
268,505 
316,553 
342,040 
313,288 
293,572 
269,574 
239,974 
223,611 
218,629 
259,696 
281,333 
Total 
number of 
animals 
vaccinated. 
066 
112 
103 
109 
144 
88 
107 
5° 
43 
69 
65 
70 
3° 
Number 
of 
Reports. 
1,788,879 
243,199 
*93,"9 
231,693 
280,107 
202,064 
187,811 
101,834 
8 8,48 3 
69,865 
53,64o 
63,125 
73,939 
Animals 
vaccinated 
according 
to reports 
received. 
5,668 
756 
436 
77° 
884 
652 
718 
149 
238 
331 
181 
319 
234 
After first 
vaccination. 
Mortality. 
0 
O> 
847 
272 
444 
735 
3°3 
737 
181 
285 
261 
102 
183 
56 
After second 
vaccination. 
6,798 
1,037 
784 
I,o33 
990 
5U 
968 
3°° 
5oi 
244 
77 
126 
224 
During the 
rest of 
the year. 
16,872 
2,640 
1,492 
2,247 
2,609 
1,469 
2,423 
630 
1,024 
836 
360 
628 
5H 
Total. 
0 
69.0 
66.0 
Z9.0 
02.1 
91.1 
Z9.0 
62.I 
2Z.0 
E6.0 
Z6.0 
ZZ.o 
go.i 
Total 
loss 
per 
100. 
2 s s s - - " - 
Average loss be- 
fore vaccination 
Cattle. 
1882 
35^54 
127 
22,916 
22 
12 
48 
82 
o'35 
5% 
1883 
26,453 
13° 
20,501 
17 
I 
46 
64 
0-31 
5, 
1884 
33,900 
*39 
22,616 
20 
13 
52 
85 
0'37 
V 
1885 
34,000 
192 
21,073 
32 
8 
67 
107 
0.50 
,7 
1886 
39,154 
*35 
22,113 
18 
7 
39 
64 
0'29 
99 
1887 
48,484 
148 
28,083 
23 
18 
68 
109 
°'39 
79 
1888 
34,464 
61 
10,920 
8 
4 
35 
47 
o-43 
99 
1889 
32,251 
68 
11,610 
14 
7 
3i 
52 
o-45 
•9 
1890 
33,965 
7i 
11,057 
5 
4 
14 
23 
0'21 
99 
1891 
40,736 
68 
10,476 
6 
4 
4 
14 
0'13 
99 
1892 
41,609 
71 
9,757 
8 
3 
*5 
26 
O-261 
99 
1893 
38,154 
45 
9,840 
4 
I 
18 
0*18 
99 
Total 
438,824 
i,255 
200,962 
177 
82 
432 
691 
0'34 
99 
77 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
thing goes wrong with the herds, they do not fail to 
let us know it at once by special letters. 
Anyhow, thanks chiefly to new veterinary surgeons 
who do send reports, we see that in the twelve years, 
up to January ist of this year, we have had exact 
returns as to 1,788,879 sheep and 200,962 cattle- 
about half of all those that were vaccinated. 
The mortality among sheep and cattle is slightly 
higher after the first vaccination than after the second. 
This fact seems to us easy to explain. The animals 
reported dead include both those that died as the result 
of the vaccinations, and those that, being already in- 
fected at the time, died of the actual disease. But, at 
the time of second vaccination, the animals are already 
more or less protected : hence a lower mortality from 
the actual disease, and a lower sum total. 
The whole loss of sheep is about 1 per cent. : the 
average for the twelve years is 0*94. So we may say 
that the whole average loss of vaccinated sheeps whether 
from vaccination or from the disease itself is about I per 
cent. The loss of vaccinated cattle is still less : for 
the period of twelve years, it is 0'34, or about J per cent. 
These results are extremely satisfactory. It is to be 
noted especially that the average annual death-rate from 
charbon^ before vaccination-the average given in these 
reports-is estimated at 10 per cent, among sheep, and 
5 per cent, among cattle. But even if we put it at 
6 per cent, for sheep, and 3^ per cent, for cattle, and 
say that the worth of a sheep is 30 francs, and of an 
78 ANTHRAX 
ox or a cow 150 francs-which is well below their 
real value-even then it is obvious that the advantage 
of these vaccinations to French agriculture is about 
five million francs in sheep and two million in cattle. 
And these figures are rather too low than too high. 
2. Rouget. 
Some years after the discovery of vaccination against 
churbon^ M. Pasteur discovered the vaccines for a 
disease of swine known under the name of rouget. 
From 1886, these vaccines were prepared and sent out 
under the same conditions as the vaccines against 
charbon. The following table gives the reports that 
have come to us of this disease 1:- 
VACCINATION AGAINST ROUGET (FRANCE). 
Total 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
Years. 
£ 
/For these 
I two years 
France 
S and other 
| countries 
1 are put 
\ together. 
I5.958 
I9,338 
17,658 
20,583 
37,900 
Total 
number of 
animals 
vaccinated. 
296 
49 
49 
31 
4i 
4i 
47 
38 
Number 
of 
Reports. 
75,455 
7,087 
7,467 
6,968 
n,257 
14,992 
*7,556 
10,128 
Animals 
vaccinated 
according 
to reports 
received. 
534 
91 
57 
3* 
92 
118 
102 
43 
After first 
vaccination. 
00 
00 
O\ W N N 
so 4X 4^ N Ur 0 4- 
After second 
vaccination. 
345 
56 
23 
38 
40 
72 
70 
46 
During the 
rest of 
the year. 
1,067 
171 
90 
94 
144 
254 
206 
108 
Total. 
£ 
2*41 
1*21 
i'35 
1*28 
1'70 
i'i7 
1*07 
'OOI 
jod 
SSOf 
pnoj, 
« 
s - 0 
Average 
loss 
before 
vaccina- 
tion. 
1 The reports for 1893 are at present too few to be utilised for this table. 
79 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
The total average of losses during the past seven years 
is 1*45 Per cent, or about per cent. 
This average is appreciably higher than the average 
for charbon. But it must be noted that the mortality 
from rouget among swine, before vaccination, was much 
higher than that from charbon among sheep. It was 
about 20 per cent. ; a certain number of reports speak 
of losses of 60 and even 80 per cent. : so that almost 
all the veterinary surgeons are loud in their praises of 
the new vaccination. 
The rest of M. Chamberland's paper is concerned 
with the defects, such as they are, of the vaccinations, 
and the need of absolute cleanliness lin the making of 
them : which is somewhat difficult for this vast number 
of vaccinations of animals all over France. 
Anthrax in man is happily a rare disease, and not 
always fatal; still, it is common enough among those 
who are exposed to the infection: three deaths lately at 
Worcester, and the recent cases at the General Post 
Office. Under treatment with serum anti-charbonneux, 
Salvatore has lately recorded fourteen successful cases 
{Brit. Med. fourn., July 30, 1898), and another ob- 
server has recorded seven successful cases. 
80 IV 
TUBERCLE 
BEFORE Laennec, tubercle had been taken for a 
degenerative change of the tissues, much like 
other forms of degeneration. It was Laennec who 
brought men to see that it is a disease of itself, 
different from anything else ; and this great discovery 
of the specific nature of tubercle, and his invention of 
the stethoscope, place him almost level with Harvey. 
He founded the facts of tubercle, and on that founda- 
tion Villemin built. In 1865, Villemin communi- 
cated to the Academic des Sciences his discovery that 
tubercle is an infective disease ; that he had produced 
it in rabbits, by inoculating them with tuberculous 
matter. En void les preuves, he said. He appealed 
to these inoculations to prove his teaching :- 
La tuberculose est une affection specifique. 
Sa cause reside dans un agent inoculable. 
L" inoculation se fait tres-bien de I'homme au lapin. 
La tuberculose appartient done a la classe des maladies 
virulentes. 
81 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
It was no new thing to say, or to guess, that phthisis 
was or might be infective. So far back as 1500, 
Frascatorius had said that phthisis came " by the 
gliding of the corrupt and noisome humours of the 
patient into the lungs of a healthy man." Surely, if 
clinical experience could suffice, men would have 
made something out of this wisdom of Frascatorius. 
They made nothing of it; they waited three centuries 
for Villemin to inoculate the rabbits, and then the 
thing was done-En void les preuves. Three years 
later, Chauveau produced the disease in animals, not 
by inoculation, but by the admixture of tuberculous 
matter with their food. Then, as the work grew, 
there came a short period of uncertainty : different 
species of animals are so widely different in their 
susceptibility to the disease that the results of further 
inoculations seemed to go against Villemin ; and it 
was not till 1880 that Cohnheim finally established 
Villemin's teaching, and even went beyond it, making 
inoculation the very proof of tubercle :- 
" Everything is tuberculous, that can produce tuber- 
culous disease by inoculation in animals that are sus- 
ceptible to that disease : and nothing is tuberculous, that 
cannot do this." 
And then, in 1881, came the welcome news that 
Koch had discovered the bacillus of tubercle : " Hence- 
forth in our warfare we have to reckon not with a 
nameless something, but with a definite parasite. . . . 
82 TUBERCLE 
Before all things, we must shut off the sources of the 
infection P 
In 1890, the first battle was fought, and was lost. 
The date of the announcement of tuberculin in the 
Deutsche Medrzdnische Wochenschrift is November 15, 
1890. Its failure was one of the world's tragedies ; 
but the defeat may not be final. We may live to see 
phthisis fought, and beaten, with its own weapons : 
anyhow, there are other ways of fighting it. But 
phthisis is only one of many tuberculous diseases. 
Apart from it, see how the whole study of tuber- 
culosis, and the prevention of it, have come from the 
work of Villemin, Chauveau, and Koch. Out of the 
recent literature on this subject, take the articles in 
the Practitioner, June, 1898 ; the reports of the 
Fourth Congress on Tuberculosis (Paris, July and 
August, 1898) ; and Professor Delepine's lecture at 
Sudbury (Lord Vernon's farm) on Tuberculosis and 
the Milk Supply {Lancet, September 17, 1898). It 
is true that the diminution of tuberculosis, in this 
country, began before bacteriology, thanks to im- 
proved methods of drainage and sanitation : 1 but see 
what bacteriology has done since 1882, in every 
civilised country in the world. 
1. It has given people a more reasonable and more 
hopeful idea of the whole subject :- 
" From the public health point of view, the tubercle- 
1 See on this point Dr. Arthur Ransome's " Researches in Tuber- 
culosis " (Weber-Parkes Prize Essay, 1897), and Sir Hugh Beevor's 
recent monograph. 
83 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
bacillus must be looked upon as the fans et origo mali: 
and all statistics that have recently been collected go to 
prove that the tubercle-bacillus does its work, as a rule, 
in the post-natal period. Hereditary tuberculosis may be 
left out of account : for, although there may be a few 
cases of congenital tuberculosis, all statistics point to the 
fact that tuberculosis is a disease which is contracted after 
birth--a most comforting knowledge for families in which 
tuberculosis has been rife.1 . . . Weakness of the tissues, 
which of course may be inherited, may be a predisposing 
cause : but without the exciting cause, the tubercle- 
bacillus, there can be no tuberculosis." {Practitioner, loc. 
cit.) 
2. The tubercle-bacillus, found in the sputa, or in 
the discharges, or in a particle of tissue, is evidence 
that the case is tuberculous : a right diagnosis is made 
at an early stage of the disease. 
3. Bacteriology has proved, beyond all reasonable 
doubt, that tabes mesenterica, a tuberculous disease that 
kills thousands of children every year in this country,2 
is due in great measure to infection from the milk of 
tuberculous cows. 
4. It has taught people that the sputa of phthisical 
patients are a most common source of infection : and 
it has profoundly influenced the rules for the care and 
nursing of such cases. 
1 In that very clever novel, " The Open Question," the husband and 
wife drown themselves, by mutual consent, lest their unborn child 
should be consumptive : thus killing three people for fear one of them 
should die. 
2 In 1895, the deaths from this disease in England were 7,389, of 
whom 3,855 were under a year old. 
84 TUBERCLE 
5. It has brought about the present rigorous control 
of the meat and milk trades 
" Thirty years ago, that is about three years after 
Villemin, Chauveau demonstrated experimentally that 
tuberculosis could be induced in cattle by feeding them 
on tuberculous products. Nearly thirty years have been 
necessary, to allow public opinion to come to the con- 
clusion that these men of science were right. In the 
Reports of the last two Royal Commissions on Tuber- 
culosis we find the following statement : ' No doubt the 
largest part of the tuberculosis which man obtains through 
his food is by means of milk containing tuberculous 
matter.'" 1 (Professor Delepine, loc. cit.} 
11 Quite 75 per cent, of all meat seized under the Public 
Health Acts is condemned on account of tubercle. I 
have seen, and not uncommonly, animals in good con- 
dition, fat and firm, and carrying plenty of flesh, that 
have had to be condemned after being slaughtered. . . . 
In Copenhagen slaughter-houses, for 1890-93 inclusive, 
the percentage of tuberculous animals was 177 for oxen 
and cows, and 15'3 for swine ; in Berlin slaughter-houses, 
1892-93, the percentage for oxen and cows was 15*1 ; in 
Edinburgh, of 900 milch-cows slaughtered in 1890 no 
less than 4.0 per cent, were found tuberculous." (Dr. 
Robinson, Quarterly Medical Journal, July, 1897.) 
" In Victoria, the number of cattle found to be affected 
with tubercle when slaughtered is very small compared 
to other countries, being only 4 per cent., as against 1 5 
1 For facts about tuberculous milk, see Appendix. Also Reports of the 
Royal Commission on Tuberculosis (1896-98) ; Sir Richard Thorne 
Thorne's Harben Lectures (1898) ; the Report on the Cambridge Milk 
Supply, by Professor Kanthack and Dr. Sladen (Medical Press, 
January 18, 1899) ; and the Report on the Liverpool Milk Supply, by 
Professor Woodhead and Dr. Cartwright Wood ^Lancet, February n, 
1899). For facts about tuberculous meat, see Lancet, February 28, 1899. 
85 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
per cent, in Berlin, 177 per cent, in Denmark, 20 per 
cent, in France, 22 in Saxony, and 25 in England. This 
result is attributed to systematic inspection ; which is to 
be made still more rigorous." (Lancet, January 28, 1899.) 
6. Tuberculin (Koch's fluid) is now in general 
use for the detection of tuberculosis in cattle, to 
"shut off the sources of the infection." A full 
account of this method, in different countries, was 
given by Professor Bang, of Copenhagen, at the Fourth 
Congress on Tuberculosis, Paris, 1898 :- 
"In cattle, an injection of 1 to 2 cubic centimetres, 
according to the strength of the preparation, into the neck, 
is followed in 8-12 hours by a rise in temperature of 2, 3, 
or 4 degrees, if the animal is tuberculous ; if it be healthy, 
there is no rise in temperature, or only an insignificant 
one. That the test is of great value, the following details 
and experiments of recognised authorities will prove. 
" Professor McFadyean, in the Report of the Royal 
Commission on Tuberculosis, says : 'I have no hesitation 
in saying that, taking full account of its imperfection, 
tuberculin is the most valuable means of diagnosis in 
tuberculosis that we possess.' 1 
"A. Eber, of the Veterinary College at Dresden, 
experimented on 174 beasts, and found that 136, or 78'2 
1 " I have most implicit faith in tuberculin as a test for tuberculosis, 
when it is used on animals standing in their own premises and undis- 
turbed. It is not reliable when used on animals in a market or 
slaughter-house. A considerable number of errors at first were found 
when I examined animals in slaughter-houses after they had been con- 
veyed there by rail, &c. Since that, using it on animals in their own 
premises, I have found that it is practically infallible. I have notes of 
one particular case, where 25 animals in one dairy were tested, and 
afterwards all were killed. There was only one animal which did not 
react, and it was the only animal not found to be tuberculous when 
killed." (Professor McFadyean.) 
86 TUBERCLE 
per cent., gave a typical reaction with tuberculin ; 6, or 
3'4 per cent., gave a doubtful reaction, a rise of 1 or in- 
degrees ; while 32, or 18'4 per cent., did not react. Of 
the 136 beasts which gave a typical reaction, 22 were 
slaughtered, and, in all these, tuberculous lesions were 
found ; of the 6 doubtful cases, 3 were slaughtered, and, 
in 2, tuberculous lesions were found ; while of the 32 
which did not react, 3 were slaughtered, and were found 
to be free from tuberculosis." 
" Professor Bang, of Copenhagen, injected 80 tuber- 
culous animals with tuberculin : of these, 73 gave a 
typical reaction, 2 gave a doubtful reaction, and 5 did not 
react. In the 2 which gave a doubtful reaction, the 
tuberculous lesions were very slight; in the 5 which did 
not react, the signs of the tubercle were slight, and not of 
recent date." 1 {Hewlett, 1895.) 
Thus from the facts of bacteriology have come the 
present methods for the prevention of phthisis and 
other forms of tuberculous infection, the rules for the 
nursing of phthisical patients, and some part of the 
treatment of tuberculosis, especially in those cases that 
are not medical but surgical. The " old tuberculin " 
of 1890, that failed to cure patients who were already 
infected, succeeds in preventing the infection of 
healthy infants. 
1 The latest figures to hand refer to the testing of 270 cows on some 
farms in Lancashire. Of these cows, 180 reacted to the tuberculin test, 
85 did not react, and 5 were doubtful. Tuberculous disease was actually 
found in 175 out of the 180 = 97'2 per cent. (See Lancet, August 5, 
1899.) It will be remembered that Her Majesty the Queen, last winter, 
sanctioned the destruction of 36 out of 40 of the dairy cows at the 
Windsor Farm, because they had reacted to this test. " A new dairy 
herd is being obtained for the Queen's Home Farm, all the animals for 
it being tested, and admitted to the herd only when they do not react. 
(BritisA Medical Journal, April 22, 1899.) 
87 V 
DIPHTHERIA 
THE bacillus of diphtheria, the Klebs-Loeffler 
bacillus, was first described by Klebs in 1875 ; 
and was first obtained in pure culture by Loeffler in 
1884. Its isolation was a matter of great difficulty, 
and the work of many years, because of its association 
in the mouth with other species of bacteria.1 The 
use of the antitoxin is not yet seven years old : it was 
1 The following list of organisms found in 353 cases of diphtheria is a 
good instance of the practical difficulties of the work :- 
"In 216, the diphtheria-bacillus was found alone. In the remaining 
137, it was associated with the following organisms :- 
Streptococci .. .. .. .. .. .. 6 
Staphylococci .. .. .. .. .. •• 55 
Bacilli .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 19 
Torulae .. . . .. .. . . .. . . 9 
Sarcinae .. .. .. .... .. .. 6 
Streptococci and micrococci .. .. .. .. 2 
Micrococci and bacilli . . . . . . . . . . 9 
Streptococci and bacilli . . .. . . . . .. 1 
Torulae and bacilli . . . . . . . . . . 1 
Micrococci and sarcinae . . . . . . . . .. 6 
Micrococci and torulae .. .. .. .. .. 4 
Many forms present together .. .. .. .. 19 
137 
(Hewlett, Manual of Bacteriology.) 
88 DIPHTHERIA 
December, 1890, when the news came that Behring 
and Kitasato had at last cleared the way :- 
" Our researches on diphtheria and on tetanus have led 
us to the question of immunity and cure of these two 
diseases ; and we have succeeded in curing infected 
animals, and in immunising healthy animals, so that they 
have become incapable of contracting diphtheria or 
tetanus." 
Aronsen, Sidney Martin, Escherich, Klemensiewicz, 
and other men, were working on the same lines ; and 
in 1893 Behring and Kossel, and Heubner, published 
the first cases treated with antitoxin. Then, in 1894, 
came the Congress of Hygiene and Demography at 
Budapest, and Roux's triumphant account of the good 
results already obtained. 
There is no room here for statistics from all parts of 
the world, and no need to praise diphtheria-antitoxin. 
At first, it was hard to believe the full wonder of the 
discovery : the medical journals of 1895 and 1896 
contain the fossils of criticism-general impressions, 
apprehensions, first opinions, all the may be and must be 
of the earlier debates on the new treatment.1 To 
get at the truth we must reckon in thousands : take, 
out of a whole mass of evidence, all just alike, the 
reports from Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Strasbourg, 
1 The finest of all the fossils is from the Saturday Review, February 
2, 1895 : " It is a pity that the English press should continue to be made 
the catspaw of a gang of foreign medical adventurers." This and other 
good specimens will be found embedded in Antivivisection Evidences. 
89 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Cairo, Boston, and New York : these to begin with. 
Or the following facts, cut almost at random out of 
the medical journals :- 
" The medical report of the French army states that 
since the introduction of the serum-treatment of diphtheria, 
the mortality among cases of that disease had fallen from 
ii per cent, to 6 per cent." {Brit. Med. Journ., Sep- 
tember 3, 1898.) 
" Professor Kronlein (Zurich) exhibited statistical tables, 
showing that the prevalence of diphtheria in the canton of 
Zurich had been nearly uniform during the past fifteen 
years ; and that the mortality rapidly decreased as soon as 
antitoxic serum was used on a somewhat large scale. In 
his clinic, all the patients were examined bacteriologically, 
and serum was administered in every case of diphtheria 
without exception. Of 1,336 cases treated before the 
serum-period, 554=39*4 per cent, died; whilst during 
the serum-period there were 55 deaths among 437 cases 
= 12 percent. In cases of tracheotomy, the death-rates 
before and during the serum-period were 66 and 38*8 per 
cent, respectively." {Lancet, May 7, 1898, report of 
German Surgical Congress at Berlin.) 
" Dr. Karman was entrusted by the Hungarian Govern- 
ment with the task of instituting measures for preventing 
the spread of diphtheria in a village and its neighbourhood. 
As general hygienic regulations accomplished nothing, he 
tried preventive inoculation. . . . Among 114 children 
thus treated, there was during the next two months no 
case of diphtheria, although the disease was prevalent in 
the village up to the date at which inoculation commenced, 
and continued to rage in the surrounding villages after- 
wards. During those two months, only one case of 
diphtheria appeared in the village, and that was in an 
90 DIPHTHERIA 
uninoculated child ; while, in the previous five months, 
18*3 per cent, of the village children had been attacked, of 
whom eight died, six not having been treated with serum. 
Considering the wretched hygienic condition of the village, 
the harmlessness of preventive inoculations, and the con- 
tinuance of the disease in the neighbouring villages, where 
diphtheria-vaccination was not carried out, the extraordinary 
value of the inoculations, in the prophylaxis of diphtheria, 
can hardly be denied." 1 (Brit. Med. Journ., January 
16, 1897.) 
" The most striking confirmation of the value of 
antitoxin has been afforded where the supply ran short 
during an epidemic. In Baginsky's clinic, the interruption 
of the serum-treatment promptly raised the mortality from 
15*6 to 48'4 per cent." (Brit. Med. Journ., October 
20, 1895.) 
" In an analysis of the ratio of mortality in 266 German 
cities of about 15,000 inhabitants, it was found that the 
ratio of mortality per 100,000 of the living, before antitoxin 
was used, varied from 130 to 84 from 1886 to 1893, while 
the ratio from 1894. to 1897 varied from 101 to 35. It is 
a significant fact that during 1894, when although antitoxin 
was used to a certain extent it was not in general use, the 
ratio was 101 ; that when antitoxin was used more 
extensively, in 1895, the ratio was 53 ; that in 1896 it 
was 43 ; that in 1897, when antitoxin was very generally 
used, the rate fell to 35." ('Irans. Massachusetts Med. Soc., 
1898.) 
'For this use of the antitoxin, to stop an outbreak of diphtheria in a 
village or a school or a family, see among other reports those of Dr. 
Twombly and Dr. Morrill, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 
December, 1897, and March, 1898. Also the report from the Charite 
Hospital in Berlin, quoted in the Lancet, April 2, 1898 5 and an 
account of an outbreak among 60 children in an Institute. {Lancet, 
January 28, 1899.) 
91 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
And, of course, there is a multitude of reports from 
private practice, giving the lowest death-rate of all, 
because the children are in favourable circumstances. 
But the final evidence is in the larger statistics ; and, 
of all the vast literature on the diphtheria-antitoxin, 
the place of honour in this country should be given to 
Dr. Cobbett's memoir on the Reports of the Metro- 
politan Asylums Board, in the Lancet^ December 3, 
1898, and to Dr. Goodall's final statement of these 
Reports in the Brit. Med. 'Journ., February 4, 1899. 
Beside these, there are three reports of especial 
interest-from the American Paediatric Society, the 
Paris Hospital for Sick Children, and the Clinical 
Society of London.1 
I 
Report of the American Paediatric Society's Col- 
lective Investigation into the use of Antitoxin in the 
treatment of diphtheria in private practice. (Eighth 
Annual Meeting, Montreal, May, 1896.) From the 
New York Medical Record^ July 4, 1896. 
This vast collection of cases is of special interest, 
because they occurred in private practice. In most of 
them the nature of the disease was proved by 
bacteriological examination ; in the rest, the clinical 
evidence was decisive : " It is possible that among 
1 One of the latest reports, and one of the best, is Dr. Herman Biggs' 
paper at the New York Academy of Medicine, giving the results in New 
York, since 1895. See the New York Medical Record, March 4, I 899. 
92 DIPHTHERIA 
the latter we have admitted some streptococcus cases, 
but the number of such is certainly very small." All 
other doubtful cases, 244 in number, were excluded. 
Three thousand three hundred and eighty-four 
cases were reported by 613 physicians from 114 cities 
and towns, in fifteen different States, the District of 
Columbia, and the Dominion of Canada. To these 
3,384 cases were added 942 cases from tenement- 
houses in New York, and 1,468 cases from tenement- 
houses in Chicago. The New York and Chicago 
cases were, most of them, treated by a corps of 
inspectors of the Health Board of the city ; and the 
municipal surveillance was very strict at Chicago :- 
"There are very few hospitals in America that receive 
diphtheria patients. ... It was the custom in Chicago to 
send an inspector to every tenement-house case reported, 
and to administer the serum unless it was refused by the 
parents. These cases were therefore treated much 
earlier, and the results were correspondingly better than 
were obtained in New York, although the serum used 
was the same in both cities, viz., that of the New York 
Health Board." 
The sum total of results was 5,794 cases with 713 
deaths = 12'3 per cent., including every case returned ; 
but 218 were moribund at the time of injection or 
died within twenty-four hours of the first injection. 
"Should these be excluded, there would remain 5,576 
cases, in which the serum may be said to have had a 
chance, with a mortality of 8'8 per cent." 
93 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Of 996 cases injected on the first day of the disease, 49 died= 4'9 p.c. 
„ 1,616 „ „ „ second „ „ 120 ,, = 74 
" I>5°8 „ n " third ,, ,, 134 ,, = 88 » 
„ 758 », n „ fourth „ „ 147 „ =207 „ 
„ 690 „ „ on or after the fifth „ 244 „ =357 „ 
And in 232 cases, where the day of injection 
was unknown, there were 19 deaths = 8'2 per 
cent. 
" No one feature of the cases of diphtheria treated 
by antitoxin has excited more surprise among the 
physicians who have reported them than the prompt 
arrest, by the timely administration of the serum, of 
membrane which was rapidly spreading downward 
below the larynx. Such expressions abound in the 
reports as ' wonderful,' ' marvellous,' ' in all my 
experience with diphtheria have never seen anything 
like it before,' &c. 
" Turning now to the operative cases, we find the 
same remarkable effects of the antitoxin noticeable. 
Operations were done in 565 cases, or in 16*7 per 
cent, of the entire number reported. Intubation was 
performed 533 times, with 138 deaths, or a mortality 
of 25'9 per cent. In the above are included nine 
cases in which a secondary tracheotomy was done, 
with seven deaths. In 32, tracheotomy only was 
done, with 12 deaths, a mortality of 37*4 per cent. 
Of the 565 operative cases, 66 were either moribund 
at the time of operation or died within twenty-four 
hours after injection. Should these be deducted, there 
remain 499 cases operated upon, by intubation or 
94 DIPHTHERIA 
tracheotomy, with 84 deaths, a mortality of 16*9 per 
cent. 
" Let us compare the results of intubation, in cases in 
which the serum was used, with those obtained with 
this operation before the serum was introduced. Of 
5,546 intubation cases in the practice of 242 
physicians, collected by McNaughton and Maddren 
(1892), the mortality was 69*5 per cent. Since that 
time, statistics have improved materially by the general 
use (in and about New York, at least) of calomel 
fumigations. With this addition, the best results 
published (those of Brown) showed in 279 cases a 
mortality of 51'6 per cent. 
"But even these figures do not adequately express 
the benefit of antitoxin in laryngeal cases. Witness 
the fact that over one-half the laryngeal cases did not 
require operation at all. Formerly, ten per cent, of 
recoveries was the record for laryngeal cases not 
operated upon. Surely, if it does nothing else, the 
serum saves at least double the number of cases of 
laryngeal diphtheria that has been saved by any other 
method of treatment." 
II 
The report from the Hospital for Sick Children, 
Paris, is contained in a memoir, Serum-Therapie de la 
Diphterie, the joint work of MM. Roux, Martin, 
and Chailion {Annales de PInstitut Pasteur^ September, 
1894). It gives the results of the serum-treatment 
95 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
during February-July, 1894. The cases were not 
selected : the antitoxin was given in every case that 
was proved, by bacteriological examination, to be 
diphtheria-with the exception of 20 cases where the 
children were just dying when they were brought to 
the hospital. No change was made either in the 
general treatment or in the local applications to the 
throat ; these were the same that had been used in 
former years : le serum est le seul element nouveau 
introduit. 
In 1890-1893, before the serum-treatment, 3,971 
children were admitted to the diphtheria wards ; and 
2,029 them died. The percentage of these 
deaths was- 
In 1890 55*88 
„ 1891 52-45 
„ 1892 47-64 
„ 1893 48-47 
Average = 51*71. 
The serum was used from February i to July 
24, 1894. During this period 448 children were 
admitted, of whom 109 died = 24*5. 
During the same period (February-June) the 
Trousseau Hospital, where the serum was not used, 
had 520 cases, with 316 deaths = 6o*o. 
The cases at the Hospital for Sick Children must 
be divided into those that required tracheotomy and 
those that did not require it :- 
96 DIPHTHERIA 
Mortality among Cases not requiring 
Tracheotomy. 
In 1890 47'3° 
„ 1891 46-64 
, „ 1892 38-8 
„ 1893 32-02 
Average = 33-94. 
During the serum-period, the mortality of these 
cases was 12'0. At the Trousseau Hospital, without 
the serum, the mortality of these cases, during the 
same period, was 32*0. 
Mortality among Cases requiring 
Tracheotomy. 
In 1890 76-35 
„ 1891 68-36 
„ 1892 74-6 
„ 1893 73'45 
Average = 7349. 
During the serum-period, the mortality of these 
cases was 49*0. At the Trousseau Hospital, without 
the serum, the mortality of these cases, during the 
same period, was 86'0. 
Setting aside, out of the 448 children, those cases 
of " membranous sore throat " or " pseudo-diphtheria," 
in which the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus was not found, 
there remain 320 cases where it was found. Of 
these 320 children, 20 were just dying on admission, 
and did not receive the serum. Of the 300 who 
received it, 78 died - 26'0. Before the serum-period, 
the mortality of these cases at the same hospital was 
97 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
about 50'0. The complications of diphtheria, such as 
paralysis, were much less frequent during the serum- 
period than they had been before it. 
Ill 
In 1898, the Clinical Society published the Report 
of their Special Committee, based on 663 cases 
(Trans. Clin. Soc., xxxi., 1898, pp. 1-50). The 
whole report should be read carefully : but there is 
room here for nothing more than the latter part of it. 
This is given at length. 
A 
Table showing the General Mortality of 
Cases Treated, on the same day of the 
DISEASE, WITH AND WITHOUT ANTITOXIN. 
Antitoxin Committee : 
633 cases treated with Antitoxin. 
Metropolitan Asylums Board, 
1894: 
3,042 cases treated without 
Antitoxin. 
ice of 
tage. 
Day of the 
disease on 
2 £ 
Day of 
CD 
x; 
Dift'erer 
percen 
(which 
treatment 
was begun. 
Cases. 
Death 
Morts 
per c 
admission 
to hospital. 
Cases. 
Deat 
Morta 
per c< 
1st 
20 
2 
10'0 
1st 
133 
3° 
22'5 
12-5 
and 
92 
IO 
io'8 
2nd 
539 
146 
27'0 
i6'2 
3rd 
133 
20 
15-0 
3rd 
652 
192 
29'4 
14-4 
4th 
130 
26 
20'0 
4th 
566 
179 
31-6 
ir6 
5th 
and after. 
9 
% 
258 
66 
25-5 
5th 
1,152 
355 
30-8 
5-3 
Totals J 
633 
124 
^•s 
Totals 
3,042 
902 
29-6 
10'1 
98 DIPHTHERIA 
B 
Summary and Conclusions of the Committee's 
Report. 
" The material for the investigation of the clinical 
value of the antitoxin serum in the treatment of 
diphtheria was not obtained from selected, but from 
consecutive, cases, reported from the general hospitals 
and the fever hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums 
Board; all were made use of which fulfilled the 
requirements of the Committee. 
"The Committee rejected all cases in which satis- 
factory proof of the existence of true diphtheria was 
not shown, either by the presence of the Bacillus 
diphtheria upon bacteriological examination, or by 
the occurrence of paralysis in the course of the illness. 
All were also rejected in which the amount of anti- 
toxin administered was stated in cubic centimetres and 
not in normal units, the Committee having no means 
by which the strength of the antitoxin could in these 
cases be determined. 
" Six hundred and thirty-three cases form the basis on 
which the report is drawn up ; 549 were treated with 
antitoxin obtained from the laboratory of the Royal 
Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons ; the remainder, 
84 in number, were injected with antitoxin obtained 
from other sources. In 9 instances, antitoxin from 
two different sources was injected into the same 
patient. 
99 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
" Statistics of the disease before the use of antitoxin 
are introduced as control series ; these were obtained 
from the fever hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums 
Board, and from the general hospitals ; and, like the 
antitoxin series, are compiled from consecutive and 
not from selected cases. 
"The general mortality, under the antitoxin treat- 
ment, was 19*5 per cent. ; a reduction of io on the 
percentage mortality of the cases treated in the 
hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1894. 
If 15 fatal cases, in which death took place within 
twenty-four hours of the first injection, be deducted, 
the mortality falls to 15*6 per cent.; which is very 
little more than half the mortality during 1894 under 
other forms of treatment. 
" The lessened mortality is especially noticeable in 
the earlier years of life, the percentage mortality of 
children under five being 26'3, as opposed to 47*4. 
In the next period of five years, the percentage of 
mortality is i6*o, as opposed to 26*0 ; whilst after ten 
years of age the difference in the mortality is slight.1 
" Laryngeal diphtheria is admittedly the most dan- 
gerous form. The laryngeal cases have a percentage 
mortality of 23*6 in the antitoxin, as compared with 
66'0 in the non-antitoxin series. In the cases in 
which laryngeal symptoms are so severe as to 
necessitate tracheotomy, the saving of life by the 
use of antitoxin is very marked, the mortality being 
1 After this period, the disease is much less fatal. 
100 DIPHTHERIA 
reduced one-half, to 36'0 as opposed to 71*6 per 
cent. 
" The strongest evidence of the value of the antitoxin 
treatment is that in addition to reducing the general 
mortality by one-third, the duration of life in the fatal 
cases is decidedly prolonged. These two facts taken 
together conclusively prove the beneficial effects of 
the antitoxin treatment. 
"The incidence of paralysis1 is greater in the anti- 
toxin than in the control series. This increased 
number is partly explained by the lessened mortality, 
and partly by the longer duration of life in the fatal 
cases affording time for the development of paralytic 
symptoms. The percentage mortality of those who 
had some form or other of paralysis is lower in the 
antitoxin than in the control series; so that not- 
withstanding the apparent greater risk of paralysis 
supervening, the probability of final recovery is 
greater. 
" No definite conclusion can be drawn, for the 
reasons stated in the body of the report, as to the 
advantage of administering the whole of the antitoxin 
within forty-eight hours of the first injection, or con- 
tinuing it for a longer period ; but evidence is afforded 
of the importance of its administration as early as 
possible in the course of the disease : the percentage 
1 Post-diphtheritic paralysis, in the great majority of cases, is limited 
to a very narrow area, e.g., the soft palate, or the small muscles of the 
eye ; and usually disappears after convalescence. 
101 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
mortality in cases injected on the first and second days 
of the disease being 107, as compared with 257 for 
those first receiving the injection on the fifth or some 
subsequent day. 
"No conclusion can be drawn, from the cases reported 
on, as to the amount of antitoxin which should be 
used to produce the best effects; but they show that 
the administration of very large doses is followed by 
no pronounced ill effects. 
"The injection of antitoxin is responsible for the 
production of rashes, joint-pains, and possibly for the 
occurrence of late pyrexia.1 In 347 per cent, the 
injections were followed by rashes. Some amount of 
fever accompanied the rash in 60 per cent. In only 
9'4 per cent, of those in whom rashes were observed 
did death ensue. 
" Joint-pains were observed in 40, or 67 per cent, of 
the whole number, and all but five of them had a rash 
as well. 
" In 26, or 65 per cent, of the joint-pains, some 
rise of temperature accompanied the pain. A rise of 
temperature during convalescence, accompanied by 
either rash or joint-pain, occurred in 27, or 4-2 per 
cent, of the whole number. 
" No connection could be traced between the amount 
1 Since the date of this Report, much has been clone to obviate these 
faultsof the serum-treatment. Take, for instance, M. Spronck's paper 
in the Pinnules de I'lnstitut Pasteur, October, 1898 : "Influence favor- 
able du chauffage du serum antidiphterique sur les accidents post- 
therapiques ; " or the earlier paper, on the same subject, by MM. 
Beclere, Chambon, and Menard. 
102 DIPHTHERIA 
of antitoxin administered and the occurrence of rashes 
or late pyrexia, but the pain in and about the joints 
appears to have a relationship to the amount of anti- 
toxin used. 
" The results of the Committee's investigation tend 
to show that by the use of antitoxin- 
1. The general mortality is reduced by one-third. 
2. The mortality in tracheotomy falls by one-half. 
3. Extension of membrane to the larynx very rarely 
occurs after the administration of antitoxin. 
4. The duration of life in the fatal cases is decidedly 
prolonged. 
5. The number of fatal cases is less when antitoxin is 
used early in the illness than in those which do not 
receive it until a later period. 
6. The frequency of the occurrence of paralysis is not 
diminished, but the percentage of recoveries in cases with 
paralysis is slightly increased.1 
7. Rashes are produced in about one-third of the cases, 
and are attributable to the antitoxin. 
1 For an exhaustive and final study of the diphtheritic paralyses, see 
Dr. Woollacott's recent essay in the Lancet, August 26, 1899 : "The 
use of antitoxic serum in the treatment of diphtheria has, up to the 
present time, in the London fever hospitals, had two main results-the 
death-rate has fallen, while the paralysis-rate has risen. In the hospitals 
of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, the former has been reduced from 
29 per cent, to 15'3 per cent., while the latter has risen from 13 per 
cent, to as high as 21 per cent, in 1896. This increase of paralysis is 
chiefly due to the fact that many more patients now recover from the 
primary disease, and live long enough for paralysis to show itself. 
During the last two years, however, the occurrence of paralysis has begun to 
diminish in frequency. . . . The earlier antitoxin is given in diphtheria, the 
less likely is paralysis to follow." It is to be borne in mind that post- 
diphtheritic paralysis, in the great majority of cases, affects only a very 
small group of muscles ; of Dr. Woollacott's tabulated cases, 377 were 
of this kind, and 97 were severe. And "the type of paralysis has, on 
the whole, become less severe, or at all events less dangerous to life." 
103 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
8. Pain and occasionally swelling about the joints are 
produced in a number of cases. 
9. Even when used in large doses, no serious ill effects 
have followed the injection of antitoxin." 
Note. 
The Lancet, August 5 th, contains an abstract of Dr. 
Gabritchefski's recent account of the antitoxin treatment 
in Russia. " He points out that in recent years the 
number of persons attacked by the disease has increased, 
the figures for the whole of Russia rising from about 
100,000, or 120,000, ten years ago, to considerably over 
200,000 in 1897. The introduction of the serum treatment 
has however had a marked effect on the mortality of the 
disease; and the actual number of deaths from diphtheria 
has either not increased at all or has slightly diminished." 
For further reference to the prophylactic value of the 
antitoxin see Lancet, February 10, 1899. 
A book by Dr. Sims Woodhead, Professor of Pathology 
at Cambridge, is announced for publication, giving a 
complete account of the results obtained in the hospitals 
of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. 
104 VI 
TETANUS 
TWENTY years ago, the cause of tetanus (lock- 
jaw) was unknown, and men were free to 
believe that it was due to inflammation travelling up 
an injured nerve to the central nervous system. This 
false and mischievous theory was abolished by the 
experimental work of Sternberg (1880), Carle and 
Rattone (1884), and Nicolaier (1884); who proved, 
once and for all, that the disease is an infection by a 
specific flagellate organism. These men fought their 
way through a whole forest of difficulties :- 
I. In some parts of the world, tetanus is so com- 
mon, with or without evidence of any wound, that it 
may be called endemic ; and this form of the disease 
was taken as evidence that tetanus could occur "of 
itself," without external infection :- 
"Tetanus is an exceedingly common disease in some 
tropical countries. In Western Africa, for example, a 
large proportion of wounds, no matter how trifling as 
105 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
wounds they may be, if they are fouled by earth or dirt, 
result in tetanus. The French in Senegambia have found 
this to their cost. A gentleman who had travelled much in 
Congoland told me that certain tribes poison their arrows 
by simply dipping the tips in a particular kind of mud. 
A wound from these arrows is nearly sure to cause tetanus. 
In many countries, so general and so extensive is the dis- 
tribution of the tetanus bacillus that trismus neonatorum 
(tetanus of newly-born infants) is a principal cause of the 
excessive infant mortality." (Manson, Tropical Diseases, 
1898.) 
2. The bacillus has its natural abode in the super- 
ficial layers of the soil, where it is associated with a 
vast number of other organisms ; wherever it is found, 
and it is found everywhere, it is mixed with all other 
microbes:- 
" Houston gives the estimated number of microbes per 
gramme found in 21 samples of soil. These vary from 
8,326 in virgin sand, and 475,282 in a virgin peat, to 
115,014,492 in the soil from the trench of a sewage farm. 
. . . Among the ubiquitous organisms which are habitually 
found in earth is the bacillus of tetanus. It is said to be 
present in almost all rich garden-soils, and that the presence 
of horse-dung favours its occurrence. There seems to be 
no doubt as to the ubiquity of the tetanus germ." (Poore, 
Milroy Lectures, 1899.) 
3. The bacillus of tetanus, since it thus flourishes 
below the earth, away from the air, cannot be got to 
grow in cultures exposed to the air : it is " strictly 
anaerobic," and must be cultivated below the surface 
106 TETANUS 
of certain nutrient media, or in an atmosphere of 
nitrogen or hydrogen. 
With these and other difficulties in the way, no 
wonder that it took some years to prove the true 
pathology of tetanus. The final success of the work 
was mainly due to Nicolaier. He started from the 
well-known fact that tetanus most often comes of 
wounds or scratches contaminated with particles of 
earth-such mischances as the grinding of dirt or 
gravel into the skin, or the tearing of it by a splinter 
of wood or a rusty nail :- 
" Every child who falls on the ground and gets an 
abrasion of the skin, all tillers of the soil who get 
accidental wounds in the course of duty, and every horse 
which 'breaks its knees' by falling in the London streets, 
runs potentially a risk of inoculation with tetanus. ... A 
review of the main facts connected with tetanus cannot 
but rouse in us some surprise that, in face of the ubiquity 
of the cause, the disease in man should be so rare. This 
is probably in part due to the fact that we wear boots." 
(Poore, loc. cit.) 
Nicolaier therefore studied the various microbes of the 
soil, and made inoculations of garden-mould under the 
skin of rabbits. He was able, by these inoculations, 
to produce tetanus in them ; and the discharge from 
the points of inoculation, put under the skin of other 
rabbits, produced the disease again. He also identified 
the bacillus, and cultivated it; but in these cultures 
it was mixed with other organisms, and he failed to 
107 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
isolate it from them. Carle and Rattone, and Rosen- 
bach, were able to produce tetanus in animals by- 
inoculating them with discharge from the wounds of 
tetanic patients. Finally, Kitasato, in 1889, obtained 
pure cultures of the bacillus. Beginning with impure 
cultures such as Nicolaier had made, he kept these at 
a temperature of 36° C. till the bacillus had spored ; 
then, by repeated exposures of the cultures to a tem- 
perature of 8o° C. for three-quarters of an hour at a 
time, he killed off all organisms except the spores of the 
tetanus-bacillus ; then he kept these in an atmosphere 
of hydrogen, at a temperature of 20° C., and thus got 
pure cultures. 
Brieger, Frankel, Cohn, Sidney Martin, and others, 
have studied the chemical products of the disease, have 
obtained them from cultures and from infected tissues, 
and have been able, with these toxins, to produce 
tetanus. Further, it has been proved that the bacillus 
does not tend to invade the blood, or to pass beyond 
the lymphatic glands in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the wound ; it stays in and about the wound, grows 
there;, and pours thence into the blood the chemical 
products of its growth, which have a selective action, 
like a dose of strychnine, on the cells of the central 
nervous system. 
It is evident that the truth about tetanus was found, 
proved, and interpreted by experiments on animals. 
The old fancies that the disease was an acute 
inflammation running up a nerve are gone for ever : 
108 TETANUS 
men know, at last, what tetanus is. For the practical 
use of this knowledge, consider this great difficulty, 
that the disease is latent and unrecognised till it is 
fulminant: the first sign of it is the last stage of it; 
there may be no warning, nothing but a trivial wound, 
till the central nervous system is affected. Besides, the 
work is all new, still in the making ; it is too soon to ask 
for final results in practice, when science has hardly done 
speaking. Yet the results are there already, and more 
to come : nos methodes se perfectionnent de jour en jour:- 
i. It has become common knowledge that lockjaw 
is the result of inoculation of the skin with earth or 
dirt containing a specific organism ; the old notions 
that a clean cut between the thumb and the forefinger 
was especially dangerous, that a poultice made a dirty 
cut clean, and the like, are giving way to a thorough 
cleansing and antiseptic dressing of all such wounds. 
Certainly, with tetanus, prevention is better than 
cure ; and the risk of an earth-fouled wound is most 
surely obviated by very careful cleansing, disinfection, 
and dressing. At the time of the Chicago Exhibition, 
the Medical Bureau of the Exhibition had to treat 
202 cases of lacerated wounds of the hand among the 
workmen who unpacked the nailed-up crates. All 
these wounds were dressed at once by the antiseptic 
method, and no case of tetanus occurred. But this 
year (1899) the Fourth of July festivities in the United 
States were the cause of many cases : no less than 
83 deaths from tetanus were reported, 26 of them in 
109 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
and around New York. Almost all of them were 
due to gunshot wounds of the hand with toy-pistols : 
the unclean wad of the cartridge penetrated deep into 
the tissues of the unclean hand, taking the germs of 
tetanus with it, out of the reach of surgical disinfection. 
But now, in the routine of hospital work, tetanus 
has become so rare, thanks to the antiseptic method, 
that a student may complete his course, and not see 
a case of it. Fifty years ago, among the wounded in 
war, it was terribly common. 
2. Various preparations of curative serum have been 
made from immunised animals, and have given very 
hopeful results. The ordinary mortality of traumatic 
tetanus has been estimated at " nearly 90 per cent." ; 
but this estimate is probably excessive : moreover, the 
disease is very variable in its intensity. The use of 
anti-tetanus serum does not exclude other methods of 
treatment. But the whole thing is too recent, and 
the figures too small, for final or exact estimate.1 
1 In 1895, 42 cases of the antitoxin treatment were collected, with 
27 recoveries. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 
November 13, 1897, gives 26 cases, with 12 recoveries. In the 
Miinchener Medicinische Wochenschrift of the same week (November 16th) 
Weischer gives 98, with 57 recoveries. The British Medical Journal 
(July 23, 1898) 36, with 25 recoveries. Erdheim (September, 1898) 
22, with 11 recoveries. Engelmann (1898) 51, with 36 recoveries. 
Tavel, of Berne, has lately published 10 cases, with 7 recoveries, as 
against 13 cases, not treated with antitoxin, of whom 11 died (Lancet, 
April 29, 1899). On the other hand, Baccelli reports even better results 
from another method of treatment, without antitoxin (British Medical 
Journal, 1899) ; but here again the figures are too small for exact 
judgment, nor did his method give such good results in India as in Italy 
(see Lieut.-Col. Henderson's paper, before the Bombay Medical Society, 
Lancet, June 3, 1899). 
110 TETANUS 
It is too soon (September, 1899) to know more than 
that the treatment is justified by results, and can be 
given in combination with other remedies. 
3. Horses are apt to be infected by tetanus, and the 
antitoxin has been used in veterinary practice both for 
prevention and for cure. The curative results are not, 
at present, very striking. But as regards protection 
against the disease, there is evidence that horses can 
be immunised against tetanus, by the antitoxin, with 
almost mechanical accuracy. In some parts of the 
world the loss of horses by tetanus is a very serious 
matter : for instance, in St. Domingo. 
(i.) Curative.-"Dr. Arndt, Government Veterinary 
Surgeon in Oppeln, has collected the cases of tetanus in 
horses which have up to the present been treated by 
Behring's antitoxin, and has published the results in the 
Deutsche Med. Wochenschrift. The first series includes 28 
cases in private practice. The second series contains 28 
cases treated in the Royal Veterinary Hospital in Berlin, 
1 5 of which recovered, and 13 died ; of the latter, 5 were 
in a hopeless state when brought to the hospital. The 
results of the injections are much better than those without 
treatment, the ordinary death-rate being about 85 per cent. 
In a third series of 19 horses, treated by an antitoxin of 
less strength, there were 16 deaths. Dr. Arndt's statistics 
show that of 75 horses treated, 33 recovered and 4.2 died. 
In complicated cases the remedy proved useless." {Lancet, 
March 12, 1898.) 
(ii.) Preventive.-" The use of antitetanus serum as a 
preventive has been in force for some years in veterinary 
practice in cases of wounds or surgical procedures. To 
this end the Pasteur Institute has supplied 7,000 doses of 
111 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
antitetanus serum, a dose being io cubic centimetres ; a 
quantity which has sufficed to treat preventively 3,100 
animals in those parts of the country where tetanus is 
endemic. Among these, there has been no death from 
tetanus. In the case of one horse, injected five days after 
receiving a wound, tetanus developed, but the attack was 
slight. During the same time that these animals were 
injected, the same veterinary surgeon observed, among 
animals not treated by injection, 259 cases of tetanus. 
There would therefore seem to be no doubt of the utility 
of preventive injections of serum in veterinary practice." 
(Nocard, Lancet, August 7, 1897.) 
4. Tetanus in man, except in some tropical coun- 
tries, is a rare disease : yet a man might receive a 
lacerated wound under conditions especially favourable 
to infection ; and in that case he might be able to 
ensure himself with a protective dose of the antitoxin. 
The Lancet of January 28th of this present year 
reports an outbreak of tetanus among certain obstetrical 
cases at Prague. It is said that the most stringent 
hygienic measures, including the use of antitoxin, 
have failed to stop this extraordinary disaster. But no 
details are given how the outbreak arose ; and cer- 
tainly, if a man were to tear his hand with any object 
that was especially likely to be infected with tetanus, 
he might do well to have recourse at once to the 
antitoxin to protect him. 
5. The old rule, that the wounded tissues in a case 
of tetanus should be at once excised, has been brought 
into more general use. Before Nicolaier's work, 
112 TETANUS 
while the theory still survived that tetanus was a 
disease of the nerves, this rule was neither enforced 
nor explained. 
It is only ten years since Kitasato first obtained 
pure cultures of Nicolaier's bacillus : yet here is a 
good record already of lives saved or protected. This 
record will be still better, in the next few years ; for 
the want of more success is not due to any fault in 
the work. 
It is impossible to write of tetanus without recalling 
Professor Kanthack's name : and his monograph on 
the disease remains as a landmark in pathology. An 
excellent account of the antitoxin treatment was given 
last year by Dr. Lund, of Boston, in the 'Transactions 
of the Massachusetts Medical Society, vol. xvii. For 
the intra-dural use of the antitoxin (Roux and Borrel), 
see Surgeon-Major Semple's paper, Brit. Med. Journ., 
January 7, 1899. 
113 VII 
RABIES 
PASTEUR'S study of rabies began in 1880 ; and 
the date of the first case treated-Joseph 
Meister, a shepherd-boy of Alsace-is July, 1885. 
The first part of the work was spent in a prolonged 
search for the specific microbe of rabies. It was not 
found : its existence was a matter of inference, but 
not of observation. In his earlier inoculations, he 
made use of the saliva of rabid animals ; and M. 
Vallery-Radot tells the story, how Pasteur took him 
on one of his expeditions :- 
"The rabid beast was in this case a huge bull-dog, 
foaming at the mouth and howling in his cage. All 
attempts to induce the animal to bite, and so infect one of 
the rabbits, failed. 'But we must' said Pasteur, 'inocu- 
late the rabbits with this sali\a.' Accordingly a noose was 
made and thrown, the dog secured and dragged to the edge 
of the cage, and his jaws tied together. Choking with 
rage, the eyes bloodshot, and the body convulsed by a 
violent spasm, the animal was stretched on a table, and 
114 RABIES 
kept motionless, while Pasteur, leaning over this foaming 
head, sucked up into a narrow glass tube some drops of the 
saliva." 1 
But these inoculations of saliva sometimes failed to 
produce the disease ; and, when they succeeded, the 
incubation-period was wholly uncertain : it might be 
some months before the disease appeared. Thus 
Pasteur was led to use, instead of the saliva, an emulsion 
of the brain or spinal cord ; because, as Dr. Duboue 
had suggested, the central nervous system is the chief 
seat, the locus electionis, of the virus of rabies. But 
these inoculations also were not always successful, nor 
did they give a definite incubation-period. 
Therefore he followed with rabies the method that 
he had followed with anthrax. As he had cultivated 
the virus of anthrax, by putting it where its develop- 
ment could be watched and controlled, so he must put 
the virus of rabies in the place of its choice. It has a 
selective action on the cells of the central nervous 
system, a sort of affinity with them ; they are, as it 
were, the natural home of rabies, the proper nutrient 
medium for the virus : therefore the virus must be 
inoculated not under the skin, but under the skull. 
These sub-dural inoculations were the turning-point 
of Pasteur's discovery. The first inoculation was made 
by M. Roux - 
1 But it is said, in ^dntivivisection Evidences (1895), that "Mad dogs 
are already so ill that they are in general very gentle " ! 
115 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
"Next day, when I informed Pasteur that the intra- 
cranial inoculation offered no difficulty, he was moved with 
pity for the dog. ' Poor beast, his brain is doubtless in- 
jured : he must be paralysed.' Without reply 1 went down 
to the basement to fetch it, and let it come into the labora- 
tory. Pasteur did not like dogs, but when he saw this one, 
full of life, inquisitively rummaging about in all directions, 
he exhibited the greatest delight, and lavished most charm- 
ing words upon it." 
Henceforth all uncertainty was at an end, and the 
way was clear ahead : Pasteur had now to deal with 
a virus that had a definite period of incubation, and 
a suitable medium for development. The central 
nervous system was to the virus of rabies what the 
test-tube was to the virus of fowl-cholera or anthrax. 
As he had controlled these diseases, had turned them 
this way and that, attenuated and intensified them, so 
he could control rabies. By transmitting it through 
a series of rabbits, by sub-dural inoculation of each 
rabbit with a minute quantity of nerve-tissue from the 
rabbit that had died before it, he was able to intensify 
the virus, to shorten its period of incubation, to fix it 
at six days. Thus he obtained a virus of exact 
strength, a definite standard of virulence, virus fixe: 
the next rabbit inoculated would have the disease in 
six days, neither more nor less. 
As he was able to intensify the virus by transmission, 
so he was able to attenuate it by gradual drying of the 
tissues that contained it. The spinal cord, taken from 
116 RABIES 
a rabbit that has died of rabies, slowly loses virulence 
by simple drying. A cord dried for four days is less 
virulent than one that has been dried for three, and 
more virulent than one dried for five. A cord dried 
for a fortnight has lost all virulence : even a large dose 
of it will not produce the disease. By this method of 
drying, Pasteur was enabled to obtain the virus in all 
degrees of activity : he could always keep going one 
or more series ofcords, of known and exactly graduated 
strengths, according to the length of time they had 
been dried - ranging from absolute non-virulence 
through every shade of virulence. 
And, as with fowl-cholera and anthrax, so with 
rabies ; a virus which has been attenuated till it 
has been rendered innocuous, can yet confer im- 
munity against its more virulent forms : just as 
vaccination can protect against small-pox. A man, 
bitten by a rabid animal, has at least some weeks 
of respite before the disease can break out; and, 
during that time of respite, he can be immunised 
against the disease, while it is still dormant: he 
begins with a dose of virus attenuated past all power 
of doing harm, and advances day by day to more active 
doses, guarded each day by the dose of the day before, 
till he has manufactured within himself enough 
antitoxin to make him proof against any outbreak of 
the disease. 
The cords used for treatment are removed from the 
bodies of the rabbits, by an aseptic method, and are cut 
117 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
into lengths and hung in glass jars, with some chloride 
of calcium in them, for drying. The jars are dated, 
and then kept in glass cases in a dark room at a con- 
stant temperature. To make sure that the cords are 
aseptic, a small portion of each cord is sown on nutrient 
jelly in a test-tube, and watched, to see that no bacteria 
occur in the tube. For each injection a certain small 
quantity of cord is rubbed-up in sterilised fluid ; and 
these subcutaneous injections give no pain or malaise 
worth considering. 
Of course, the treatment is adjusted to the gravity 
of the case. A bite through naked skin is more grave 
than a bite through clothing ; and bites on the head 
or face, and wolf-bites, are worst of all. The number 
and character of the scars are also taken into account. 
An excellent description of the treatment, by a patient, 
was published in the Birmingham Medical Review of 
January, 1898. It gives the following tables of 
treatment :- 
I. 
Ordinary Treatment. 
Day of 
Days of Drying 
Treatment. of Cord. 
i 
. . 14 and 13 
2 
. . 12 and 11 
3 
.. .. 10 and 9 
4 
8 and 7 
5 
6 
6 
6 
7 
5 
8 
.. . * 4 
9 
• • (J dose) 3 
IO 
. . (full dose) 5 
ii 
5 
12 
4 
Day of 
Treatment. 
Days of Drying 
of Cord. 
13 
4 
14 
(J dose) 3 
15 
.. (full dose) 3 
z. Cases of Moderate Gravity. 
Same treatment, up to 13th day. 
Day of 
Days of Drying 
Treatment. 
of Cord. 
14 
3 
15 
5 
16 
.. .. 4 
17 
•• (4 dose) 3 
18 
.. (full dose) 3 
118 RABIES 
3- 
Grave Cases. 
Same treatment, up to 10th day. 
Day of 
Days of Drying 
Treatment. 
of Cord. 
11 
4 
12 
3 
*3 
5 
14 
5 
15 
4 
l6 
. . . • 4 
17 
(J dose) 3 
18 
.. (full dose) 3 
'9 
5 
20 
3 
Day of 
Treatment. 
Days of Drying 
of Cord. 
21 
4 
22 
3 
4- 
Very Grave Cases. 
Same treatment as 3, and in addition 
Day of 
Days of Drying 
Treatment. 
of Cord. 
23 
5 
24 
4 
25 
dose) 3 
26 
.. (full dose) 3 
Furious criticism, unbelief, and flagrant misstate- 
ment of facts began at once, and lasted more than 
two years. Of Pasteur's opponents, the chief was 
M. Peter, who besought the Academie des Sciences, 
about once a week, that they should close Pasteur's 
laboratory, because he was not preventing hydro- 
phobia but producing it. But it does not matter 
what was said fourteen years ago. In this country, 
the Report of the 1886 Committee, and the Mansion 
House meeting in July, 1889, mark the decline and 
fall of all intelligent opposition to the work. Among 
so many thousand cases, during so many years, it 
would be a miracle indeed if not a single case had 
failed or gone amiss ; but we are concerned here with 
the thousands. Take only the four latest reports, from 
Athens, Palermo, Rio, and Paris. It is to be noted 
that the patients, alike at Paris and at other Institutes, 
are divided into three classes :- 
" A. Bitten by animals proved to have been rabid by the 
119 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
development of rabies in other animals inoculated from 
them. 
" B. Bitten by animals proved to have been rabid by 
dissection of their bodies by veterinary surgeons. 
" C. Bitten by animals suspected to have been rabid." 
It is to be noted also, as a fact proved beyond 
doubt, that the full benefit of the treatment is not 
obtained at once ; the highest degree of immunity is 
reached about a fortnight after the discontinuance of 
the treatment. Those few cases, therefore, where 
hydrophobia has occurred, not only in spite of treat- 
ment, but within a fortnight of the last day of treat- 
ment, are counted as cases where the treatment came 
too late. 
Finally, what was the risk of a bite from a rabid 
animal, in the days before 1885? It is a matter of 
guess-work. One writer, and one only, guessed it at 
5 per cent; another guessed it at 55, and a third 
came to the safe conclusion that it was " somewhere 
between these limits." Leblanc, who is probably the 
best guide, put it at 16 ; and Pasteur himself put it 
between 15 and 20. But suppose ic were only 10 ; 
that, before Pasteur, out of every 100 men bitten by 
rabid animals, 90 would escape and only 10 would die 
of hydrophobia ; then take this fact, that in one year, 
at one Institute alone, there were 142 patients treated, 
bitten by animals that were proved, by the unanswer- 
able test of inoculation, to have been rabid ; and 1 
death. And every year the same thing ; and in all 
120 RABIES 
the 12 years together 2,872 such cases and 20 deaths- 
a mortality not of 10 per cent., but of less than 1 per 
cent. 
1. Athens. 
The Annales de Plnstitut Pasteur, June, 1898, con- 
tain Dr. Pampoukis' report of three years' work at 
the Hellenic Institute, from August, 1894^0 Decem- 
ber, 1897. During this period 797 cases were treated 
-590 male and 207 female. The animals that bit 
them were-dogs, 732 ; cats, 34 ; wolf, 1 ; other 
animals, 13; and the 17 other patients had been 
exposed to infection from the saliva of hydrophobic 
patients. Of the 797 cases, 245 were of class A, 112 
B, and 440 C. 
" Among the 797 persons treated, there are two 
deaths, one in class B and the other in class C. Thus 
the mortality has been 0'25 per cent. Besides these 
two who died of rabies there are five more, in whom 
the first signs of rabies showed themselves in less than 
fifteen days after the last inoculation. 
" Finally, beside these 797 cases, there is one other 
case, bitten by a wolf, in whom the treatment failed. 
If we reckon this last case in the statistics of mortality, 
we have three deaths in 798 cases = 0*37 per cent. 
" Beside these 798 cases treated at the Institute, there 
have been others that have not undergone the antirabic 
treatment, having trusted the assurances of those who 
are called in Greece empirics. Among these non- 
treated cases there are 40 who have died of rabies." 
121 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
2. Palermo. 
The Annalee for April, 1896, give the report by 
Dr. de Blasi and Dr. Russo-Travali of the work of 
the Municipal Institute at Palermo, during 8^ years, 
from March, 1887, to December, 1895. The number 
of cases was 2,221 ; in 1,240 (class A), the animals 
were proved to have been rabid by the result of 
inoculations ; in 981, there was reason to suspect 
rabies. 
" Setting aside five patients who died during the 
course of the treatment, and five others who died less 
than fifteen days after the end of the treatment, we 
have had to deplore only nine failures = 0'4 per cent. 
Even if we count against ourselves the ten other cases, 
the mortality is still only 0'85." 
3. Rio de Janeiro. 
The zAnnales for August, 1898, give Dr. Ferreira's 
report of ten years' work (February, 1888-April, 
1898) at the Pasteur Institute at Rio. The number 
of cases treated was 2,647, °f whom 1,987 were male 
and 660 female. Beside these 2,647 there were 1,234 
who were not treated, because it was ascertained that 
they were in no danger of rabies ; 3 who were brought 
to the Institute, already suffering from the disease ; and 
59 who refused treatment. 
Of the 2,647 persons treated, 10 had pricked their 
hands at work in the laboratory, 3 had exposed chance 
122 RABIES 
scratches on their hands to the saliva of rabid animals, 
and I had been bitten by a rabid patient. Of the rest, 
1,886 had been bitten on the bare skin, and 747 
through clothing. 
In 236 cases the rabies of the animal had been 
proved by inoculation. In 1,173 it had been recog- 
nised by the signs of the disease. In 1,238 there was 
good reason to suspect that the animal had been rabid. 
Of the 2,647 patients, in 30 cases the treatment was 
stopped, because the animals were at last traced, after 
treatment was begun, and were found not to be rabid. 
In 65 cases the patients, after treatment was begun, 
refused to go on with it, and 3 of them died of rabies. 
In 6 cases rabies developed during treatment ; 5 of 
them had been very badly bitten about the head, and 
1 did not come for treatment till the twenty-first day 
after the bite, and was attacked by rabies two days 
later. And 5 cases died of other maladies that had 
nothing to do with rabies. Setting aside these 106 
cases, there remain 2,541 cases, with 20 deaths = 078 
per cent. But, of these 20 deaths, 9 occurred within 
fifteen days of the end of treatment, before protection 
was fully established. If these 9 deaths be excluded, the 
figures stand at 2,532 cases, with 11 deaths = 0'43 
per cent. 
4. Paris. 
Dr. Pottevin's report on the work of the Pasteur 
Institute {Annales, April, 1898) must be given word for 
word, without abbreviation. 
123 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
1. 
During 1897, L521 patients received the antirabic 
treatment at the Pasteur Institute : 8 died of rabies. 
The notes of their cases will be found at the end of 
this paper. 
If we exclude 2 of these 8 cases-the cases of 
Heniquet and Morin, where death occurred before it 
was possible for the vaccinations to produce their effect 
-the results of the vaccinations in 1897 are- 
Patients treated ... ... 1,519 
Deaths ... ... ... 6 
Mortality per cent. ... ... 0'39 
In the following table these figures are compared 
with those of preceding years :- 
Year. 
Patients treated. 
Deaths. 
Mortality per cent. 
1886 
2,671 
25 
0-94 
1887 
1,770 
°79 
1888 
1,622 
9 
0-55 
1889 
1,830 
7 
078 
1890 
1,540 
5 
072 
1891 
M59 
4 
0-25 
1892 
1,79° 
4 
0'22 
1893 
1,648 
6 
O76 
1894 
1,387 
7 
0'50 
1895 
1,520 
5 
0'33 
I 896 
1,308 
4 
0'3° 
1897 
1,521 
6 
0-39 
124 RABIES 
II. 
Patients treated at the Pasteur Institute are divided 
into three classes as follows :- 
A. The rabies of the animal was proved by experi- 
ment, by the development of rabies in animals inoculated 
with its bulb (the upper end of the spinal cord).1 
B. The rabies of the animal was proved by veterinary 
examination (dissection of its body). 
C. The animal was suspected of rabies. 
We give here the patients treated in 1897, under 
these three classes :- 
o w > 
E 
>2 
Ph 
K 
W 
£ 
o£ 
901 
S1 
! 
Patients. 
o 
000 
Deaths. 
0 
000 
Mortality p. c. 
864 
81 
539 
244 
Patients. 
E 
E 0 
PJ 
O-^O 
Deaths. 
q 
0 q 0 
Mortality p. c. 
506 
46 
273 
187 
Patients. 
E 
g 
r M 
cn 
go 
3 
w 
N 
O ~ M 
Deaths. 
q 
0 2 2 
Mortality p. c. 
142 
918 
461 
Patients. 
0 
O' 
0 m 
Deaths. 
q 
0 2 °. 
Mortality p. c. 
The following tables, giving the results obtained 
since the vaccinations were first used, show that the 
1 It is satisfactory to know that rabbits affected with rabies do not 
suffer in the same way as dogs and some other animals, but become 
subject to a painless kind of paralysis. 
125 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
gravity of the bites varies with their position on the 
body, and that the mortality is always below 1 per 
cent, among patients bitten by dogs undoubtedly 
rabid : 
Bites of 
the 
Patients. Deaths. Mortality. 
Head 
L759 
21 
II 
Bites of 
Hands 
the 
ii,ii8 
53 
0-47 
Bites of 
Limbs 
the 
7,289 
22 
0-30 
20,166 
96 
0-46 
Patients. Deaths. Mortality. 
A .. 2,872 
20 
0'69 
B .. 12,547 
61 
0-48 
C ' ' 4,747 
0-31 
20,166 
96 
0'46 
in. 
In regard to their nationality, the 1,521 patients 
treated at the Pasteur Institute in 1897 were as 
follows :- 
Germany ... 8 
England ... 83 
Belgium ... 14 
Egypt 2 
United States... 1 
Greece ... 1 
India ... ... 33 
Switzerland ... 33 
That is, 175 foreigners and 1,346 French. 
IV. 
Notes of the eight cases where the treatment 
failed :- 
I. Camille Bourg, 26. Bitten April nth; treated at 
the Pasteur Institute April 13 th to 30th ; died of rabies at 
the Lariboisiere Hospital, May 26th. Six penetrating bites 
on the ball of the left thumb. The dog was examined by 
M. Grenot, a veterinary surgeon at Paris, and the dis- 
126 RABIES 
section gave evidence of rabies. Another person bitten 
and treated at the same time as Bourg is now in good 
health. 
2. Louis Fiquet, 23. Bitten April 22nd ; treated at 
the Pasteur Institute, April 23rd-May 10th ; died of 
rabies at the Necker Hospital, June 4th. Five bites, two 
of them deep, round the right thumb. They had been 
cauterised five hours after infliction. The dog was 
examined by M. Causse, a veterinary surgeon at Boulogne, 
and the dissection gave evidence of rabies. Another 
person bitten at the same time as Fiquet is now in good 
health. 
3. Annette Beaufort, 19. Licked on the hands, which 
were chapped, on April 15th. The dog was killed next 
day, examined, and declared to have been rabid by M. 
Lachmann, a veterinary surgeon at Saint-Etienne. Treated 
at the Pasteur Institute, April 2Oth-May 7th. Died of 
rabies October 14th. Two other persons bitten by the 
same dog and treated at the Pasteur Institute are now in 
good health. 
4. Julien Heniquet, 53. Bitten March nth by a dog 
that M. Jenvresse, veterinary surgeon at Beaumont-sur- 
Oise, declared after dissection to have been rabid. One 
bite had torn the lower lip, the wound had been sutured ; 
three other wounds on the nose. The wounds had not 
been cauterised. Treated at the Pasteur Institute, May 
18th-June 5th. First symptoms of rabies showed them- 
selves June 4th, before the treatment was finished ; died 
June 7th. As the disease had its onset during the course 
of the inoculations, this case should be excluded from the 
number of those who died of rabies after treatment. 
5. Germain Segond, 7. Penetrating bite on the bare 
right fore-arm, May 23rd. Cauterised an hour later with 
a red-hot iron. Treated May 26th-June 9th ; died of 
rabies July 22nd. The dog's bulb had been sent to the 
127 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Pasteur Institute. A guinea-pig inoculated in the eye 
May 26th was seized with rabies September 10th. 
6. Suzanne Richard, 8. Bitten June 12th on the left 
leg by a dog, found on dissection to have been rabid by M. 
Touret, veterinary surgeon at Sannois. The bite, pene- 
trating 3 cm. long, had been sutured ; it had been 
made through a cotton stocking, and had been cauterised 
in half an hour. Treated June i3th~3Oth ; died of rabies 
August 2nd. (Notes from M. Ie Dr. Margny, at Sannois.) 
7. Joseph Vaudale, 33. Bitten on the left hand, August 
8th. Six penetrating bites on the back of the hand ; had 
not been cauterised. The dog was declared rabid by M. 
Verraert, veterinary surgeon at Ostend. Treated at the 
Pasteur Institute, August lith-28th ; died of rabies 
September 27th. 
8. Paul Morin, 38. Bitten August 24th on the left 
cheek, a single bite, 2 cm. long ; no cauterisation. The 
dog was sent to the Alfort School, August 25th, and 
found to be rabid. Treated at the Pasteur Institute 
August 26th-September 15th. Died of rabies some days 
after the end of treatment (three weeks after the bite, 
says a note sent to us). The interval between the end of 
the treatment and the onset of the disease being less than 
fourteen days, Morin must not be counted in the number 
of patients inoculated under conditions which permit 
successful inoculation. 
It is not impossible that some sort of intensive modifi- 
cation of Pasteur's treatment may be found not for the 
prevention, but for the cure of hydrophobia ; and two 
successful cases of this kind have been reported in the 
Annales. Apart from this faint hope, the cure of 
hydrophobia is where it was in the days of the "Ton- 
128 RABIES 
quin medicine" and the "Tanjore pills." As for the 
"Buisson Bath Treatment for the Prevention and 
Cure of Hydrophobia," it failed egregiously to afford 
the very least benefit to inoculated animals, and the 
evidence in its favour is just like the evidence for Mother 
Siegel's Syrup. Dr. Buisson himself thought he had 
hydrophobia, and took a vapour-bath to kill himself: 
and at 42 degrees (127 Fahrenheit} I was cured. 
It was an ordinary case of fear of hydrophobia. Then 
there is " a mass of cures effected in Asia " : we know 
that mass of cures in Asia : but only one of them is 
quoted, and in that case nothing is said about the dog. 
Finally, there is the case of Pauline Kiehl, who was 
" refused treatment by M. Pasteur," which is certainly 
the strangest feature of the case : but it is not said 
where this case is published. The whole thing is 
arrant nonsense.1 
Note. 
The Annales for June of this year contain the 1898 
report from the Pasteur Institute. The number of 
patients treated was 1,465, of whom 4 died of rabies, 
1 The latest report of the " Buisson treatment " (Abolitionist, August 
15, 1899) is wonderful. A native of Dacca writes-"No fewer than 
thirty cases we treated successfully. One case bitten by a cobra we 
treated with wonderful success, and another by a rabid fox." It does 
not say whether the cobra was rabid. Another case is reported by a lady 
doctor, " Physician in charge of the Temperance and Buisson Institute, 
No. 2, Clare Road, Byculla." This was a little boy, bitten by a dog 
" suspected, though not proved, to be rabid." "If this case be inter- 
preted as one of Tetanus rather than Hydrophobia, it only indicates 
another important use for the Buisson bath." Interpreted is good : and 
the Indian Government ought to note that this idiotic bath is used alike 
for rabies, snake-bite, and (?) tetanus. 
129 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
but one of them died only ten days after treatment.1 
Two patients were seized by rabies during treatment, 
and are not counted among those treated. The figures 
therefore are- 
Cases treated 1,465 
Deaths 3 
Mortality o-2 per cent. 
Total 
Table A 
Table B 
Table C 1 
4^ 00 m 
O 
Treated. 
Bites on the 
Head. 
o 
OOO 
Died. 
o 
OOO 
Mortality. 
914 
100 
549 
265 
Treated. 
Bites on the 
Hands. 
M M O 
Died. 
q 
N 
q q 0 
00 
Mortality. 
419 
3° 
226 
163 
Treated. 
Bites on the 
Limbs. 
MOO 
Died. 
q 
N 
19.0 
0 
0 
Mortality. 
1465 
141 
855 
469 
Treated. 
Total. 
LU 
N H O 
Died. 
q 
N 
0 
0 
0*1 I 
0*42 
Mortality. 
1 A. La rage de 1'animal mordeur a ete experiment- 
alement constatee par le developpement de la maladie chez 
des animaux mordus par lui ou inocules avec son bulbe. 
B. La rage de l'animal mordeur a ete constatee par 
examen veterinaire. 
C. L'animal mordeur est suspect de rage. 
Of the three patients who died more than fifteen 
days after the treatment, one came from India 
1 " D'apres les experiences faites sur les chiens, on est autorise a 
penser que les centres nerveux des personnes mortes de rage dans les 15 
jours qui suivent le traitement ont ete envahis par le virus rabique avant 
que la cure ait pu avoir toute son efficacite." 
130 RABIES 
(Lahore), bitten August 22nd, treated in Paris 
September I2th-October 26th, died in India Novem- 
ber 23rd. " Son cas a donne lieu a certaines 
polemiques. Un journal anglais des Indes, The 
Englishman, a publie une depeche d'apres laquelle le 
chien qui avait mordu O'Leary serait encore vivant et 
en parfaite sante ; ce fait nous a ete signale par un 
rapport de M. le consul general de France a Calcutta, 
que M. le ministre des Affaires etrangeres a bien voulu 
nous communiquer ; nous avons procede a une enquete, 
et nous donnons ci-dessous un extrait d'une lettre qui 
nous a ete addressee des Indes le 20 avril par le 
frere de O'Leary; il met les choses au point, ' Vous 
me demandez des renseignements sur le chien qui a 
mordu mon frere, on n'a pas retrouve sa trace et aucun 
v^terinaire n'a pu 1'examiner ; a part mon pauvre frere, 
personne n'a vu ce chien, on n'a done aucune preuve 
qu'il fut malade ; mais en meme temps que mon frere, 
il a mordu un petit chien a nous, celui-ci etait encore 
vivant quand mon frere est mort, depuis on l'a abattu.' " 
Of the two patients who died during treatment, one 
was a street-singer, bitten in thirteen places on the 
face and hands : " trois autres personnes mordues par 
le meme chien et traitees a 1'Institut Pasteur sont 
actuellement en parfaite sante." The other was a 
child three years old, from Castleblarney, bitten on the 
face. The patient who died only ten days after 
treatment was this child's brother, seven years old, 
bitten on the face, arm, and hand. 
131 VIII 
CHOLERA 
THE study of cholera was the hardest of all the 
hard labours of bacteriology ; it took years of 
work in all parts of the world, and the difficulty and 
disappointments over it are past all telling. Koch's 
discovery of the " comma-bacillus " (1883) raised 
a thousand questions that were solved only by infinite 
patience, international unity for science, and incessant 
research; and the Hamburg epidemic (1892) marks 
the time when the comma-bacillus was at last recog- 
nised as the cause of cholera. A mere list of the 
men who did the work would fill page after page here ; 
it was bacteriology in exceUis^ often dangerous, and 
always laborious. 
There is the same heroic note in the story of the 
preventive treatment of cholera by Haffkine's method; 
one of the men in whom Pasteur seems to live again. 
He began in 1889, under Pasteur's guidance, to study 
the immunisation of animals against the cholera- 
132 Haffkine's first preventive inoculations against Cholera in a Calcutta bustee, March, 1894. CHOLERA 
bacillus. Other men, of course, were working on the 
same lines - Pfeiffer, Brieger, Metchnikoff, Fischer, 
Gamale'ia, Klein, Wassermann, and many more- 
and by 1892 the immunisation of animals was proved 
up to the hilt. Then came the advance from animals 
to men, from laboratories to Indian cities, villages, and 
cantonments ; and here the honour is Haffkine's, and 
his alone. Ferran's inoculations (Spain, 1885) had 
failed. Haffkine, having tested his method on himself 
and his friends, went to India, with a commendatory 
letter from our Government :- 
" Researches on cholera, with special reference to 
inoculation, were undertaken and carried on in my labora- 
tory, in the Pasteur Institute in Paris, between 1889 and 
1893. The experiments resulted in the elaboration of the 
present method, which when tried on animals was found to 
render them resistant against every form of cholera-poison- 
ing otherwise fatal to them. 
" The physiological and pathological effect on man was 
then studied on some sixty persons, mostly medical and 
scientific men interested in the solution of the problem. 
The effect was found to be harmless to health. The next 
step was to transfer the operations to the East." (Haftkine's 
Report to the Government of India, 1895.) 
He reached Calcutta in March, 1893, and at the 
request of Mr. Hankin 1 was invited to Agra ; here, 
in April, he vaccinated over 900 persons, including 
1 Mr. Hankin, whose name is had in remembrance by Cambridge 
men, is Chemical Examiner and Bacteriologist to the North-West 
Provinces and Oudh, and to the Central Provinces. 
133 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
many English officers. From Agra to Aligarh ; and 
from Aligarh he was asked to more places than he 
could visit. In 1895 his health failed, and no wonder; 
and he came back to Europe for a short time:- 
" My actual work in India lasted twenty-nine months, 
between the beginning of April, 1893, and the end of 
July, 1895. During this period the anti-cholera vaccina- 
tion has been applied to 294 British officers, 3,206 British 
soldiers, 6,629 native soldiers, 869 civil Europeans, 125 
Eurasians, and 31,056 natives of India. The inoculated 
people belonged to 98 localities in the North-West 
Provinces and Oudh, in the Punjab, in Lower Bengal 
and Behar, in the Brahmaputra valley, and in Lower 
Assam. No official pressure has been brought on the 
population, and only those have been vaccinated who 
could be induced to do so by free persuasion. In every 
locality, efforts were made to apply the operation on parts 
of large bodies of people living together under identical 
conditions, in order to compare their resistance in out- 
breaks of cholera with that of non-inoculated people 
belonging to the same unit of population. This object 
has been obtained in 64 British and native regiments, 
in 9 gaols, in 45 tea-estates, in the fixed agricultural 
population of the villages parallel to Hardwar pilgrim 
road, in the bustees of Calcutta, in a certain number of 
boarding-schools, where the parents agreed to the inocu- 
lation of their children, in orphanages, &c. The vast 
majority of inoculated people lived thus under direct 
observation of the sanitary and medical authorities of 
India." (Haffkine, Lecture in London. British Medical 
Journal, Dec. 21, 1895.) 
Altogether, upwards of 70,000 injections on 42,179 
134 CHOLERA 
people-without having to record a single instance of 
mishap or accident of any description produced by our 
vaccines. Consider the colossal difficulties of this 
new treatment : the frequent running short of the 
vaccine, preventing a second injection ; the absolute 
necessity, at first, of using very small doses of a weak 
vaccine, lest one disaster should occur ; the impossi- 
bility of avoiding, now and again, some loss of strength 
in the vaccine ; the impossibility of knowing how 
long the protection would last. Surely in all science 
there is nothing to beat this first voyage of adventure 
single-handed to fight the cholera in India. 
Later than Haffkine's 1895 report, we have Dr. 
Simpson's 1896 report : " Two Years of Anti-choleraic 
Inoculations in Calcutta. By W. J. Simpson, M.D., 
M.R.C.P., D.P.H., Health Officer, Calcutta." The 
date of this report is July 8, 1896 ; and it gives not 
only the Calcutta results, but all that are of any use 
for exact judgment1 :- 
" The results of Calcutta are fully confirmed by those 
obtained in other parts of India, wherever it was possible 
to make all the necessary observations with precision, and 
wherever the cases were sufficiently numerous to show the 
effect of the inoculation. 
"Outside Calcutta, since the commencement of the in- 
1 For a summary of this report see the Lancet, August 8, 1896. 
For more recent results, see Surgeon-Captain Vaughan and Assistant- 
Surgeon Mukerji, in the thirtieth annual report of the Sanitary 
Commissioner for Bengal (1897). Also the cases published by Surgeon- 
Captain Nott, in the Indian Medical Gazette, May, 1898, 
135 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
oculations in India in April, 1893, opportunities for an 
exact comparison of the respective powers of resistance 
against cholera of inoculated, and non-inoculated persons 
presented themselves : (1) in Lucknow, in the East Lan- 
cashire Regiment, (2) in Gaya, in the jail, (3) in Cachar, 
among the tea-garden coolies, (4.) in Margherita, among 
coolies of the Assam-Burmah Railway Survey, (5) in 
Durbhanga, in the jail, (6) in the coolie camp at Bilaspur, 
(7) in Serampur among the general population." 
Here, then, in this 1896 report, are all the results 
that give an answer to the question, What will happen 
when cholera breaks out among a number of people 
living under the same conditions, of whom some have 
received preventive treatment, and the rest have been 
left to Nature ? 
1. Calcutta (1894-1896). 
"The number of people inoculated during the period 
under review was 7,690 ; of these, 5,853 are Hindus, 
1,476 Mahomedans, and 361 other classes. . . . Con- 
sidering that the system is a new one, that the inoculations 
are purely voluntary, and everything connected with them 
has to be explained before the confidence of the people 
can be obtained, and considering how long new ideas are 
in taking root among the general population-and in this 
case it is not merely the acceptance of an idea, but such 
faith in it as to consent to submit to an operation-the 
number is certainly satisfactory for a beginning. The 
present problem can be compared with the introduction 
of vaccination against small-pox into Calcutta. It took 
25 years before the number of vaccinations reached an 
average of 2,000 ; whereas the inoculations against cholera 
136 have in two years nearly doubled that average. This 
is a proof that in spite of the difficulties, which every new 
movement naturally has to meet with, there are large 
numbers of people anxious to avail themselves of the 
protective effect of the inoculations. 
"Although all sorts and conditions of individuals, weak 
and strong, sickly and healthy, young and old, well- 
nourished and badly nourished, and often persons suffering 
from chronic diseases, have been inoculated, in every 
instance, without exception, the inoculations have proved 
perfectly harmless. 
" The investigations on the effect of the inoculation are 
made exclusively in those houses in which cholera has 
actually occurred, the object being to ascertain and com- 
pare the incidence of cholera on the inoculated and not 
inoculated in those houses in which inoculations had been 
previously carried out. For this purpose, affected houses in 
which inoculations have not been performed, and inoculated 
houses in which cholera has not appeared, are excluded?' 
Nature gave a demonstration in 77 houses. In 
one house, and one only, all the household had been 
inoculated ; in 76, inoculated and non-inoculated were 
living together ; but of these 76 houses, 6 are ex- 
cluded from the table of results, because the inoculated 
in them were so few-less than one-tenth of the 
household-that their escape from cholera might be 
called chance. The cholera came, and left behind 
it this fact:- 
654. uninoculated individuals had 71 deaths 
= 10'86 per cent. 
402 inoculated in the same households had 
12 deaths - 2'99 per cent. 
CHOLERA 
137 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
If we add the 6 houses that Dr. Simpson excludes, 
we find that in 77 houses there were 89 deaths from 
cholera; 77 being among the uninoculated, and 12 
among the inoculated. 
Moreover, of these 12 deaths, 5 occurred during 
the first five days after inoculation-that is to say, 
during the period in which the protective influence 
of the vaccine was still incomplete. Then came a 
period of more than a year, during which the uninoculated 
had 42 deaths, and the inoculated had one death. The 
remaining 6 of the 12 deaths occurred more than 
a year after inoculation ; and 5 of these 6 had 
received only one inoculation of the weak vaccine 
that was used early in 1894. 
Take a good instance that came at the very 
beginning of the work :- 
" A local epidemic took place around two tanks in 
Kattal Began bustee, ward 19, occupied by about 200 
people. In this bustee, about the end of March, two 
fatal cases of cholera, and two cases of choleraic diarrhoea, 
occurred. The outbreak led to the inoculation of 116 
persons in the bustee out of the 200. Since then, 9 
cases of cholera, of which 7 were fatal, and one case 
of choleraic diarrhoea have appeared in the bustee, and it 
is a very extraordinary fact that all these 10 cases of 
cholera have occurred exclusively among the uninoculated 
portion of the inhabitants, which, as stated, forms the 
minority in the bustee ; while none of the inoculated 
have been affected." If Cholera in Calcutta in 1894." 
W. J. Simpson.) 
138 CHOLERA 
2. Lucknow (1893). 
The story of the outbreak of cholera in the East 
Lancashire Regiment must be read carefully :- 
" Rumour magnified the events connected with this 
outbreak, and distorted the facts connected with the 
inoculations ; and as a result, the current of public 
opinion, which had previously been in favour of inocu- 
lation, set in strongly in the opposite direction. The 
advocates of anti-choleraic inoculations were abused in no 
particularly measured terms, and the inoculations were 
held up to be the source of every possible evil and danger 
. . . of the most loathsome diseases, and of every ill 
which man is heir to. The distrust engendered by these 
misrepresentations and fulminations was, however, only of 
a temporary nature ; and when the exact circumstances 
came to be known and understood, the confidence created 
by the Calcutta experience began to be considerably re- 
stored. Inoculations were performed in May, 1893, in 
the East Lancashire, Royal Irish, 16th Lancers, 7th Bengal 
Infantry, 7th Bengal Cavalry, and general population in 
the Civil Lines. In 1894, cholera appeared among the 
native population of Lucknow, in the form of an epidemic 
distinguished by its extreme virulence, patients suc- 
cumbing in the course of a few hours. It is stated that 
the epidemic was of a most malignant type. In the latter 
part of July it entered the cantonments, and attacked the 
East Lancashire, almost exclusively confining its ravages to 
that regiment." 
In the East Lancashire, 185 men were inoculated 
in May, 1893. From the statistical returns obtained 
from the military authorities at Lucknow, it appears 
139 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
that at the time of the outbreak, in July, 1894, the 
strength of the men, including those in hospital, was 
773 ; and, of these, 133 had been inoculated, as 
recorded in the inoculation register, and 640 had 
not been inoculated. 
The following table shows the total number of 
attacks and deaths in not-inoculated and inoculated:- 
Attacks. 
Deaths. 
Non-inoculated 640 .. 
.. 120=1875 
79 = 12-34 p. c 
Inoculated ... 133 .. 
• 18 = 13-53 
13= 9-7 P. c. 
The men were moved into camp ; but this move- 
ment seemed only to make things worse : " the 
epidemic in the camp appears to have been twice as 
severe as in the cantonment." 1 
Lucknow came so early in the work of inoculation, 
that weak vaccines were used in small doses. The 
cholera, when it broke out, was " of a most malignant 
type, senior medical officers of long experience in the 
country stating that such a virulent cholera had not 
been seen by them for very many years past." More 
than a year had elapsed between the inoculations and 
the outbreak of the cholera. It is no wonder that the 
regiment was not well protected :- 
"The small amount of protection which the inocu- 
lations afforded in this case may have depended on the 
1 " The moving into camp, notwithstanding this example, is all the 
same an excellent measure of defence, and would with reason be adopted 
in every outbreak." (Simpson, loc. cit.) 
140 CHOLERA 
mild effects which the injections produced on the men, at 
the time of the operation in 1893, in comparison with the 
severity of the epidemic which attacked the regiment. It 
is recorded in the Lucknow Inoculation Registers that 
only in two men, out of the 185 inoculated in 1893, a 
marked febrile reaction was obtained ; in 77 individuals 
the vaccinal fever was only slight, while in 66 there was 
no reaction : an effect which was due to the weakness of 
the vaccines procurable at that period of work, and to the 
small doses used. The influence of the vaccines was 
possibly further reduced, at the time of the epidemic, by 
a lapse of fourteen to fifteen months." (Haffkine, 1895 
Report.) 
3. Gaya Jail. 
4. Assam-Burmah Railway. 
On July 9, 1894, an outbreak of cholera occurred 
in the Gaya jail, and by June 18th there had been 6 
cases and 5 deaths. On that day and the next day, 
215 prisoners were inoculated. The average number 
of the prisoners, during the outbreak, was 207 inocu- 
lated and 202 not inoculated. Surgeon-Major Macrae, 
superintendent of the jail, reports :- 
"The inoculations being purely voluntary, no selection 
of prisoners was possible, but all classes of the jail were 
represented-male and female, old and young, habituals 
and less frequent offenders, strong and weakly, con- 
valescent and even hospital patients sent their repre- 
sentatives ; no difference of any kind was made between 
inoculated and non-inoculated; they were under absolutely 
identical conditions as regards food, water, accommodation, 
&c., in fact in every possible respect." 
141 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Of course, the best results could hardly be obtained, 
because the cholera was already at work : it took 
about ten days for the 1894 vaccine to produce its full 
effect ; and two inoculations were generally made, 
one five days after the other. This gradual action of 
the vaccine is well shown in Dr. Simpson's table :- 
NON-INOCULATED, 
202. 
INOCULATED, 
207. 
Cases. 
Deaths. 
Cases. 
Deaths. 
During 5 days after 1st inocu- 
lation 
7 
S 
5 
4 
During 3 days after 2nd inocu- 
lation 
5 
3 
3 
I 
After 3 days after 2nd inocu- 
lation 
8 
2 
0 
0 
Total... 
20 
IO 
8 
5 
Haffkine's comment on these figures must be noted 
here:- 
" In the Gaya jail, the inoculations were for the first time 
applied in a prevalent epidemic, and very weak doses of a 
relatively weak vaccine were used. . . . Far higher results 
have been obtained by an application of stronger doses. In 
the bustees situated round the tanks in Calcutta, where 
cholera exists in a permanent state, the disease occurred in 
36 houses with inoculated people. In each of these 
houses there was one part of the family inoculated and 
another not. The observations were continued for 459 
days, with the following results :- 
142 CHOLERA 
During the first period of 5 days subsequent to the 
inoculation with 1st vaccine, cholera occurred in 8 houses. 
75 non-inoculated had 5 cases, with 3 deaths. 
52 inoculated had 3 cases, with 3 deaths. 
During the second period, of 5 days subsequent to the 
2nd inoculation, cholera occurred in 2 houses. 
8 non-inoculated had 2 cases, with 2 deaths. 
17 inoculated had o cases. 
After the 10 days necessary for the preventive treatment 
had expired, and up to the y^fh day, the disease visited 26 
houses. 
263 non-inoculated had 38 cases, with 34. deaths. 
inoculated had 1 case, with 1 death, in a child that 
had not been brought up for the second inoculation." 
And, for a good instance of lives saved even during 
an outbreak, take the Assam - Burmah Railway- 
coolies :- 
" Three hundred and fifty1 Khassia Hill coolies had 
been collected for the survey party of the Assam-Burmah 
Railway, and put under the escort of a detachment of 
Goorkhas, when cholera broke out amongst them. The 
largest part of the coolies immediately submitted to the 
preventive inoculation, the rest remained uninoculated. 
The result was that among the not-inoculated minority there 
were 34. cases, with 30 deaths ; whereas the inoculated had 4 
fatal cases." (HafFkine, 1895, Lecture in London). 
5. Darbangha Jail (1896). 
The figures in this instance are small: but Surgeon- 
Captain E. Harold Brown's report is very pleasant 
1 The exact number is 355, of whom 196 were inoculated : the 
coolies numbered 343, and the Goorkha sepoys 12. See Dr. Simpson's 
1896 Report. 
143 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
reading. Cholera broke out in the jail on March 31, 
1896, and by April 9th there had been eight cases. 
Next day, 172 prisoners were moved into camp twelve 
miles away ; and 53 were left behind, the sick in the 
jail hospital, the patients in the cholera huts, with 
their attendants, the old and infirm, and a few cooks 
and sweepers. That day, three cases occurred in the 
camp, and one in the jail ; and on the nth, at 2 
and 4 a.m., two more cases were reported in camp. 
At 7.30 a.m., Haffkine and Dr. Green came to the 
camp :- 
" The prisoners were spoken to on the subject, and 
seemed to be pleased with the idea, the word tika (inocu- 
lation), which was familiar to them from its association 
with small-pox, appearing to appeal to them. They were 
accordingly arranged in four rows facing the tent, in front 
of which Dr. Haffkine was about to commence operations. 
I was the first subject to be inoculated ; and after me the 
jailor, assistant jailor, hospital assistant and three warders. 
The first prisoner in the front rank was next brought up 
and submitted cheerfully ; after which, every alternate 
man was taken, so that no selection of cases was made, 
until one half of the total number were inoculated. 
Those who had not been inoculated were far from pleased 
at having been passed over ; and, to our surprise, they rose 
almost to a man, and begged to be inoculated ; nor were 
they satisfied when told that the medicine was exhausted." 
The dose administered on this occasion (April u, 
1896) was stronger than the Gaya jail dose (July 
18, 1894) : it acted in a few hours, and the reaction 
was well marked. 
144 CHOLERA 
"There were fresh cases of cholera that day at 12 
(noon), 6, 6, 7, and 7.30 p.m., and at midnight, all in 
those who had not been inoculated, and all terminating 
fatally, despite the greatest care and the most prompt and 
assiduous treatment. On the 12th two further cases 
occurred, both among the uninoculated, and both died ; 
there being thus eight cases in succession, all from the 
men who were not inoculated, and all proving fatal." 
The inoculations were made at 7.30 a.m. Surgeon- 
Captain Brown had pain within half an hour, and 
fever in three hours, with temperature 1040, but this was 
probably due to the fact that I was not able to rest. The 
prisoners, of course, went to bed : they all reacted 
before 4 p.m., but did not have so much trouble over 
it. The last case was on the 15th. The outbreak 
was a bad type of cholera ; out of 30 cases 24 died, 
some of them in 1^-4 hours. "To summarise the 
combined results of the camp and the jail, we find that 
of a daily average of 99 non-inoculated there were 11 
cases, all fatal, = ii'ii per cent. ; of no inoculated 
there were 5 cases, with 3 deaths = 2*73 per cent." 
One of these five deaths was the case of an old infirm 
prisoner, who before being attacked with cholera had 
suffered for thirty hours with diarrhoea. 
6. Bilaspur and Serampur. 
Here again the figures are small, but worth noting. 
In a coolie camp at Bilaspur (Central Provinces) 100 
non-inoculated had 5 deaths, and 150 inoculated had 
1 death. In Serampur, among the general population, 
145 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
51 n on-inoculated had 5 cases and 3 deaths, and 42 
inoculated had 2 cases and 1 death. 
7. The Cachar Tea-Gardens (1895). 
This series of inoculations was begun in February, 
1895, for the protection of the coolies on various tea- 
estates. The results are excellent, and deal with 
large numbers.1 The latest report from Dr. Arthur 
Powell, the Medical Officer, is quoted in Dr. Simpson's 
1896 report:- 
At Kalain- 
1,079 not inoculated had 50 cases, with 30 deaths. 
1,250 inoculated-3 cases, with 2 deaths.2 
At Kalaincherra- 
685 not inoculated had 10 cases, with 7 deaths. 
155 inoculated-no cases. 
At Degubber- 
254 not inoculated had 12 cases, with 10 deaths. 
407 inoculated-5 cases, all recovered. 
At Dun a- 
121 not inoculated had 4 cases, with 2 deaths. 
29 inoculated-no cases. 
At Sandura- 
454 not inoculated had 2 cases, with 1 death. 
51 inoculated-2 cases, with 1 death. 
1 "Asa field for testing the value of inoculation, the tea factories of 
India possess many advantages. The labourers being under contract, the 
after-history of those inoculated is easily followed up. Each morning 
the adults are paraded for roll-call ; and all sick must attend hospital, 
where a record is made of their disease and treatment." (Dr. Powell, 
Lancet, July 13, 1896.) 
2 " It is unfortunate that neither of the fatal cases among the 
inoculated was seen by any medical man, not even an unqualified Doctor 
Babu." Dr. Powell does not think, from what was told him, that one 
of them was cholera. 
146 CHOLERA 
At Karkuri- 
198 not inoculated had 15 cases, with 9 deaths. 
443 inoculated-3 cases, with 1 death. 
At Craig Park- 
185 not inoculated had 1 fatal case. 
46 inoculated had no case. 
Total. 
Not inoculated, 2,976, with 94 cases and 60 deaths. 
Inoculated, 2,381, with 13 cases and 4 deaths. 
Men talk about Empire-building, and " Deeds that 
won the Empire," and they know nothing of the ever- 
lasting work that Haffkine and men like him have 
done for the consolidation of India. Already, in 1896, 
he was working not at cholera but at plague, and had 
tested his plague-serum on animals and on himself. 
Then, in January, 1897, came the outbreak of bubonic 
plague in the Byculla jail, and the first anti-plague 
inoculations. To praise HafFkine, prose is not good 
enough, and the Fourth Eclogue not too good :- 
Redeunt Saturnia regna : 
Aspire, vent uro loetantur ut omnia seeclo- 
Or, if it be prose, let it be the Viceroy's speech at 
Calcutta, March 3rd of this year :- 
" I say this, that if we had come back to you from the 
West with our medicine in our hand, and with that alone, 
we should have been justified in our return. For what is 
this medical science we bring to you ? It is no mere 
147 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
collection of pragmatical experimental rules. It is built 
on the bed-rock of pure irrefutable science ; it is a boon 
which is offered to all, rich and poor, Hindu and Moham- 
medan, woman and man. It lifts the purdah without 
irreverence. So far as I know, it is the only dissolvent 
which breaks down the barriers of caste without sacrilege." 
Another most important result of the discovery 
of the cholera bacillus is its use in diagnosis. If a 
case of suspected cholera is landed at a British port, 
the sanitary authority at once takes steps to ascertain 
whether the specific microbe is present ; and, according 
to the answer given by bacteriology, either allows the 
patient to proceed on his journey, or adopts measures 
of isolation to prevent the spread of the disease to 
others. Thus, thanks to our insular position, this 
dreadful disease has for many years been prevented 
from invading our population. 
148 IX 
PLAGUE 
THE Abolitionist, in its first number (April, 1899) 
said that the plague in India " goes on un- 
checked, and the use of Professor Haffkine's fluid has 
merely demonstrated the capacity of such cultures to 
harm, not to heal, the patient." 
The use of Haffkine's fluid is not to " heal " the 
plague, but to prevent it. Take, for instance,1 the 
report on the plague in Damaun (Portuguese India) :- 
" The daily mortality, from the beginning of March to 
May 17, 1897, was 30 per diem-a grand total of 2,325 
deaths. Of this number, 2,093 were authenticated, in the 
particular families where they had taken place, by means 
of a house-to-house inquiry set on foot by Shet Sorabjee 
(head of the Parsee community). Among the Parsee 
community, numbering 306 persons, 276 were inoculated 
twice, and 1 once. Of these, only 1 died, a woman who 
had only been inoculated once, and that, as was afterwards 
1 An abstract of this report will be found in the Lancet, December 
18, 1897. The report was drawn up by Haffkine and Surgeon-Major 
Lyons. 
149 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
seen, subsequently to infection by plague. Thus the total 
mortality among the inoculated Parsees was only i in 277, 
a percentage of 0'36 per cent. Among the 29 uninocu- 
lated there were 4 deaths-a mortality of 13'8 per cent. 
Among Shet Sorabjee's servants and labourers, numbering 
200 in all, all were inoculated but one. That one was 
attacked on May 16th, and died on May 19th; while 
among the inoculated 1 person, a child aged 4 years, was 
attacked and died. 
"Of other members of the population of Damaun, between 
March 26th and the end of May, among 6,033 uninocu- 
lated there were 1,482 deaths, or 24*6 per cent. ; while 
among 2,197 inoculated there were 36 deaths, or 1'6 per 
cent. If the inoculated had died in the same ratio as the 
uninoculated, the number of deaths among them would 
have been 332 instead of 36. Owing to the extreme 
demand for lymph, the latter inoculations were much 
weaker than those done at the commencement of the 
epidemic, and the difference in favour of the stronger 
lymph was most marked: for out of 1,924 inoculated with 
the strong lymph there were 70 cases = 3'6 per cent., with 
22 deaths = i"l per cent.; case mortality, 31*4 per cent. : 
out of 270 treated with weak lymph there were 21 cases 
= y8 per cent., with 14 deaths - 5*2 per cent. ; case 
mortality, 66'7 per cent. 
" Figures such as these show the extreme value of the 
preventive treatment, taken as they are from the course of a 
most virulent epidemic, and during the highest stage of the 
outbreak?' 
That is the use of Professor Haffkine's fluid ; not 
" to heal the patient." And these facts of the Damaun 
report were published in the Lancet sixteen months 
before the Abolitionist was started. 
150 PLAGUE 
Take next, though the figures are small, Haffkine's 
recent Undhera report, April io, 1898. It is of 
especial interest, because the inoculated and the non- 
inoculated were all packed in one village, and every 
condition of family life was left untouched :- 
"The inoculations were performed in Undhera on the 
12th of February, 1898, with the object of demonstrating to 
the Baroda authorities the protective effect of the measure. 
On the above date the population of the village, exclusive 
of the adjacent suburb, consisted of 950 souls, of whom 4.7 
had been inoculated previously, between the 26th of January 
and the 2nd of February, 1898, by Dr. C. D. Divanjee, of 
the Baroda Medical Establishment, and were not inoculated 
again. All the others, for the purpose of inoculation, 
were collected in the streets and grouped according to the 
wards where they resided, family by family. In each 
household, as nearly as was possible, half the number of the 
male members, half the number of the females, and half 
the number of the children, were inoculated. The total 
number of persons thus inoculated was 466, giving, with 
the 47 inoculated previously, a total of 513, while 437 
remained uninoculated." 
The plague in the village lasted up to March 26th, 
and fell on 28 families. In these, there were 64 not 
inoculated, and 71 inoculated. The 64 had 27 cases, 
with 26 deaths ; the 71 had 8 cases, with 3 deaths.1 
" If the inoculated had suffered to the same extent as 
their uninoculated relatives, they would have had, propor- 
In one of these 3 deaths, there was no interval between the fever 
of reaction and the fever of plague ; the patient had the plague already in 
him before inoculation. 
151 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
tionately to their number, 29 deaths from plague. The 
actual number appeared reduced by 26, which is a reduction 
of mortality attributable to inoculation. The result as 
here obtained tallies with all the observations made up to now 
upon the protective effect of the plague prophylactic, the reduction 
of mortality effected by it in a plague-stricken population 
averaging, with a remarkable regularity, between 80 and 90 
PER CENT." 
Then, to finish, take the famous Hubli report, 
October 1, 1898, by Surgeon-Captain Leumann. 
It was forwarded to the Plague Commissioners by 
Mr. E. K. Cappel, Collector of Dhirwar, with this 
comment :- 
" The town of Hubli-a mercantile town of ever 
50,000 inhabitants - was attacked by plague in an 
epidemic form at the commencement of the monsoon 
rains. The average rainfall between April and October 
amounts to more than 28 inches. Under these circum- 
stances, although a large and weather-proof health camp 
had been prepared for emergencies, complete evacuation 
of the infected town-site was impossible ; and the attempt 
to effect it would have led to the severest hardships and to 
the immediate spread of the disease into surrounding 
villages and districts. It was for this reason that the 
determination was formed to make a bold and comprehen- 
sive experiment with the prophylactic, and not on any a 
priori grounds. If this experiment had failed, the results, 
judged by the actual mortality among the uninoculated, 
would have been appalling. All possible sanitary measures 
in the shape of disinfection, unroofing of houses, and segrega- 
tion, were applied concurrently with inoculation, as Government 
are already aware ; bu the rate of mortality among those who 
152 PLAGUE 
held back from inoculation rose at one time to a height which, 
I believe, has never been approached elsewhere, standing in 
the third week of September at the figure of 6 57 per thousand 
per week. 
"However, the experiment, in the hands of Dr. Leumann, 
did not fail, and it has afforded a demonstration of success 
which is of Imperial importance. Many thousands of 
lives have undoubtedly been saved, and at the present 
moment the plague mortality is merely sporadic, and 
Hubli is steadily regaining its normal population and trade, 
though surrounded by infected villages." 
The Hubli report must be put at full length, for the 
vivid picture it gives of plague in India. And it is 
to be noted that Surgeon-Captain Leumann, who 
saved Hubli, recognises the supreme importance of 
other methods than inoculation-disinfection, isolation 
of cases, evacuation of infected districts :- 
" While paying the highest tribute to the value of Mr. 
Haffkine's inoculation method, which I claim, here in 
Hubli, to have put to perhaps the severest test to which it 
has yet been subjected, I am of the opinion that individual 
protection is, on however great a scale conducted, of less 
importance to that of general protection and hygiene 
(considering each method separately, that is to say), for it 
seems to me more radical, if not more rational, to eradicate 
a disease than to leave it to pursue its course and only pro- 
tect people against its ravages." 
Sanitation, therefore, is Dr. Leumann's faith. Now 
for his works :- 
"I first started inoculation here on May 11 th. . . . 
When I began my inoculations, I operated first of all on 
153 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
some European or native gentlemen in front of a crowd of 
poor and low-caste people, whom I had gathered together 
in the worst-affected area, and they were thus soon induced 
to ask for inoculation themselves. . . . They have pre- 
sented themselves, by the hundred, at all times of the day 
before myself and others, for the purpose of being inocu- 
lated.1 ... I have never experienced the slightest diffi- 
culty in inoculating Mussulmanis or any other purdah 
women in Hubli. . . . The very men who, in March 
last, created a disturbance in Hubli, were not only the first 
and the most willing to undergo inoculation, but also to 
bring their wives and families to my hospital, or to invite 
me to their homes to inoculate them. 
"Inoculated persons holding certificates of double inocu- 
lation have, at my special wish and order, been left in 
their homes throughout this epidemic ; only their clothes, 
house, and property being disinfected on the occurrence 
of a plague case or death in their house. As the vast 
majority of plague cases have never been notified before 
death in Hubli (nor, in my experience of nearly two years, 
elsewhere, if native supervision be largely resorted to), it 
will readily be understood that the majority of the inocu- 
lated have actually been living in the same house, or even 
room, with a plague case (often of the pneumonic type, 
whose terrible power of spreading the disease was first 
shown by Professor Childe, I.M.S., of Bombay) during 
the whole of the time that case was living, probably attend- 
ing on the patient, breathing the same stuffy air, and, 
perhaps, sharing the same blanket ; and I attach at the 
1 Compare the account of the inoculations at Gaday, in the Lancet, 
February II, 1898 : "To see the crowd waiting and struggling to pass 
the barrier is a strange sight: old men and women, young children, and 
mothers with babes in their arms, form a daily crowd numbered by 
hundreds, who wait for hours to get their chance of the day's inocula- 
tion." 
154 PLAGUE 
end of this report a long series of cases where such condi- 
tions have occurred, the non-inoculated dying of plague, and 
the inoculated escaping, almost to a man. 
"Various critics on my work, not knowing what the 
actual facts were and are, have at different times asserted 
that the inoculated inhabitants of Hubli left the town in 
larger numbers than the non-inoculated. Exactly the 
reverse was the case. The British officers on plague duty 
here, and all the Divisional Superintendents, invariably 
replied (officially and in writing when so required) that 
the non-inoculated left Hubli in far greater numbers and 
proportion than the inoculated ; and my own observations 
entirely bear out this statement. 
" It has been urged that those who received inoculation 
were of a class or classes better protected than others 
against plague by reason of their habits, the food they eat, 
the houses they live in, &c. In reply, I unhesitatingly 
state that if there be but one town in India, where that 
line of argument will not hold good, it certainly is Hubli ; 
for not only were the poorer, dirtier, lower-caste people the first 
to be persuaded to receive inoculation, but I made it my per- 
sonal and special duty to work amongst them. My first few 
thousand inoculations were almost entirely amongst the 
lowest and poorest of the people. The Brahmins are, 
perhaps, of all castes, supposed to be the most cleanly in 
their houses, habits, &c., yet the Brahmins of Hubli (who 
at first, imagining themselves immune, were the foremost 
and greatest perverters of the truth concerning its efficacy, 
and the last to apply for the protection inoculation affords) 
simply inundated the various inoculation centres, as soon 
as plague began to spread in their midst, clamouring for 
the very method of which they had only lately tried to 
prevent others from availing themselves. 
"Unfortunately, the average native, educated or not, 
appears to have the very greatest aversion to notifying any 
155 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
case of sickness-plague or other-and hence, in my 
opinion, it becomes more necessary than ever to protect 
the people by inoculation, since they will not help to pro- 
tect themselves by the foremost and simplest of sanitary 
and hygienic measures.1 With so few police (and those 
none too good) to help one ; an inadequate British Staff; 
I 
Five weeks, from 
May 11 to June 14 
Week ending June 21 
„ „ June 28 
„ „ July 5 
„ „ July 12 
„ „ July 19 
„ „ July 26 
„ „ Aug. 2 
„ „ Aug. 9 
„ „ Aug. 16 
„ „ Aug. 23 
„ „ Aug. 30 
,, ,, Sept. 6 
„ „ Sept. 13 
,, „ Sept. 20 
,, „ Sept. 27 
Dates. 
Fell from 
50,000 to 
47,427 
47,082 
47,485 
46,537 
46,518 
45,240 
43,809 
43,707 
42,768 
4o,44i 
39,400 
38,210 
38,382 
38,408 
39,*42 
39,315 
Census of 
Hubli. 
44,573 
4i,494 
39,042 
36,020 
33,255 
29,716 
24,112 
21,031 
15,584 
10,685 
6,367 
4,094 
2,73! 
1,116 
937 
603 
Non-inoculated. 
2,854 
5,588 
8,443 
10,517 
13,263 
15,524 
19,697 
22,676 
27,184 
29,756 
33,033 
, 34,h6 
35,469 
37,292 
38,205 
38,712 
Inoculated. 
47 
22 
29 
55 
34 
82 
100 
140 
272 
386 
371 
328 
227 
138 
106 
58 
Plague-deaths 
among 
Non-inoculated. 
I 
3 
1 
6 
6 
7 
i5 
16 
19 
61 
41 
28 
34 
47 
55 
20 
Plague-deaths 
among 
Inoculated. 
1 Compare the account given by the Rev. H. Haigh {Methodist Recorder, 
December, 1898) of the plague at Bangalore : "The native population do 
all they can to elude the vigilance of the authorities. In order to escape 
segregation, the householders in many instances refrain from reporting 
plague, and not infrequently bury the corpse secretly. Not only is any 
spare piece of ground used as a burial place, but the body is at times 
thrown into a well or tank, or dropped over the wall of some European 
compound. During one week three plague corpses were found, badly 
decomposed, in reservoirs commonly resorted to for drinking purposes." 
156 PLAGUE 
with so much reliance placed in Native Superintendents 
and Supervisors, and a Municipality so bankrupt that it 
could not apparently afford to buy enough blankets out of 
its own funds for the patients in the Plague Hospitals-the 
work of segregation, house-to-house inspection, &c., became, 
from a medical point of view, absurdly insufficient. 
"The total number of inoculations performed in Hubli, 
II 
Dates. 
Plague death-rate. 
Comparison per 1,000 
between 
Percentage reduction 
of Plague death-rate 
in favour of the 
Inoculated. 
Non-inoculated. 
Inoculated. 
Five 
weeks, from 
May 
11 to June 14 
1'022 
'35° 
Over 65 per cent. 
Week ending June 21 
'53° 
•527 
About 1 ,, „ 
99 
„ June 28 
•742 
'i 18 
Nearly 85 „ „ 
99 
„ JulY 5 
1'524 
•570 
About 63 „ „ 
99 
„ July 12 
1'022 
•452 
Nearly 56 „ „ 
, July 19 
2793 
'45° 
84 „ „ 
99 
„ July 26 
4'147 
•761 
82 „ „ 
59 
„ Aug. 2 
6'656 
•705 
89 „ „ 
99 
„ Aug. 9 
17-325 
•698 
Over 96 „ „ 
99 
„ Aug. 16 
33-694 
2'083 
94 „ „ 
99 
„ Aug. 23 
57'on 
1-241 
98 „ „ 
99 
„ Aug. 30 
8o'ii6 
■820 
98 „ „ ' 
99 
„ Sept. 6 
83'112 
■958 
99 „ „ 
99 
„ Sept. 13 
112'903 
1-260 
Over 99 „ „ 
99 
,, Sept. 20 
113'127 
i-439 
Over 99 „ „ 
99 
„ Sept. 27 
96'185 
'SV 
Over 99 „ „ 
" It appears that if the 47,427 inhabitants had remained, as they did 
-in their town, without running away by rail or otherwise, or without 
camping out in a mass-and if no inoculation had been resorted to- 
they would have lost 24,899 souls, or a little over a half of their number. 
The official records show that this has actually occurred, during the 
present terrible outbreak, in a number of large villages, of 2,000 inhabi- 
tants and over, in the Hubli taluka and elsewhere in the Dharwar 
District, where no inoculation was done, and no camping-out was 
possible on account of the wet weather." (Haffkine's commentary on 
Dr. Leumann's report). 
157 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
both on actual inhabitants and on people from outside 
(villages) between May nth and September 27th, amounts 
to some 78,000 altogether." 
And these amazing results are taken, by the men 
who achieved them, as part of the day's work. The 
plague-bacillus was discovered by Kitasato and Yersin 
in 1894 : they both found it about the same time, 
but were not working together. Yersin's discovery 
was made at Hong Kong, where the French Govern- 
ment had sent him to study the plague ; the date of 
his arrival at Hong Kong is June 15th. An excellent 
account of his work is in the Annates de I' Institut 
Pasteur, September, 1894. 
The whole story of the vaccine-treatment against 
plague cannot be put here-the Austrian, Italian, and 
English Commissioners, the work of Lustig, Galeotti, 
and many more. But there are two or three points 
that must be noted. 
1. The Pioneer Press, Allahabad, published this 
year a most admirable pamphlet by Mr. Hankin on 
the plague, an account of Haffkine's method, written 
for native readers. He points out how the inocula- 
tions are in no way contrary to the laws of caste :- 
" If a minute trace of bouillon, rendered turbid by the 
growth in it of the bacilli, be transferred to another flask, 
a precisely similar growth is obtained. The plague microbe 
may be passed through an indefinite number of flasks of 
bouillon, and thus may be obtained in pure culture com- 
pletely free of any substance derived from the patient." 
158 PLAGUE 
The inoculations contain nothing human, nor do they 
contain living organisms : their action is chemical. 
Therefore they do not offend any law of caste.1 
2. The first inoculations were made on January 30, 
1897, in the Byculla House of Correction, Bombay. 
The method had already been tested on animals, then 
on a large number of medical men :- 
"Twenty healthy rabbits were put in cages. Ten of 
them were inoculated with Haffkine's plague vaccine. 
Then both the vaccinated rabbits and the other ten 
rabbits that had not been vaccinated were infected with 
plague. The unprotected rabbits all died of the disease, 
and in their bodies innumerable quantities of the microbes 
were found. But the vaccinated rabbits remained in good 
health. Professor Haffkine then vaccinated himself and 
his friends. This produced some fever, from which, after 
a day or two, they recovered. Plague broke out in 
Byculla Jail, in Bombay, in January, 1897. About half 
the prisoners volunteered to be inoculated. Of these, 
three developed plague on the day of inoculation, and it 
is probable that they had already plague before the treat- 
ment was carried out.2 Of the remaining 148 who were 
inoculated, only two were afterwards attacked with plague, 
and both of them recovered. At the same time, of the 
1 It is said that the Jains object to inoculations on the grounds of 
religion ; and one or two witnesses before the Plague Commission gave 
evidence to the same effect. But, at Bombay, the high-priest of a great 
religious community lately addressed a meeting of 5,000 in favour of 
the new treatment ; and the rush of suppliants for inoculation at 
Hubli and Gaday proves that there is no real religious difficulty. 
Doctors have been assaulted, as at Poona, so just lately at Oporto ; in 
neither case can we say Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum. 
2 For these three cases, and the evidence that they were already 
infected at the time of inoculation, see Haffkine's commentary on the 
Hubli report. 
159 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
173 who had not been vaccinated, twelve were attacked, 
and out of these six died." 
3. Yersin's name is associated not so much with 
the preventive method as with the treatment of 
patients already plague-stricken. He is still at work 
to improve his serum-nos methodes se perfectionnent de 
jour en jours-but already it is said to have given good 
results in China.1 Unhappily, every hour makes a 
difference in plague, and what might cure a patient in 
the first day of the disease might be useless on the 
second day :- 
"Dr. Yersin's report on his late visit to Bombay is 
published in the Archives de Me de cine Navale et Coloniale 
for November, 1897. . . . He treated 17 cases on the 
1 The recent report, by Dr. E. L. Marsh, of the plague at Poona 
(see Brit. Med. Journ., 1899) gives notes of 4,179 cases admitted to 
the Poona Plague Hospital between June I, 1897, and March 31, 1898. 
Of these 2,836 died (489 of them a few hours after admission), 1,310 
recovered, and 33 were left in hospital at the time of the report. In a 
few cases, and in a few only, Lustig's serum or Yersin's serum was 
used ; with one serum, the results were " disappointing " ; with the 
other, " the numbers treated were too few to allow of any criticism of 
this method of treatment." Truly, with the plague, prevention is better 
than cure ; for the present it is enough that the preventive treatment 
saves from the plague, ' with a remarkable regularity] between 80 and 
90 per cent. The curative treatment has to fight against colossal 
difficulties, which are at present wholly insuperable. How can it have 
a fair chance among a native population who will not notify cases, who 
bring them to hospital just dying ? It has been found that 33 per cent, 
of admissions to the large plague hospitals die within 24 hours ; they are 
brought there to die. Shall the curative serum be given to these dying 
patients or not ? If it is given where it is useless, the treatment is 
wrong ; if it is given only where it might be useful, then the cases 
are selected, and the results therefore worthless. According to Haffkine, 
the curative treatment has at present failed in India, but not in China. 
Some good results in China are mentioned in the Brit. Med. Journ.y 
January 21, 1899. It is reported that it has given good results during 
the present epidemic at Oporto (September, 1899). 
160 PLAGUE 
first day of the disease, with a mortality of 12 per cent. ; 
on the second day, with a mortality of 35 per cent. ; 
12 on the third day, with mortality 50 per cent. ; 4 of 
longer standing, with mortality 75 per cent. ; the average 
death-rate on 50 cases treated being 34 per cent., a very 
great improvement on the general ratio, which, among natives, 
amounted to 85 percent. . . . At Amoy, Dr. Yersin's death- 
rate was only 7'6 per cent., or not much more than half his 
best results in Bombay, and nearly one-fifth of his average 
mortality in the latter city." (Lancet, December 11, 1897). 
Doubtless the Amoy plague was a milder form ; 
and these results, anyhow, are nearly three years old. 
The Nhatrang results have just been published in 
the Annales de I'Institut Pasteur, March, 1899. 
Nhatrang is an Annamese fishing-village ; and the 
plague, when it was left to itself, killed every case 
that it got:- 
" La peste s'est montree excessivement meurtriere chez 
les Annamites. 
" Sur 72 cas de peste, 39 personnes chez lesquelles la 
maladie a evolue normalement ou qui n'ont ete traites que 
par des medecins indigenes sont mortes sans exception. 
"Les 33 autres cas ont pu etre traites par le serum, 
quelquefois dans de bonnes conditions, mais le plus souvent 
quelques heures seulement avant la mort. Malgre cela, 
nous avons obtenu 19 guerisons et 14 deces, ce qui fait 
une mortalite de 42 per cent, chez les traites. 
" Ainsi, a'une part, 100 pour 100 de mortalite chez, les non 
traites ; de I'autre, 42 per cent., chez les malades qui ont requ 
au serum. Ces chiffres confirment les resultats que j'avais 
obtenu en Chine en 1896. Si la proportion des morts est 
encore considerable chez les Annamites, cela tient a leur 
161 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
peu de resistance, que je n'ai jamais vue si faible ni en 
Chine ni aux Indes. 
" Nous avons largement pratique les inoculations pre- 
ventives avec le serum, et nous avons pu constater 
qu'aucune de ces personnes n'a ete atteinte. 
" L'indigene n'a d'ailleurs jamais compris la gravite de 
cette maladie, qu'il ignorait jusqu'a ce jour, et dont le nom 
n'existait meme pas. Malgre toutes les instructions, les 
explications et les exemples des cas traites sous leurs yeux, 
les annamites attribuent encore aujourd'hui les deces 
causes par la peste a 1'influence surnaturelle des Genies 
irrites : la pagode de Nhatrang etant habitee provisoire- 
ment par le sous-prefet indigene, les habitants sont venus 
declarer a l'autorite fran^aise que le Genie du village, 
mecontent de cette usurpation, avait dechaine cette nouvelle 
maladie. Il a fallu s'incliner devant cette croyance et 
pourvoir le sous-prefet d'un nouveau local. L'epidemie 
n'en a pas moins continue. D'autres deces ont eu pour 
cause la colere de la deesse Baghavati, dont 1'esprit serait 
cache dans un antique monument chame, que tout 
annamite revere et craint. C'est d'ailleurs par des 
sortileges et des incantations que les medecins annamites 
pretendent combattre la peste, lorsque leurs medecines sont 
restees impuissantes. 
"Il nous est toutefois permis d'esperer que la science 
n'a pas dit son dernier mot. Nos methodes se perfection- 
nent de jour en jour, et il n'est pas impossible que nous 
arrivons a etre maitre de la peste comme Jenner l'a ete 
de la variole." 
4. At the present time (August, 1899) the plague 
at Poona is at its worst-in pracipiti st etit- and 
Bombay is again threatened. " The extent and 
virulence of the outbreak at Poona appear un- 
162 PLAGUE 
paralleled ; the worst week in Bombay chronicled 
a death-rate of 125 per 1,000 per annum, but at 
Poona it has been over 340 per 1,000 per annum?' 
(Lancet, August 26, 1899.) Of course the preventive 
treatment, among three hundred millions of people, 
only touches points here and there on the vast map 
of India. The protection that it gives may not last 
very long-perhaps about a year, perhaps more ; it is 
too soon to be sure. In Bombay this year, "notwith- 
standing the great increase of deaths from plague in 
Bombay city, inoculation is proceeding very slowly. 
Only 388 inoculations appear to have been done for 
the week ending January 20th, and these chiefly 
among the low-caste Hindus. Last year, when the 
authorities could have offered inoculation in place 
of segregation and isolation, they had a powerful lever 
of encouraging this form of protection. Now that 
detention and passes have been abolished, and the 
plague regulations do not frighten the people, there is 
no leverage of assistance." (Lancet, February 15, 1899.) 
5. Haffkine's work goes with, not against, the 
older world-wide ways of fighting the plague- 
quarantine, notification, isolation, all sanitary measures, 
destruction of things infected, destruction of rats, 
evacuation of infected places. Take the opinion 
of Surgeon-General Harvey, Director-General of the 
Indian Medical Service, at the discussion on Haffkine's 
discourse before the Royal Society a few months ago 
(Lancet, July 1, 1899) :- 
163 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
" The people of England should consider the difficulties 
attending the work of a bacteriologist in India. . . . He 
had no doubt as to the value of the inoculations. At 
Undhera he carefully examined the resultsof the experiment, 
and, as far as he could j udge, there was no possibility of error. 
The results in that experiment were such as to be 90 per 
cent, in favour of the inoculated against the uninoculated. 
The natives of India were, however, a strange people, and it 
was difficult to prophesy how they would act. In Calcutta, 
the mention of inoculations had driven in hot haste from 
the city 300,000 people, many of whom afterwards returned 
and were inoculated; while at Hubli he had seen the 
inhabitants come in their thousands to be inoculated and 
pay for the inoculations. The medical officer in charge 
at Hubli had performed about 80,000 inoculations, and 
had only observed some 12 abscesses. He thought that 
12 abscesses only, in 80,000 inoculations, showed good 
results. But, after all, what were the numbers of 
inoculations performed to the 300,000,000 inhabitants 
of India ? He felt that even if every one consented 
to be inoculated it was impossible to provide the vaccine 
or the medical officers for such a demand. It was 
accordingly to sanitary improvements that he looked 
with the most confidence to protect India against the 
plague." 
But for sudden outbursts of plague-since rats 
seem to be the principal source of infection-le rat, 
le genie de la peste-since notification is fundamentally 
abhorrent to native habit-since evacuation may ruin 
trade, or spread infection, or be impossible by reason 
of the rains-since " East is East, and West is West " 
-it is not always possible to provide, for an Indian 
164 PLAGUE 
village smitten by plague, the excellent arrange- 
ments that Gloucester is making for the next out- 
break of small-pox. 
6. In a few instances it has been found that samples 
of the serum have become unwholesome by contami- 
nation with other -chance organisms. But at Hubli 
no less than 80,000 inoculations were made, with only 
12 cases where the inoculation was followed by abscess. 
The technical difficulties, in India, in the way of 
supplying the demand for the serum, are of course 
very great, and at times insuperable. 
7. The real opposition to inoculations, in India, 
does not come from caste, but from a few people 
who repeat and believe the nonsense printed by the 
'Zoophilist and the Abolitionist in England ; and from 
other prejudiced critics. For instance, on April n, 
1898, a meeting of native hakims at Masti, Lahore, 
passed the following resolutions :- 
" That in the opinion of this meeting the bubonic 
plague is not a contagious disease. It originates from 
poisoned air, and this poison is created in the air on 
account of atmospherical germs and the excess of terrestrial 
humidities. 
" That this meeting, having carefully considered the 
Resolution of the Punjab Government (January 11, 1898), 
is of opinion that the rules embodied in that Resolution 
(isolation, disinfection, &c.) are unnecessary under the 
principles of Unani medical science." 
And among statements to be made to the Plague 
165 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Commissioners was the following, from a native 
practitioner in Bombay (April, 1899) :- 
" I do not think the plague was imported in Bombay 
from Hong Kong or anywhere else. I attribute three 
sources of causes of outbreaks of plague in Bombay ; 
(a) The predisposing cause was the Bombay Municipality. 
(^) The exciting cause was the Nature herself, (r) The 
aggravating cause was the Plague Committee." 
All these facts,1 from official reports and medical 
journals, give no idea of the courage and self- 
sacrifice of the men and women who are fighting 
the plague in India. The story of their work should 
be read in that most excellent paper, the Indian 
Medical Gazette. Here we are concerned only to 
note that the whole thing has come out of experiments 
on animals : that the mortality in a plague-stricken 
place may be reduced, " with a remarkable regularity," 
between 80 and 90 per cent, in favour of the inocu- 
lated'; and that the Secretary of State for India has 
lately asked Parliament to consider this fact, that the 
saving of life in India has become something really 
alarming. 
1 For more recent statements, see Appendix. Also the report on 
the Belgaum inoculations, by Lt.-Col. Bennett and Major Bannerman, 
I.M.S., published in the Indian Medical Gazette, June, 1899. 
166 X 
TYPHOID FEVER 
THE names of Klebs, Eberth, and Koch are 
associated with the discovery, in 1880-81, of 
the typhoid-bacillus. Since that time it has been 
studied from every point of view ; in animals-in the 
blood, tissues, and excretions-in earth, air, water, milk, 
food, and sewage. The bacteriology of typhoid fever 
has a whole literature to itself: and experimental 
work has already borne fruit here both for science and 
for practice. 
The date of the first protective inoculations against 
typhoid is July-August, 1896 : they were made at 
Netley Hospital, by Professor Wright and Surgeon- 
Major Semple. The first inoculations in Germany, 
made by Pfeiffer and Kolle, were published two 
months later. The story of these famous Netley 
inoculations is told in the British Medical 'Journal, 
January 30, 1897. Eighteen men offered themselves- 
167 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
"A good deal of fever was developed in all cases, and 
sleep was a good deal disturbed. These constitutional 
symptoms had to a great extent passed away by the 
morning, and laboratory work went on without interrup- 
tion. . . . With two exceptions, all these vaccinations 
were performed upon Medical Officers of the Army or 
Indian Medical Services, or upon Surgeons on Probation 
who were preparing to enter those services." 
Good luck attend all eighteen of them, and im- 
munity against typhoid, wherever they are. The 
doses that they received were estimated in proportion 
to the dose that would kill a guinea-pig of 350-400 
grammes weight; and the protective fluid contained 
no living bacilli :- 
" The advantages which are associated with the use of 
such 'dead vaccines' are, first, that there is absolutely 
no risk of producing actual typhoid fever by our inocu- 
lations ; secondly, that the vaccines may be handled and 
distributed through the post without incurring any risk 
of disseminating the germs of the disease ; thirdly, that 
dead vaccines are probably less subject to undergo altera- 
tions in their strength than living vaccines." 
Later, by another method of preparing the vaccine, 
the ill effects of inoculation were reduced to a 
minimum : " and now all that is felt is a few hours' 
discomfort and a little local soreness." 
The first use of the vaccine during an outbreak of 
typhoid was in October, 1897, at the Kent County 
168 TYPHOID FEVER 
Lunatic Asylum. The treatment was offered to any 
of the working staff who desired it :- 
" All the medical staff, and a number of attendants, 
accepted the offer. Not one of those vaccinated-84 in 
number-contracted typhoid fever : while of those unvacci- 
nated and living under similar conditions, 16 were attacked. 
This is a significant fact, though it should in fairness 
be stated that the water was boiled after a certain date, 
and other precautions were taken, so that the vacci- 
nation cannot be said to be altogether responsible for the 
immunity. Still, the figures are striking." {Lancet, 
March 19, 1898 ; see also Dr. Tew's paper, in Public 
Health, April, 1898.) 
Certainly, they are striking ; so is the story of the 
eight young subalterns on the Khartoum expedition, of 
whom six were vaccinated, and two took their chance. 
The six escaped typhoid, the two were attacked by it, 
and one died. This year (1899) Professor Wright is 
in India, on the Plague Commission, and has vacci- 
nated against typhoid more than three thousand of our 
troops, at Bangalore, Rawal Pindi, and Lucknow.1 
Typhoid among our young soldiers in India is on the 
increase: in 1897, among all causes of death to British 
troops in India, typhoid alone claimed 37 per cent. It 
is the young Englishmen who are killed ; the native 
population enjoys a considerable degree of natural im- 
munity. On August 1st of the present year, questions 
1 For more recent inoculations, see British Medical Journal, September 
23, 1899. 
169 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
were asked in the House of Commons about this very 
serious risk of our soldiers; and the Secretary of 
State for India, in his reply, said- 
" Voluntary inoculation against enteric fever, at the 
public expense, among the British troops in India, has now 
been sanctioned." 
And, for a good commentary on this decision of 
Government, we have the admirable address at Netley, 
July 29th, by Sir George White, V.C., Quarter master- 
General to the Forces. {Lancet, August 12, 1899). 
But this preventive treatment is only a part of what 
has been done. Wright and Semple and Durham 
here, Chantemesse and Widal in France, Pfeiffer and 
Kolle and Gruber in Germany, and a host of other 
men, working on the same lines, have achieved much 
more than a method of protection. They have found 
" Widal's reaction " : and the practical uses of this 
reaction are of very great importance. 
Widal's reaction is surely one of the fairy-tales of 
science. The bacteriologist works not with anything 
so gross as a drop of blood, but with a drop of blood 
fifty or more times diluted ; one drop of this dilution 
is enough for his purpose. Take, for instance, an 
obscure case suspected to be typhoid fever : a drop 
of blood taken from the finger is diluted fifty or more 
times, that the perfect delicacy of the test may be 
ensured ; a drop of this dilution is mixed with a drop 
of nutrient fluid containing living typhoid bacilli, and 
170 TYPHOID FEVER 
a drop of this mixture of blood and bacilli is watched 
under the microscope :- 
" The motility of the bacilli is instantaneously or very 
quickly arrested, and in a few minutes the bacilli begin to 
aggregate together into clumps, and by the end of the 
half-hour there will be very few isolated bacilli visible. 
In less marked cases, the motility of the bacilli does not 
cease for some minutes ; while in the least marked ones 
the motility of the bacilli may never be completely ar- 
rested, but they are always more or less sluggish, while 
clumping ought to be quite distinct by the end of the 
half-hour." 
The result of this clumping is also plainly visible 
to the naked eye, by the subsidence of the agglutinated 
bacteria to the bottom of the containing vessel : and 
thus an easy practical mode of diagnosis is afforded by it. 
As with typhoid, so with Malta fever, cholera, and 
some other infective diseases. And the unimaginable 
fineness of this reaction goes far beyond the time 
of the disease. Months, even years, after recovery 
from typhoid, a fiftieth part of a drop of the blood 
will still give Widal's reaction : and it has been 
obtained in an infant whose mother had typhoid before 
it was born. A drop of dried blood, from a case sus- 
pected to be typhoid, may be sent a hundred miles by 
post to be tested ; and typhoid, like diphtheria, may 
now be submitted to the judgment of an expert far 
away, and the answer telegraphed back. 
The first systematic study of this subject was made 
171 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
by Durham and Pfeiffer ; and Widal's name is especially 
associated with the application of their work to the 
uses of practice. The whole history of the discovery 
is given by Dr. Cabot in his book The Serum- 
Diagnosis of Disease (London and Bombay : Long- 
mans, Green & Co., 1899). 
Thus, within a few years, experiments on animals 
have set the whole subject of typhoid in a new light. 
They have given to everybody a new method for the 
early diagnosis of obscure cases. They have illumi- 
nated some of the mysteries of immunity ; and they 
have brought about preventive inoculation. 
Note. 
1. For a good instance of the practical value of 
" Widal's reaction," see Dr. Naegeli's account ot an 
outbreak of typhoid in an asylum in Switzerland. 
(Lancet, Sept. 23, 1899.) 
2. "The loss of 616 young soldiers' lives in one 
year is a very serious matter. Besides the waste of 
life, the total loss of service is enormous. Compared 
with enteric fever, the danger of smallpox is infini- 
tesimal." (Lancet, Special Correspondent in India, 
July 15, 1899.) 
3. Mr. Foulerton has lately published an excellent 
account of the whole subject, in the Middlesex 
Hospital Journal, October, 1899. 
4. For an estimate of the terrible frequency of 
typhoid among young Englishmen in India, see the 
172 TYPHOID FEVER 
admirable paper by Surgeon-General Harvey, Director- 
General of the Indian Medical Service, published in 
the Indian Medical Gazette for July of this present 
year. 
Facilities have now been provided in London for 
the inoculation against typhoid oi those who desire 
to be thus safeguarded in remote parts of the Empire. 
It is too soon, at present, to know how long the 
protection lasts. And it may well be, that the clear 
and final proof of the value of this method will come 
when some English town suffers as Maidstone and 
Worthing lately suffered. Then we shall see the 
parallel case to what happened at Gloucester when 
small-pox broke out there. 
173 XI 
MALTA FEVER. YELLOW FEVER. 
MALARIA 
Malta Fever. 
THE specific organism of Malta fever (Mediter- 
ranean fever), the bacillus Melitensis^ was 
discovered in 1887 by Surgeon-Major David Bruce, of 
the Army Medical Staff. Its nature and action were 
proved by the inoculation of monkeys. The use or 
Widal's reaction is of great value in this disease :- 
" The diagnosis of Malta fever from typhoid is, ot 
course, a highly important practical matter. It is exceed- 
ingly difficult in the early stages." (Manson, loc. cit.) 
As with typhoid, so with Malta fever, Netley led 
the way to the discovery of an immunising serum. In 
the course of the work, one of the discoverers was by 
,accident infected with the disease :- 
" He was indisposed when he went to Maidstone to 
undertake antityphoid vaccination, and after fighting 
174 MALTA FEVER 
against his illness for some days, he was obliged to return 
to Netley, on October 9th. Examination of blood-serum 
(Widal's reaction) showed that he was suffering from Malta 
fever. It appears that he had scratched his hand with 
a hypodermic needle on September 17th, when immu- 
nising a horse for the preparation of serum-protective 
against Malta fever ; and his blood, when examined, had 
a typical reaction on the micrococcus of Malta fever in 
i,ooo-fold dilution. The horse, which has been immu- 
nised for Malta fever for the last eight months, was 
immediately bled, and we are informed that the patient 
has now had two injections, each of 30 cub. cm. of the 
serum. He is doing well, and it is hoped that the attack 
has been cut short." {British Medical Journal, October 
16, 1897.) 
A good instance of the value of the serum-treatment 
ot Malta fever is published in the Lancet, April 15, 
1899. About fifty cases have now been treated at 
Netley "with marked benefit: whereas they round 
that all drug-treatment failed, the antitoxin treatment 
had been generally successful." 1 
Yellow Fever. 
In the army of men who have experimented on 
themselves, those who first studied yellow fever are 
to be counted :- 
"In 1816, Dr. Chervin, of Point-a-Pitre (Antilles), 
drank repeatedly large quantities of black vomit without 
feeling the least disturbance. Some years before, other 
1 For the whole subject, see Lancet, Sept. 9, 1899, paper by Surgeon- 
Major Birt and Surgeon-Captain Lamb. Two other cases of accidental 
inoculation occurred at Netley. 
175 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
North American colleagues, Doctors Potter, Firth, 
Catterall, and Parker, did everything possible to inoculate 
themselves with yellow fever. After having uselessly 
attempted experiments on animals, they experimented on 
themselves, inoculating the black matter at the very 
moment in which the moribund patient rejected it, 
placing this matter in their eyes, or in wounds made in 
their arms, injecting it more than twenty times in various 
parts of their body ; in short, devising every sort or 
daring means for experimentally transmitting yellow fever. 
All these experiments were without result, and in the 
United States during many years it was believed that this 
terrible malady was non-contagious." (Sanarelli, quoted in 
British Medical 'Journal, July 3, 1897.) 
Finlay, Sternberg, Havelberg, and others, have 
worked at yellow fever, but Sanarelli's name is alone 
associated with the discovery of a specific organism, 
the bacillus icteroides, and with the work of preparing 
an immunising serum. He began his study of yellow 
fever in February, 1896, in the lazaretto on the island 
of Flores. He did not spare himself in the course ot 
his experiments, and he nearly died over the work. 
At Flores he discovered the bacillus; in June he 
went to Rio Janeiro, and studied the disease there. By 
a long series of experiments on animals, he estab- 
lished the exact pathology and course of it ; and in 
1897 he showed that "Widal's reaction" could be 
employed as a test in cases of the disease. By 
October of that year {Annales de Blnstitut Pasteur^ 
October, 1897) he had prepared an immunising serum, 
176 YELLOW FEVER 
which was able to give a considerable amount of pro- 
tection to animals :- 
" This serum was tried, directly after it had been 
obtained, on guinea-pigs, against a mortal dose of virulent 
cultures. Half a cubic centimetre of this serum, in- 
jected 24 hours before the dose of virulent cultures, gave 
immunity. Two centimetres of it succeeded in saving 
guinea-pigs already ill, even if it were injected 48 hours 
afterward. These doses are still far from representing the 
full preventive and curative power of the serum, espe- 
cially if one takes count of the power of the other sera 
prepared up to the present time. . . . 
" Such are the results hitherto obtained by laboratory 
work on the specific treatment of yellow fever. The pre- 
ventive and curative power of the serum of the guinea- 
pig, the dog, and the horse, vaccinated against the bacillus 
icteroides, should be held as absolutely demonstrated in 
the case of animals." 
Next year {Annales de I' Institut Pasteur^ May, 1898) 
came the news that he had advanced against yellow 
fever with its own weapons-Premieres experiences sur 
I' emploi du serum curatif et preventif de la fievre jaune. 
Of the first eight cases treated (Rio de Janeiro) four 
recovered. Then came the 22 cases at San Carlos do 
Pinhal, in Saint-Paul au B resil (January, 1898), with 
16 recoveries, and only 6 deaths. And it is to be noted 
that he submitted his method of treatment to the 
utmost test that was possible ; he chose the bad cases, 
and the country where the fever was most fatal :- 
" Chaque cas etait choisi de commun accord entre nous. 
177 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
dans le but de mettre bien en evidence Faction thera- 
peutique du serum, mettant toujours de cote tous les cas qui 
se presentaient avec des symptomes vagues ou attenues ou en 
forme legere ou fruste. On ne conservait done que des cas ou, 
d'apres la violence des phenomenes d'invasion, on dev ait con- 
siderer comme tres peu probable une crise spontanee de la 
mala die. . . . 
"L'Etatde Saint-Paul, le plus riche de la Republique 
bresilienne, pays d'immigration, traverse aujourd'hui une 
triste periode, depuis que la fievre jaune, qui jusqu'a ces 
dernieres annees n'avait pas quitte les cotes, s'est diffusee et 
a envahi comme un incendie presque routes les villes et 
presques tous les villages de 1'interieur, semant des ruines 
partout. 
" La fievre jaune est bien plus grave a 1'interieur du 
pays, et atteint une mortalite bien plus elevee que celle 
qu'on observe dans les cotes, par exemple, a Rio de Janeiro, 
a Santos, ou a Pernambuco. Dans ces dernieres villes, les 
immigrants en general ne sejournent pas ; la fievre jaune 
atteint en general des indigenes, ou tout au moins des gens 
relativement acclimates par un sejour plus ou moins long, 
et la mortalite ne depasse pas 50 a 60 % des malades. Dans 
1'interieur du pays, au contraire, la maladie trouve un 
element neuf, europeen, recemment arrive, non encore 
habitue au climat et au genre de vie des pays intertropicaux, 
et par suite extremement faible et sans defense. La 
mortalite est dealers 80 ou 90 % des malades, et il y a eu a 
Campinas, a Rio-Claro, a Araraquara, et sur d'autres points, 
des epidemies comparables seulement aux invasions legen- 
daires de la peste au moyen age." 
The serum used by Sanarelli at San Carlos came 
from three animals, two horses and an ox, that he had 
long kept immunised. He had tested it on animals, 
178 YELLOW FEVER 
2nd on himself. At the isolation hospital he found 
only two children :- 
" La plupart des gens preferaient rester chez eux pour 
mourir ; les seuls malades a ce moment a 1'hopital etaient 
deux enfants nommes Louis et Assunta del V. . . . 
ramasses dans la maison ou leur pere etait deja mort de 
fievre jaune. Ces deux petits malades presentaient les 
symptumes caracteristiques de la maladie, y compris le 
vomito negro; Louis etait au second jour et Assunta au 
troisieme de la maladie. Ils furent soumis de suite au 
traitement, dont les resultats furent presque immediats ; la 
fievre et l'albuminurie disparurent, les symptomes generaux 
s'attenuerent et les deux enfants entrerent en franche con- 
valescence." 
Sixteen recoveries, out of twenty-two cases, in a 
country where the mortality under any other treatment 
is reckoned at 80 or 90 per cent. And, of the six who 
died, four were indeed hopeless from the first. 
Furthermore, Sanarelli was able to show the pre- 
ventive value of the serum. At the end of February, 
1898, yellow fever broke out in the jail at San 
Carlos :- 
"La premiere victime fut un condamne, qui vivait avec 
tous les autres dans une salle ou les conditions hygieniques 
etaient assez mauvaises. Le lendemain, la sentinelle, qui 
etait en rapport continuel avec la salle des condamnes, tom- 
bait malade. Ouelques jours apres, un autre condamne 
suivait le sort du premier, et bientot un quatrieme cas, 
mortel aussi, finit par signaler la prison comme un nouveau 
foyer d'infection qui venait s'allumer au centre d'un quar- 
tier de la ville encore reste indemne. 
179 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
" Si on avait abandonne la chose a elle-meme, on aurait 
vu se produire le meme spectacle qu'avaient fourni, dans 
les conditions identiques, pendant les dernieres epidemies, 
les prisons de Rio-Claro, de Limeira, et d'autres villes de 
1'Etat de Saint-Paul." 
Every prisoner, except one who had already had the 
fever, was therefore given the preventive treatment. 
At once the outbreak stopped ; no more cases occurred, 
though only a weak serum was used, though the state 
of the prison and its occupants was unhealthy, though 
the fever, two months later, was still raging, round the 
prison, in the town.1 
Malaria. 
The plasmodium malaria, an amoeboid organism, 
was discovered by Laveran in 1880, in the blood of 
malarial patients. For many years his work stopped 
there, because it was impossible to find the plasmodium 
in animals : " the difficulties surrounding the subject 
were so great that this discovery seemed to be almost 
hopeless." In 1894, Dr. Patrick Manson-who had 
proved mosquitoes to be the intermediate host in the 
case of the parasitic nematode filaria-suggested, 
as a working theory of malaria, that the plasmodium 
was carried by mosquitoes. This belief, not itself 
new, he made current coin. He observed that there 
is a flagellate form of the plasmodium, which only 
comes into existence after the blood has left the body: 
1 For the recent report, from Havana, of the United States Yellow 
Fever Commission, see Lancet, Sept. 30, 1899. 
180 MALARIA 
and he suggested that the flagella might develop in 
the mosquito as an intermediate host, a halfway-house 
between man and man. Then, in 1895, Surgeon- 
Major Ronald Ross, set to work in India, 
keeping and feeding vast numbers of mosquitoes on 
malarial blood ; and for two years without any con- 
clusive result. About this time came MacCullum's 
observations, at the Johns Hopkins University, on 
a parasitic organism, halteridium, closely allied to 
the plasmodium malariae ; he showed that the flagella 
of the halteridium are organs of impregnation, having 
observed that the non-flagellated form, which he 
regarded as the female, after receiving one of the 
flagella, changed shape, and became motile. In 
August, 1897, Surgeon-Major Ross found bodies, 
containing pigment like that of the malarial parasite, 
in the outer coat of the stomach of one kind of 
mosquito, the grey or dapple-winged mosquito, that 
had been fed on malarial blood. In February, 
1898, he was put on special duty under the Sanitary 
Commissioner with the Government of India, to 
study malaria, and started work again in Calcutta :- 
" Arriving there at a non-fever season, he took up the 
study of what may be called 'bird malaria.' In birds, 
two parasites have become well known-(1) the halte- 
ridium, (2) the proteosoma of Labbe. Both have flagel- 
lated forms, and both are closely allied to the plasmodium 
malarias. Using grey mosquitoes and proteosoma-infected 
birds, Ross showed by a large number of observations that 
it was only from blood containing the proteosoma that 
181 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
pigmented cells in the grey mosquito could be got ; there- 
fore that this cell is derived from the proteosoma, and is 
an evolutionary stage of that parasite. Next, Ross pro- 
ceeded to find out its exact location, and found that it lay 
among the muscular fibres of the wall of the mosquito's 
stomach. It grows large (40-70 micromillimetres) and 
protrudes from the external surface of the stomach, which 
under the microscope appears as if covered with minute 
warts." (Manson, at Edinburgh meeting of British Medical 
Association, 1898.) 
These pigmented spherical cells give issue to 
innumerable swarms of spindle - shaped bodies, 
" germinal rods " ; and in infected mosquitoes Ross 
has found these rods, in the glands that com- 
municate with the proboscis. Thus the evidence 
appeared complete, that the plasmodium malariae, like 
many other parasites, had a special intermediate host 
for its intermediate stage of development; and that 
this host was the dapple-winged mosquito. It is 
impossible to over-estimate the infinite delicacy 
and difficulty of Ross's work ; for instance, in his 
"Abstract of Recent Experiments with Grev Mos- 
quitoes," he says that " out of 245 grey mosquitoes 
fed on birds with proteosoma, 178, or 72 per cent., 
contained pigmented cells ; out of 249 fed on blood 
containing halteridium, immature proteosoma, &c., not 
one contained a single pigmented cell." Another time 
(April, 1898) he counted these pigment-cells under 
the microscope :- 
"Ten mosquitoes fed on the sparrow with numerous 
182 Photograph taken at Grassfields, Sierra Leone, by a member of the Malaria Expedition (Liverpool 
School of Tropical Medicine) : showing one of the breeding-puddles of Anopheles, MALARIA 
proteosoma contained 1,009 pigmented cells, or an average 
of 101 each. Ten mosquitoes fed on the sparrow with 
moderate proteosoma contained 292 pigmented cells, or an 
average of 29 each. The mosquitoes fed on the sparrow 
with no proteosoma contained no pigmented cells." 
Finally, he completed the circle of development, 
by infecting healthy sparrows by causing mosquitoes 
to bite them. 
On July 31st of this present year, Surgeon-Major 
Ross and the other members of the malaria expedi- 
tion (Liverpool School of Tropical Diseases) left 
Liverpool for Sierra Leone. A good account of his 
work was given in August by Dr. Thin, President of 
the section of Tropical Diseases, at the Portsmouth 
meeting of the British Medical Association. 
Italy, of course, has given infinite study to malaria ; 
Bignami, Bastianelli, Celli, and Grassi, and many 
others, have done most valuable work on the 
mosquitoes of Italy. The chief offender among 
the Italian mosquitoes is " Anopheles claviger " ; 
the dapple-winged mosquito is different from it, 
more like " Anopheles pictus," but 2 mm. shorter. 
Thus, in a few years, the cause of malaria has been 
found :- 
" If this be so, the prevention of malaria will depend 
upon the prevention of mosquito-bites. This may not be 
so difficult as is supposed, because, at any rate as regards 
several species, mosquitoes have a limited area of propa- 
gation, in barrels of water, puddles, and ditches. . . .In 
the meantime, it may be stated that there is good ground 
183 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
for the belief that the commoner species of mosquito 
cannot convey the organism of human malaria." {Indian 
Medical Gazette, June, 1899.) See also Appendix. 
It is, at least, something gained, that in malaria 
men have to reckon " not with a nameless something, 
but with a definite parasite. Above all things^ we 
must shut off the sources of infection A Henceforth 
the measures against malaria will be directed against 
mosquitoes and their haunts, puddles and ditches, 
stagnant pools, with algae in them, near houses; 
and the winter habits of anopheles claviger have 
already been studied in Italy as a matter of vital 
importance to the nation. It is said that, in Italy 
alone, malaria keeps nearly five million acres of 
ground from cultivation, affects more or less 63 
provinces and 2,823 communes, and every year 
poisons about two million people, killing fifteen 
thousand of them. 
An informal report from the Sierra Leone expedi- 
tion has just been published (see daily papers, Septem- 
ber 27, 1899). Surgeon-Major Ross writes :- 
"We have now practically finished our work here. 
We have found- 
" {a} That local species of Anopheles (mosquitoes) carry 
malaria. 
" {b) That these species breed in a few stagnant 
puddles. 
" These observations support my inaugural lecture at 
every point. Needless to say, we have been most excep- 
184 MALARIA 
tionally lucky, to have done so much in so short a time. 
We shall, of course, wind up with a scientific report to 
the Committee. The practical results to be derived from 
the facts which we have obtained will depend solely on 
the Government and medical profession here. Fortu- 
nately Major Nathan is taking great interest in our work, 
and so are the Colonial doctors. Of course we could kill 
most of the Anopheles grubs here in a few hours with 
kerosene oil, and the thing will be done shortly after 
Ould arrives. But this won't be enough. It is necessary 
that the operations be continued systematically, and that 
some of the more dangerous puddles be drained, costing a 
trifle. Consequently the Governor asked us to advise. I 
suggested that one of his medical officers be put in charge 
of operations against the mosquito, and that he be given a 
trustworthy native assistant. The proposal is before the 
Governor. 
"For many scientific reasons, we have come to the con- 
clusion that the truly malarial fever is caused here solely 
by the mosquito-probably entirely by the Anopheles 
species. We estimate, then, that most of the malarial 
fever here can be got rid of at almost no cost, except of a 
little energy on the part of the local authorities.." 
Before leaving the subject of malaria, it must be 
added that the discovery and study of the parasite 
which causes it have cleared up the mystery of the 
specific action of quinine upon the disease. It 
operates simply by its germicidal effect upon the 
microbe. But beyond this we have now a clue 
which we never had before to guide us to the most 
advantageous manner of administering the drug. 
185 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Glanders in horses, rinderpest, and Texas fever in 
cattle, have all been worked out by the experimental 
method. The medical journals of the present year 
contain many reports on rinderpest from diverse 
parts of the world-Cape Colony, Hong Kong, 
Bareilly-especially the report by Dr. Edington, 
Director of the Bacteriological Institute of Cape 
Colony, " A Retrospect of the Rinderpest Campaign 
in South Africa." {Lancet^ February n, 1899.) In 
Cape Colony alone, about half a million cattle have 
been immunised against rinderpest by one method or 
another, and the lives thus saved must be reckoned by 
many thousands. 
186 XII 
PARASITIC DISEASES 
i. Vegetable Parasites. 
OF these, the most important is the streptothrix 
actinomyces, the cause of actinomycosis in man 
and cattle. Israel, in 1877, gave the first accurate 
account of it in man : and Bollinger, the same year, 
studied it in cattle. Ponfick, in 1882, recognised 
the identity of the disease in man and animals. In 
1885, Israel published the collected records of thirty- 
seven cases in man, tabulated according to the site of 
the primary infection. Bostrom, about this time, 
made cultures of the fungus : but all the earlier 
attempts at inoculation failed; and it was not till 
1891 that Wolff and Israel published their successful 
inoculations, and thus completed the evidence that 
actinomycosis is a parasitic infection, a growth ot 
vegetable threads and spores, transmissible between 
men and animals, and able to keep its vitality outside 
its host: so that men who are employed with cattle, 
187 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
or have the habit of chewing straws or ears of corn, 
incur some risk of infection. Before 1877, the 
disease was hardly suspected in man, and was not 
understood in cattle. 
2. Animal Parasites. 
Actinomycosis is a rare disease : but disease from 
animal parasites is terribly common. The blood- 
parasites, such as filaria and Bilharzia, were discovered 
and worked out by methods more or less independent 
of experiments on animals : they do not come to be 
considered here. But the grosser parasites - tape- 
worms and the like-were explained and understood 
by means of experiments on animals : by this method, 
and by this alone, their life-history was discovered. 
They were known to Aristotle and to Hippocrates ; 
but nothing was understood about them. They 
were never studied, for this among other reasons, that 
men believed in spontaneous generation ; and the 
presence of lower forms of life inside human bodies 
was attributed to the fault of the patient, the intem- 
perature of the air, or the work of the devil. Then, 
at last, Redi (1712), and Swammerdam (1752) in 
his Bibel der Natur, struck at the doctrine of spon- 
taneous generation, saying that it did not apply to 
insects ; and in 1781 Pallas boldly declared that the 
internal parasites of man came out of eggs, like insects, 
and not " of themselves." It would be a good theme 
for an essay-The paralysing effect, on medicine and 
188 PARASITIC DISEASES 
surgery^ of the doctrine of spontaneous generation ; and, 
so late as 1876, it was upheld in this country against 
the findings of bacteriology. 
Rudolphi (1808) and Bremser (1819) opposed 
Pallas; and von Siebold (1835) and Eschricht (1837) 
supported him. Then came the great students of 
this part of biology - Cobbold, Busk, Davaine, 
van Beneden, Leuckart, Kiichenmeister. In 1842, 
Steenstrup had discovered, in certain insects, the 
alternation of generations: in 1852, Kiichenmeister 
proved that the generations of internal parasites are 
similarly alternate. By feeding carnivorous animals 
with " measly " meat, he produced tapeworms in 
them ; and by feeding herbivorous animals with the 
ova of tapeworms, he made their muscles " measly." 
The feeding of animals was the only possible way 
to understand the bewildering transformations and 
transmigrations of the thirty or more entozoa to which 
flesh is heir. This chapter of pathology makes up in 
tragedy what it lacks in romance : for these animal 
parasites have killed whole hosts of people. Take, 
for instance, the trichina spiralisy a minute worm 
discovered in 1833 encysted in countless numbers in 
the muscles of the human body ; it was studied by 
Leuckart and others, by feeding-experiments on 
animals, and was proved to come from infected half- 
cooked ham and pork, and to make its way from the 
alimentary canal all over the body. The name ot 
trichiniasis or trichina-fever was given to the acute 
189 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
illness that came of the sudden dissemination of these' 
myriad parasites into the tissues. Trichiniasis had 
killed hundreds of people by a most painful death ; 
outbreaks of it, in Germany and elsewhere, had swept 
through villages like cholera or plague : then Leuckart 
traced it to its source, and it was stopped there-Above 
all things^ we must shut off the sources of the infection- 
the butchers' shops were kept under sanitary inspection, 
people were warned against half-cooked ham and pork, 
and there was an end of it. 
Or take hydatid disease, which occurs in all parts of 
the world, and in some countries (Australia, Iceland) 
is terribly common. The nature of this disease- 
that it is an animal parasite transmissible between 
men and dogs-was proved by feeding-experiments on 
animals. In Iceland, where men and dogs live 
crowded together in huts, there is an appalling number 
of deaths from hydatid disease ; Leuckart, in 1863, 
said of it- 
" At present, almost the sixth part of all the inhabitants 
annually dying in Iceland fall victims to the echinococcus 
epidemic." 
Before Kiichenmeister's experiments in 1852, there 
was no general knowledge of the exact pathology of 
entozoic disease. The advance was made not by the 
experimental method alone ; other things helped : but 
among them were neither clinical experience, nor 
"the observation of the just facts of anatomy and or 
natural motions." 
190 XIII 
MYXCEDEMA 
ON October 4, 1873, Sir William Gull read a 
short paper before the Clinical Society of 
London, " On a Cretinoid State supervening in Adult 
Life in Women." This famous first account of 
myxcedema was based on five cases: it is less than 
five pages long, it does not suggest a name for the 
disease, and it says nothing about the thyroid gland. 
Four years later (October 23, 1877) Dr. Ord read a 
paper before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, 
" On Myxcedema ; a term proposed to be applied to 
an essential condition in the ' Cretinoid ' Affection 
occasionally observed in Middle-aged Women." His 
work had begun so far back as 1861 : and in this 
1877 paper he gave not only clinical observations, but 
also pathological and chemical facts ; and he noted, as 
one among many changes, wasting of the thyroid 
gland. He also pointed out the close resemblance 
between cases of myxcedema and cases of sporadic 
cretinism. 
191 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
In 1882, Reverdin stated before the Medical Society 
of Geneva that signs like those of myxoedema had 
been observed in some cases of removal of the thyroid 
gland on account of disease (goitre). In April, 1883, 
Kocher of Berne read a paper on this subject, before 
the Congress of German Surgeons ; but he attributed 
this myxoedema after removal of the gland (cachexia 
strumipriva) not directly to the loss of thyroid-tissue, 
but rather to some sort of interference with free 
respiration, due to operation. On November 23, 
Sir Felix Semon brought the subject again before the 
Clinical Society; and on December 14, 1883, the 
Society appointed a Committee of Investigation to 
study the whole question. 
Their Report, 215 pages long, with tabulated 
records of 119 cases of myxoedema, was published in 
1888. It is a monument of good work, historical, 
clinical, pathological, chemical, and experimental. 
Twenty years ago, the purpose of the thyroid gland 
was unknown : a few experiments had been made on it, 
by Sir Astley Cooper and others, and had failed ; and 
Claude Bernard, in his Physiologic Operatoire (published 
in 1879, soon after his death), makes it clear that 
nothing was known in his time about it. He is 
emphasising the fact that anatomy cannot make 
discoveries in physiology :- 
" The descriptive anatomy, and the microscopic 
characters, of the thyroid gland, the facts about its 
blood-vessels and its lymphatics-are not all these as well 
192 MYXCEDEMA 
known in the thyroid gland as in other organs ? Is not 
the same thing true of the thymus gland, and the supra- 
renal capsules ? Yet we know absolutely nothing about the 
functions of these organs-we have not so much as an idea 
what use and importance they may possess-because experiments 
have told us nothing about them ; and anatomy, left to itself, 
is absolutely silent on the subject." 
Therefore, in 1882-83, things stood at this point- 
that the removal of a diseased thyroid gland had been 
followed, in some cases, by a train of symptoms such 
as Sir William Gull had recorded in 1873. Would 
the same symptoms follow removal of the healthy 
gland ? The answer was given by Mr. Horsley's 
experiments, begun in 1884. He was able, by 
removal of the gland, to produce in monkeys a chronic 
myxoedema, a cretinoid state, the facsimile of the 
disease in man : the same symptoms, course, tissue- 
changes, the same physical and mental hebetude, the 
same alterations of the excretions, the temperature, and 
the voice. It was now past doubt that myxcedema was 
due to want of thyroid-tissue, and to that alone ; and 
that " cachexia strumipriva " was due to the loss, by 
operation, of such remnants of the gland as had not 
been rendered useless by disease. 
The advance had still to be made from pathology 
to treatment. Here, so far as this country is con- 
cerned, honour is again due to Mr. Horsley. On 
February 8, 1890, he published the suggestion that 
thyroid-tissue, from an animal just killed, should be 
193 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
transplanted beneath the skin of a myxcedematous 
patient :- 
"The justification of this procedure rested on the 
remarkable experiments of Schiff and von Eisselsberg. I 
only became aware in April, 1890, that this proposal had 
been in fact forestalled in 1889 by Dr. Bircher, in Aarau. 
(The date of Dr. Bircher's operation was January 16, 
1889.) Kocher had tried to do the same thing in x 883, 
but the graft was soon absorbed; but early in 1889 he 
tried it again, in five cases, and one greatly improved." 
The importance of this treatment, by transplantation 
of living thyroid-tissue, must be judged by the fact 
that in 1888 no practical use had yet been made of 
the scientific work that had been done. The Clinical 
Society's Report, published that year, gives but half a 
page to treatment, of the old-fashioned sort ; and not 
a word of hope. 
Then, at last, in 1891, came Dr. George Murray's 
paper in the British Medical 'Journal, " Note on the 
Treatment of Myxcedema by Hypodermic Injections 
of an Extract of the Thyroid Gland of a Sheep." 
Later, hypodermic injections of thyroid-extract gave 
way to sandwiches made with thyroid-gland (Dr. 
Hector Mackenzie, and Dr. Fox of Plymouth), and 
these in their turn were eclipsed by tabloids.1 
It is a strange sequence, from 1873 onward : cli- 
1 It remains only to isolate, even more perfectly, the active principle 
or principles of thyroid-tissue : Blum's " thyreo-iodin " is perhaps a step 
in this direction. 
194 MYXCEDEMA 
nical observation, post-mortem work, calamities of 
surgery, experimental physiology, transplantation, 
hypodermic injections, sandwiches, and tabloids. And 
far more has been achieved than the cure of myx- 
cedema. Even if the discovery stopped here, it would 
still be a miracle that little bottles of tabloids should 
bring men and women back from myxcedema to what 
they were before they became thick-witted, slow, 
changed almost past recognition, drifting toward 
idiocy. But it does not stop here. The same treat- 
ment has given good results in countless cases ot 
sporadic cretinism, restoring growth of body and or 
mind to children that were hopelessly imbecile. It is 
of great value also for certain diseases of the skin. 
Moreover, physiology has gained knowledge of the 
purpose of the thyroid gland ; and a clearer insight 
into the facts relating to internal secretion. 
Myxcedema is but one instance how the treatment 
of disease must have the help of experiments on 
animals. Those who oppose all such experiments, 
now that they have faced or outfaced the facts about 
myxcedema, must face the facts about cancer. They 
know that practice has, for the present, said all that 
it has to say : that neither clinical experience, nor post- 
mortem work, nor organic chemistry, nor physiology, 
has found any cure other than operation : that ex- 
periments on animals have in the last few years given 
certain results that cannot be denied or explained 
away : that never since the world began have men 
195 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
got so near as they are now to this discovery that 
a man would gladly die to make. What do they 
wish to see done ? They are absolutely ignorant of 
the elementary facts about the disease : will they 
advise the experts what line to follow ? 
196 XIV 
THE ACTION OF DRUGS 
LONG after the Renaissance, the practice of 
medicine was still under the influence of magic. 
Whatever things were rare and precious were held to 
be good against disease-gold, amber, coral, pearls, 
and the dust of mummies ; whatever took strange 
forms of life-toads, earthworms, and the like ; what- 
ever looked like the disease, after the doctrine of 
signatures-pulmonaria for the lungs, because the spots 
on its leaves were like tubercle, a kidney-shaped 
fruit for the kidneys, a heart-shaped fruit for the heart, 
and yellow carrots for the yellow jaundice. Among 
the drugs in the 1618 Pharmacopoeia are cranium 
humanum^ mandibula Iurii, nidus hirundinum, sericum 
crudum, Unum vivum, and pilus salamandrce. In the 
Pharmacopoeia of 1677 are exuvice serpentis, teloe aran- 
earum, saliva jejuni, cranium hominis violenta morte 
extincti, and worse obscenities. 
Soon after the publication of this Pharmacopoeia, 
197 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
on February 6, 1685, King Charles IL died ; and in 
the Library of the Society of Antiquaries there is a 
manuscript account in Latin, by Dr. Scarbrugh, how 
the case was treated. The King had sixteen phy- 
sicians, and nine consultations in five days ; and to say 
" everything was done that was possible " gives no 
idea of the vigour of the treatment. Finally, the day 
he died, they gave him, eleven of them in consultation 
-totus medicorum chorus ah omni spe destitutus-they 
gave him, as more generous cardiacs, the lapis Goes 
and the Bezoar-stone. The lapis Gore was a dust of 
topaz, jacinth, sapphire, ruby, pearl, emerald, bezoar, 
coral, musk, ambegris, and gold, all made into a pill 
and polished; and the bezoar is a calculus found in the 
intestines of herbivorous animals. Half a century 
later, the Pharmacopoeia of 1721 still included ants'- 
eggs, teeth, lapis nephriticus, and other horrors ; and in 
the Pharmacopoeia of 1746, though the dust or 
Egyptian mummies was ruled out, vipers and wood- 
lice were retained. 
Certainly these " last enchantments of the Middle 
Ages " were slow to depart. Clinical observation, 
anatomy, and pathology, had all failed to bring about 
a right understanding of the actions of drugs. It was 
the physiologists, not the doctors, who first formulated 
the exact use of drugs ; it was Bichat, Magendie, and 
Claude Bernard. That is the whole meaning of 
Magendie's work on the upas-poison and on strychnine, 
and Claude Bernard's work on curari and digitalis. 
198 THE ACTION OF DRUGS 
Of these four substances, two only are of any use in 
practice ; yet Magendie's study of strychnine 1 was of 
immeasurable value, not so much because it gave the 
doctors a " more generous cardiac," though that was a 
great gift, but because it revealed the selective action 
of drugs. Contrast his account of strychnine with 
Ambroise Pare's story how they tested the bezoar- 
stone on the thief instead of hanging him ; contrast 
Bernard's chapter on curari with Dr. Scarbrugh's 
notes on the King's death, with all the Crown jewels 
inside him : you are in two different worlds. The 
selective action of drugs-the affinity between strych- 
nine and the central nerve-cells, between curari and 
the terminal filaments of the motor nerves-that was 
the revolutionary teaching of science : and it came, 
not by experience, but by experiment. 
Take Prof. Fraser's address on "The Action of 
Remedies, and the Experimental Method," at the 
International Medical Congress in London, 1881 :- 
" The introduction of this method is due to Bichat ; 
and, by its subsequent application by Magendie, pharma- 
cology was originated as the science we now recognise. 
Bichat represents a transition state, in which metaphysical 
conceptions were mingled with the results of experience. 
Magendie more clearly recognised the danger of adopting 
theories, in the existing imperfections of knowledge ; and 
devoted himself to the supplementing of these imperfec- 
tions by experiments on living animals. The advantages 
1 For a full statement of the great value of this study of strychnine, 
see Cl. Bernard, Lemons de Physiologic Operatoire, 1879, p. 89. 
199 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
of such experiments he early illustrated by his investiga- 
tion on the upas-poison ; and afterwards by a research on 
the then newly discovered alkaloid, strychnia. . . . He 
demonstrated the action of this substance upon the spinal 
cord, by experiments upon the lower animals, so thoroughly, 
that subsequent investigations have added but little to his 
results." 
Or take Professor Fraser's account of digitalis : - 
"It was introduced as a remedy for dropsy ; and, on the 
applications which were made of it for the treatment of 
that disease, a slowing action upon the cardiac movements 
was observed, which led to its acquiring the reputation 
of a cardiac sedative. Numerous observations were made 
on man by the originators of its application, by Dr. 
Sanders and many other physicians, in which special 
attention was paid to its effects upon the circulation ; but 
no further light was thrown upon its remarkable properties, 
with the unimportant exception that in some cases it was 
found to excite the circulation. It was not until the 
experimental method was applied in its investigation, in 
the first instance by Claude Bernard, and subsequently 
by Dybkowsky, Pelikan, Meyer, Boehm, and Schmiede- 
berg, that the true action of digitalis upon the circulation 
was discovered. It was shown that the effects upon the 
circulation were not in any exact sense sedative, but, on 
the contrary, stimulant and tonic, rendering the action of 
the heart more powerful, and increasing the tension in 
the blood-vessels. The indications for its use in disease 
were thereby revolutionised, and at the same time ren- 
dered more exact ; and the striking benefits which are 
now afforded by the use of this substance in most (cardiac) 
diseases were made available to humanity." 
200 THE ACTION OF DRUGS 
Or take Dr. Lauder Brunton's account of the 
action of nitrite of amyl in angina pectoris :- 
"The action of nitrite of amyl in causing flushing was 
first observed by Guthrie, and Dr. B. W. Richardson 
recommended it as a remedy in spasmodic conditions, 
from the power he thought it to possess of paralysing 
motor nerves. In the spring of 1867 I had opportunities 
of constantly observing a patient who suffered from 
angina pectoris, and of obtaining from him numerous 
sphygmographic tracings, both during the attack and 
during the interval. These showed that during the 
attack the pulse became quicker, the blood-pressure rose, 
and the arterioles contracted. ... It seemed probable 
that the great rise in tension was the cause of the pain, 
and it occurred to me that if it was possible to diminish 
the tension by drugs instead of by bleeding, the pain 
would be removed. 
" I knew from unpublished experiments on animals by 
Dr. A. Gamgee that nitrite of amyl had this power, and 
therefore tried it on the patient. My expectations were 
perfectly answered. The pain usually disappeared in 
three-quarters of a minute after the inhalation began, and 
at the same time the pulse became slower and much 
fuller, and the tension diminished." 
Of course it would be easy to lengthen out the 
list. Aconite, belladonna, calcium chloride, col- 
chicum, cocain, chloral, ergot, morphia, salicylic acid, 
strophanthus, the chief diuretics, the chief diaphoretics 
-all these drugs, and a host more, have been studied 
and learned by experiments on animals. Then 
comes the answer, that drugs act differently on 
201 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
animals and on men. The few instances, that give 
a wise air to this foolish answer, were known long ago 
to everybody : they do not so much as touch the 
facts of daily practice :- 
" The action of drugs on man differs from that on the 
lower animals chiefly in respect to the brain, which is so 
much more greatly developed in man. Where the 
structure of an organ or tissue is nearly the same in man 
and in the lower animals, the action of drugs upon it is 
similar. Thus we find that carbonic oxide, and nitrites, 
produce similar changes in the blood of frogs, dogs, and 
man, that curare paralyses the motor nerves alike in them 
all, and veratria exerts upon the muscles of each 
its peculiar stimulant and paralysing action. Where 
differences exist in the structure of the various organs, 
we find, as we would naturally expect, differences in their 
reaction to drugs. Thus the heart of the frog is simpler 
than that of dogs or men, and less affected by the central 
nervous system ; we consequently find that while such a 
drug as digitalis has a somewhat similar action upon the 
hearts of frogs, dogs, and men, there are certain differences 
between its effect upon the heart of a frog and on that of 
mammals. 
" Belladonna offers another example of apparent dif- 
ference in action-a considerable dose of belladonna will 
produce almost no apparent effect upon a rabbit, while a 
smaller dose in a dog or a man would cause the rapidity of 
the pulse to be nearly doubled. Yet in all three-rabbits, 
dogs, and men-belladonna paralyses the power of the 
vagus over the heart. The difference is that in rabbits 
the vagus normally exerts but little action on the heart, 
and the effect of its paralysis is consequently slight or 
hardly appreciable." (Prof. Fraser.) 
202 THE ACTION OF DRUGS 
It would be strange indeed, if experts who work 
in micromillimetres and decimal milligrammes, and 
study the vanishing-point of microscopic structures, 
and measure and ordain infinitesimal changes in 
invisible organisms, were blind to such gross and 
palpable differences as exist between men and pigeons 
in their susceptibility to a dose of opium. 
Anaesthetics must be reckoned among the drugs 
that have been studied on animals : but, for the 
discovery of them, men experimented on themselves. 
The first use of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in 
surgery was December n, 1844, when Horace Wells, 
of Connecticut, had it administered to himself for the 
removal of a tooth. The first use of ether was made 
by Dr. Long, of Athens, Georgia ; but he did not 
publish the case, or follow up the work : and the 
honour of the discovery of ether went to Morton, of 
Boston : who made repeated experiments, both on 
animals and on himself. The date when he first 
rendered himself absolutely unconscious for seven or 
eight minutes is September 30, 1846 ; and the first 
operation under ether was done on October 16th, 
in the Massachusetts General Hospital. The first 
use of chloroform was November 4, 1847,1 that famous 
evening when Simpson, George Keith, and Matthews 
Duncan took it together. The whole history of 
anaesthesia is to be found in the Practitioner, October, 
1896. 
It is sometimes said that the men who make 
203 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
experiments on animals ought to make them on 
themselves. But they do, hundreds of them, and 
suffer for it : Heaven knows the list is long enough- 
the discoverers of anaesthesia, Hunter, Garre, Koch, 
Klein, Moor, Haffkine, Grassi, Bochefontaine, 
Quesada, Sanarelli, Pettenkofer-these and many 
more, here or abroad, have done it, as part of the 
day's work ; and some-by accidental infection, like 
Chabry and Villa, or by deliberate self inoculation, 
like Carrion-have been killed :- 
"Dr. Angelo Knorr, Privat-docent in the Veterinary 
School of Munich, died on February 22nd from acute 
glanders, contracted in the course of an experimental 
research on mallein. Heimann, the Russian investigator 
who discovered mallein, himself fell a victim to accidental 
inoculation of the glanders virus. Some time afterwards 
another Russian, Protopopow, died of glanders contracted 
in a French laboratory. An Austrian physician, Dr. 
Koffman-Wellenhof, died of the same disease, contracted 
in the Institute of Hygiene at Vienna. On January 17th 
of the present year Dr. Guiseppe Bosso, of the University 
of Turin, died of infection contracted in the course of 
cultivations of tuberclc-bacilli made in his laboratory. 
Not long before, Dr. Lola, assistant in the maternity 
department of the Czech University Hospital of Prague, 
died of tetanus caused by an experimental inoculation 
made on himself. Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, a 
medical student of Lima proved that ' verruga Peruana ' 
is an infectious disease by inoculating himself with it, 
an act of scientific devotion which cost him his life.1 
1 Daniel Carrion, born 1859 at Cerro de Pasco, proved, by self- 
inoculation, the identity of the two forms of the disease, August 27, 
204 THE ACTION OF DRUGS 
Besides those who have died, there are many who have 
only escaped with their lives after long and painful illness. 
Professor Kourloff contracted anthrax in a laboratory at 
Munich, and was saved only by vigorous surgery. Dr. 
Nicolas supplied, in his own person, the first example of 
tetanus produced in man by inoculation of the pure toxin 
of the bacillus of Nicolaier." (Brit. Med. Journal, 
March 18, 1899.) 
These men-and the list might be made much 
longer-fell ill, or died, or killed themselves over 
laboratory work; and the deaths of Barisch, Dr. 
Muller, and Nurse Pecha from plague at Vienna 
(October, 1898), are a further instance that there is 
danger in the constant handling of cultures. But at 
Vienna there was also gross carelessness on the part of 
one man. In laboratories in all parts of the world 
there are stored cultures of all sorts of organisms, yet 
no harm comes of it. " More cases of infection occur 
amongst young medical men attending fever cases, 
whether in private practice or hospital wards, in a 
single month, than have occurred in the whole of the 
laboratories in the world since they were established." 
(British Medical Journal, October 29, 1898.) Out- 
side the laboratory, outside the fever hospitals, the 
risk is something less than a negligible quantity :- 
" Apart from plague and cholera, in all the big labora- 
tories studies are uninterruptedly pursued, from one end 
18855 °f ^6 disease, October 5th. See Ann. de I'Inst. Past., 
Sept., 1898. 
205 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
of the year to the other, upon anthrax, glanders, influenza, 
Malta fever, various tropical diseases which do not exist 
at all or are rare in the countries where they are being 
studied. The laboratories in question are situated in the 
largest and most important towns of their respective 
countries ; and, within those towns, very often in the 
most fashionable or most populous centres. . . . On no 
occasion was there even a suspicion aroused of an epidemic 
having been produced by any of the above-mentioned 
institutes, or by those tens of thousands of operations 
against cholera performed in India." (Haffkine, Madras 
Mail, December 8, 1898.) 
206 XV 
SNAKE-VENOM 
r I AHE Report of the 1875 Commission said- 
A " It is not possible for us to recommend that the 
Indian Government should be prohibited from pursuing its 
endeavours to discover an antidote for snake-bites ; or 
that, without such an effort, your Majesty's Indian sub- 
jects should be left to perish in large numbers annually 
from the effects of these poisons." 
Certainly it was not possible ; and the numbers are 
large indeed. During 1897, 4,227 persons were killed 
by wild animals in India, and 20,959 by snakes. 
(British Medical Journal^ November 5, 1898.) 
Sir Joseph Fayrer's name must be put in the 
highest place of all those who have studied the 
venomous snakes of India. 
Sewall, in 1887, showed that animals could be 
rendered immune, by repeated inoculation with minute 
quantities of rattlesnake-venom, to a dose seven times 
as large as would kill an unprotected animal. Kant- 
207 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
hack, in 1891, immunised animals in the same way 
against cobra-venom. He also made experiments to 
ascertain whether the blood-serum of these animals 
acted as an antidote to the venom. Then came the 
work of Calmette, Fraser,1 Phisalix, Bertrand, Martin 
(Australia), Stephens, and Meyers. The results 
obtained by Calmette are a good instance of the 
fineness and accuracy of the experimental method. 
It is to be noted that the animals were inoculated 
with a fine needle, not thrust into cages with snakes, 
as at zoological gardens; and that an animal thus 
poisoned has a painless death. The different venoms 
were measured in decimal milligrammes, and their 
potency was estimated according to the body-weight 
of the animal inoculated. As with tetanus, so with 
snake-venom, there must be a standard, or " unit ot 
toxicity " :- 
" The following table gives the relative toxicity, for 
1 kilogr. of rabbit, of the different venoms that I have 
tested. To denote this toxicity I use terms such as 
Behring, Roux, and Vaillard used for the toxin of tetanus, 
taking the number of grammes of animal killed by one 
gramme of toxin : 
1. Venom of naja C25 mgr. per kilogr. 
of rabbit. One gramme of this venom 
kills 4,000 kilogrammes of rabbit ; it 
has, therefore, an activity of 4,000,000 
1 Professor Fraser's observations on the antidotal properties of the bile 
are, of course, of the utmost importance; not only in preventive medi- 
cine, but also in physiology. 
208 SNAKE-VENOM 
2. Venom of hoplocephalus 0*29 mgr. ... 3,4.50,000 
3. Venom ofpseudechis 1'25 mgr. ... 800,000 
4. Venom of pelias her us 4'00 mgr. ... 250,000 
" Of course, this estimation of virulence is not absolute ; 
it varies considerably according to the species of animal 
tested. Thus the guinea-pig, and still more the rat, are 
extremely sensitive. For instance, 0'15 mgr. of viper- 
venom is enough to kill, in less than 12 hours, 500 
grammes of guinea-pig ; so that the activity of this venom 
with a guinea-pig is 3,333,000, but with a rabbit is not 
more than 650,000. With more resistent animals, the 
opposite result is obtained : about 10 mgr. of cobra-venom 
are necessary to kill a dog of 6^50 kilogrm. weight ; but 
to kill the same weight of rabbit 1'65 mgr. is enough. 
Thus the virulence of this venom with the rabbit is 
4,000,000 ; but with the dog not more than 650,000." 
By experiments in test-tubes, Calmette studied these 
venoms under the influences of heat and various 
chemical agents. He found how to attenuate their 
virulence, and how to diminish the local inflamma- 
tion round the point of inoculation ; and it was in the 
course of these test-tube experiments and inoculations 
that he discovered the value of calcium hypochlorite 
as a local application. Working, by various methods, 
with attenuated venoms, he was able to immunise 
animals: - 
" I have come to immunise rabbits against quantities 
of venom that are truly colossal. I have got several, 
vaccinated more than a year ago, which take, without 
209 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
the least discomfort, so much as 4.0 mgr. of venom of 
naja tripudians at a single injection ; that is to say, enough 
to kill 80 rabbits of 2 kilogr. weight, or 5 dogs. 
"Five drops of serum from these rabbits wholly 
neutralise in vitro (in a glass test-tube) the toxicity of 
I mgr. of naja venom." 
By 1894 he had found that the serum of an animal, 
thus immunised by graduated doses of one kind of 
venom, neutralised other kinds of venom :- 
" If 1 mgr. of cobra-venom, or 4 mgr. of viper-venom, 
be mixed, in a test-tube, with a small quantity of serum 
from an immunised rabbit, and a fresh rabbit be inoculated 
with this mixture, it does not suffer any discomfort. It is 
not even necessary that the serum should come from an 
animal vaccinated against the same sort of venom as that 
in the mixture. The serum of a rabbit immunised against the 
venom of the cobra or the viper acts indifferently on all the 
venoms that 1 have tested" 
In 1894 he had prepared enough serum for the 
treatment to be tried by his own countrymen practising 
in some of the French colonies. In April, 1895, he 
gave the following account of his work :- 
" I have immunised two asses, one having received 
220 mgr. of w^-venom from September 25 to December 
31, 1894, and the other 160 mgr. from October 15 to 
December 31. The serum of the first of these two 
animals has now reached this point, that half a cubic 
centimetre destroys the toxicity of 1 mgr. of naja-venom. 
Four cubic centimetres of this serum, injected four hours 
before the inoculation of a dose of venom enough to kill 
210 SNAKE-VENOM 
twice over, preserve the animal in every case. It is 
also therapeutic, under the conditions that I have already 
defined ; that is to say, if you first inoculate a rabbit with 
such a dose of venom as kills the control-animals in three 
hours, and then, an hour after injecting the venom, inject 
under the skin of the abdomen 4 to 5 cubic centimetres 
of serum, recovery is the rule. When you interfere later 
than this the results are uncertain ; and in all my experi- 
ments the delay of an hour and a half is the most that I 
have been able to reach. 
" This antivenomous serum of asses has these same anti- 
toxic properties with all kinds of snake-venom ; it is 
equally active in vitro, preventive, and therapeutic, with 
the venoms of cerastes, of trigonocephalies, of crotalus, and ot 
four kinds of Australian snakes that Mr. MacGarvie 
Smith has sent to M. Roux. I am still injecting these 
two animals with venom, and I hope to give to their 
serum at last a much greater antitoxic power." 
In 1896 four succcessful cases of this treatment 
in the human subject were reported in the British 
Medical Journal. In 1898 Calmette made the 
following statement of his results :- 
" It is now nearly two years since the use of my anti- 
venomous serum was introduced in India, in Algeria, in 
Egypt, on the West Coast of Africa, in America, in the 
West Indies, Antilles, &c. It has been very often used 
for men and domestic animals (dogs, horses, oxen), and up 
to now none of those that have received an injection of 
serum have succumbed. ... A great number of observa- 
tions have been communicated to me, and not one of them 
refers to a case of failure." {British Medical Journal, 
May 14, 1898.) 
211 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Note. 
For an excellent account of Fraser's and Calmette's 
work, and of its use in practice, see Dr. Stone's paper 
in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal^ April 7, 
1898. 
From all these instances in physiology, pathology, 
bacteriology, and therapeutics, we come to consider 
the Act relating to experiments on animals in this 
country. Nothing has been said about the bacteriology 
of pneumonia, influenza, cerebro-spinal meningitis, and 
certain other diseases. Nothing has been said of the 
many inventions of medical and surgical practice that 
owe something, but not everything, to experiments 
on animals. Artificial respiration, the transfusion of 
saline fluid, the hypodermic administration of drugs, 
the use of oxygen for inhalation, the torsion of 
arteries, the grafting of skin, the transplantation of 
bone, the absorbable ligature, the diagnostic and thera- 
peutic uses of electricity, the rational employment of 
blood-letting-all these good methods have been left 
out of the list; only some facts have been presented, 
those that mark most clearly the advance of know- 
ledge and of practice, and stand up even above the 
rest of the work. There they will stand, when we 
are all dead and gone : and by them, as by landmarks, 
all further advance will be guided. 
212 THE ACT RELATING TO 
EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
213 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
THE Royal Commission, on the Practice of sub- 
jecting Live Animals to Experiments for 
Scientific Purposes, was appointed on June 22, 1875 : 
Lord Cardwell (chairman), Lord Winmarleigh, Mr. 
W. E. Forster, Sir John Karslake, Mr. Huxley, Mr. 
Erichsen, and Mr. Hutton. Between July 5th and 
December 20th, fifty-three witnesses were examined, 
and 6,551 question were put and answered. The 
Report bears date January 8, 1876, and in that year 
the present Act received the Royal Assent. 
In 1876 the doctrine of spontaneous generation was 
preached for the last time in England : and bacteriology 
was just beginning to be taught. The evidence before 
the Commission is all or nearly all of it about physio- 
logy-Magendie, Claude Bernard, Sir Charles Bell : 
the action of curare, the Handbook for the Physiological 
Laboratory. Very little is said of pathology ; and of 
bacteriology hardly a word. Practically, physiology 
alone came before the Commissioners ; and such experi- 
ments in physiology as are now, the youngest of them, 
215 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
a quarter of a century old. Even the Zoophilist advises 
its lecturers to cease from profaning these venerable 
relics of 1875 :- 
"An old lecture or address must, to a certain extent, be 
always a perfunctory performance. The Blue Book has 
long been a valuable mine for our speakers, but it is getting 
exhausted now. Sir William Fergusson was, no doubt, a 
great authority on our side, but he carries no weight with 
our present-day medical students. ... The recital of the 
horrors of Magendie's, Mantegazza's, and Schiff's labora- 
tories have little or no good effect on English audiences ; 
they are set aside as foreign and out-of-date. . . . How 
often have we heard of the horrible experiments of Dr. 
Brachet. . . . But Dr. Brachet was born in 1789 and 
died in 1858, and in France too." {Zoophilist, February. 1, 
1899.) 
At the time of the passing of the Act, bacteriology 
had hardly made a beginning. Therefore the Act 
made no special provision for inoculations, injections, 
and the whole study of immunisation of animals and 
men against disease. Experiments of this kind have 
to be scheduled under one of the existing Certificates, to 
bring them under an Act that was drafted without 
foreknowledge of them. Certificate A and Certificate 
B have to be used for this purpose :- 
Certificate A. 
" We hereby certify that, in our opinion, insensibility in 
the animal on which any such experiment may be per- 
formed cannot be produced by anaesthetics without neces- 
sarily frustrating the object of such experiments." 
2l6 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Certificate B. 
"We hereby certify that, in our opinion, the killing of 
the animal on which any such experiment is performed 
before it recovers from the anaesthetic administered to it, 
would necessarily frustrate the object of such experiment." 
Under one or other of these Certificates must be 
scheduled all inoculations, injections, feeding-experi- 
ments, transplantations of particles of disease, immu- 
nisations, and the like. They must be scheduled 
somehow ; and that is the only way of doing it. 
Where the act of inducing the disease would itself 
give any pain, if an anaesthetic were not administered 
-as in the subdural inoculation of a rabbit, or the 
intra-peritoneal inoculation of an animal with a particle 
of cancerous tissue-there the licensee must hold, to- 
gether with his license, Certificate B, because the act 
of inducing the disease is itself an operation, done 
under an anaesthetic. If the animal be a dog or a 
cat, he must hold Certificates B and EE ; if it be a 
horse, ass, or mule, Certificates B and F. 
Where the act of inducing the disease is not itself 
painful-as in ordinary inoculation, and in feeding- 
experiments-the licensee must hold, together with 
his license, Certificate A, because the animal is not 
anaesthetised; it is not a painful operation; the experi- 
ment consists not in the act of putting the hypodermic 
needle under the animal's skin, but in the subsequent 
observation of the course of the disease. Take, for 
instance, the inoculation of a guinea-pig with tubercle- 
217 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
bacilli : the experiment is the production of tubercle ; 
the experiment lasts till the animal is killed and found 
to be infected ; it is therefore scheduled under 
Certificate A. Or take the testing, on an animal, of 
an antitoxin : the experiment is not the injection, but 
the observation of the result ; the animal may not 
suffer, but the injection must still be done under 
Certificate A. And, if the animal be a dog or a cat, 
the licensee must hold Certificates A and E ; or, if it be 
a horse, ass, or mule, Certificates A and F. 
This want of a special certificate for inoculations is 
an important matter, because it has led to the belief 
that painful operations are performed, without 
anaesthesia, in cases where the only instrument used 
is a needle. It is hardly reasonable, for instance, that 
the inoculation of a mouse should be scheduled as a 
painful operation performed without anaesthesia. The 
disease, thus painlessly induced, may in many cases be 
called painless; for instance, tuberculosis in the 
guinea-pig, snake-venom in the rat, septicaemia in the 
mouse, malaria in small birds. In other cases, there 
are such pain and fever as are part of the disease. The 
form that rabies takes in rabbits may fairly be called 
painless. Inoculations not under the skin, but into 
the anterior chamber of the eye, are very seldom 
made ; they sound cruel, but cocain renders the sur- 
face of the eye wholly insensitive, and the anterior 
chamber is so far insensitive that a man with blood or 
pus (hypopyon) in the anterior chamber of the eye may 
2l8 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
suffer no pain from it. A horse or an ass kept for the 
giving of an antitoxic serum has a more comfortable 
life than an omnibus horse ; and this preparation of 
the antitoxins, since it is not an experiment, but a 
direct use of animals in the recognised service of man, 
does not require a license or certificates under the Act. 
But the testing of an antitoxin is an experiment, and 
must be made under a license and Certificate A. 
It is not the business of this book to consider 
whether the sensitiveness of a dog, a rabbit, or a 
guinea-pig can fairly be stated in terms of the physical 
and mental sensitiveness of men and women. In the 
world of animals, as in the world of humanity, there 
are differences of sensitiveness. Anyhow, the pain 
inflicted on animals may in some cases be measured :- 
"A guinea-pig that will rest quietly in your hands before 
you commence to inject it will remain perfectly quiet 
during the introduction of the needle under the skin ; and 
the moment it is returned to the cage it resumes its inter- 
rupted feeding. 
"Arteries, veins, and most of the parts of the viscera are 
in the same way (as the heart)1 without the sense of touch. 
We have actual proof of this in what takes place when a 
horse is bled for the purpose of obtaining curative serum. 
With a sharp lance a cut may be made in the skin so 
quickly and easily that the animal does nothing more than 
twitch the skin-muscle of the neck, or give his head a 
1 The reference is to the famous case showed by Harvey to King 
Charles I., where the heart was exposed almost naked through an opening 
in the chest, and was found insensitive. See Power's Life of Harvey, 
p. 246. 
219 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
shake, whilst of the further proceeding of introducing a 
hollow needle into the vein the animal takes not the 
slightest notice. Some horses, indeed, will stand perfectly 
quiet during the whole operation, munching a carrot, 
nibbling at a wisp of hay, or playing with a button on the 
vest of the groom standing at its head. 
" Harrowing details concerning the horrors of tre- 
phining rabbits for Pasteur's antirabic treatment are 
frequently supplied for popular consumption, but how 
little real existence any suffering in connection with the 
operation has may be gathered from the fact that if, as a 
preliminary measure, the skin be benumbed with carbolic 
acid, the whole operation, from making the incision 
through the skin to cutting out the piece of bone with a 
fine trephine and passing a needle under the dura mater, 
may be done without once causing the animal to with- 
draw its attention from the important business of munch- 
ing a bit of cabbage-leaf or a scrap of succulent carrot." 
(Woodhead, Medical Magazine, June, 1898.) 
It will be best to put here (1) the full text of the 
Act, (2) an account of the anaesthetics used for 
animals, (3) the Reports of the Government In- 
spector for England and Scotland, from 1896 to 1898 
inclusive, (4) various official statements. 
I. 
An Act to amend the Law relating to Cruelty 
to Animals. [15th August, 1876.] 
Whereas it is expedient to amend the law relating to 
cruelty to animals by extending it to the cases of animals 
which for medical, physiological, or other scientific pur- 
220 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
poses are subjected when alive to experiments calculated 
to inflict pain : 
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, 
by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual 
and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament 
assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows : 
I. This Act may be cited for all purposes as " The 
Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876." 
2. A person shall not perform on a living animal any 
experiment calculated to give pain, except subject to the 
restrictions imposed by this Act. Any person performing 
or taking part in performing any experiment calculated to 
give pain, in contravention of this Act, shall be guilty or 
an offence against this Act, and shall, if it be the first 
offence, be liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds, 
and if it be the second or any subsequent offence, be 
liable, at the discretion of the court by which he is tried, 
to a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds or to 
imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months. 
3. The following restrictions are imposed by this Act 
with respect to the performance on any living animal of 
an experiment calculated to give pain ; that is to say, 
(1) The experiment must be performed with a view to 
the advancement by new discovery of physio- 
logical knowledge or of knowledge which will 
be useful for saving or prolonging life or 
alleviating suffering ; and 
(2) The experiment must be performed by a person 
holding such license from one of Her Majesty's 
Principal Secretaries of State, in this Act re- 
ferred to as the Secretary of State, as is in this 
Act mentioned, and in the case of a person 
holding such conditional license as is hereinafter 
mentioned, or of experiments performed for the 
purpose of instruction in a registered place ; and 
Short title. 
Prohibition 
of painful 
experiments 
on animals. 
General 
restrictions as 
to performance 
of painful 
experiments 
on animals. 
221 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
(3) The animal must during the whole of the experi- 
ment be under the influence of some anaesthetic 
of sufficient power to prevent the animal feeling 
pain ; and 
(4) The animal must, if the pain is likely to continue 
after the effect of the anaesthetic has ceased, or 
if any serious injury has been inflicted on the 
animal, be killed before it recovers from the 
influence of the anaesthetic which has been 
administered ; and 
(5) The experiment shall not be performed as an illus- 
tration of lectures in medical schools, hospitals, 
colleges, or elsewhere ; and 
(6) The experiment shall not be performed for the 
purpose of attaining manual skill. 
Provided as follows ; that is to say, 
(1) Experiments may be performed under the foregoing 
provisions as to the use of anaesthetics by a 
person giving illustrations of lectures in medical 
schools, hospitals, or colleges, or elsewhere, on 
such certificate being given as in this Act 
mentioned, that the proposed experiments are 
absolutely necessary for the due instruction of 
the persons to whom such lectures are given 
with a view to their acquiring physiological 
knowledge or knowledge which will be useful to 
them for saving or prolonging life or alleviating 
suffering ; and 
(2) Experiments may be performed without anaesthetics 
on such certificate being given as in this Act 
mentioned that insensibility cannot be produced 
without necessarily frustrating the object of 
such experiments ; and 
(3) Experiments may be performed without the person 
who performed such experiments being under an 
222 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
obligation to cause the animal on which any 
such experiment is performed to be killed before 
it recovers from the influence of the anaesthetic 
on such certificate being given as in this Act 
mentioned, that the so killing the animal would 
necessarily frustrate the object of the experi- 
ment, and provided that the animal be killed as 
soon as such object has been attained ; and 
(4) Experiments may be performed not directly for the 
advancement by new discovery of physiological 
knowledge, or of knowledge which will be use- 
ful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating 
suffering, but for the purpose of testing a par- 
ticular former discovery alleged to have been 
made for the advancement of such knowledge 
as last aforesaid, on such certificate being given 
as is in this Act mentioned that such testing is 
absolutely necessary for the effectual advance- 
ment of such knowledge. 
4. The substance known as urari or curare shall not 
for the purposes of this Act be deemed to be an 
anaesthetic. 
5. Notwithstanding anything in this Act contained, an 
experiment calculated to give pain shall not be performed 
without anaesthetics on a dog or cat, except on such certi- 
ficate being given as in this Act mentioned, stating, in 
addition to the statements hereinbefore required to be 
made in such certificate, that for reasons specified in the 
certificate the object of the experiment will be necessarily 
frustrated unless it is performed on an animal similar in 
constitution and habits to a cat or dog, and no other 
animal is available for such experiment ; and an experi- 
ment calculated to give pain shall not be performed on 
any horse, ass, or mule except on such certificate being 
given as in this Act mentioned that the object of the 
Use of urari as 
an anaesthetic 
prohibited. 
Special restric- 
tions on pain- 
ful experiments 
on dogs, cats, 
&c. 
223 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
experiment will be necessarily frustrated unless it is 
performed on a horse, ass, or mule, and that no other 
animal is available for such experiment. 
6. Any exhibition to the general public, whether ad- 
mitted on payment of money or gratuitously, of experi- 
ments on living animals calculated to give pain shall be 
illegal. 
Any person performing or aiding in performing such 
experiments shall be deemed to be guilty of an offence 
against this Act, and shall, if it be the first offence, be 
liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds, and if it be 
the second or any subsequent offence be liable at the 
discretion of the court by which he is tried, to a penalty 
not exceeding one hundred pounds or to imprisonment for 
a period not exceeding three months. 
And any person publishing any notice of any such 
intended exhibition by advertisement in a newspaper, 
placard, or otherwise shall be liable to a penalty not 
exceeding one pound. 
A person punished for an offence under this section 
shall not for the same offence be punishable under any 
other section of this Act. 
Administration of Law. 
The Secretary of State may insert, as a condition ot 
granting any license, a provision in such license that the 
place in which any experiment is to be performed by the 
licensee is to be registered in such manner as the Secre- 
tary of State may from time to time by any general or 
special order direct ; provided that every place for the 
performance of experiments for the purpose of instruction 
under this Act shall be approved by the Secretary of State, 
and shall be registered in such manner as he may from 
time to time by any general or special order direct. 
Absolute pro- 
hibition of 
public exhibi- 
tion of painful 
experiments. 
Registry of 
place for per- 
formance of 
experiments. 
224 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
8. The Secretary of State may license any person 
whom he may think qualified to hold a license to perform 
experiments under this Act. A license granted by him 
may be for such time as he may think fit, and may be 
revoked by him on his being satisfied that such license 
ought to be revoked. There may be annexed to such 
license any conditions which the Secretary of State may 
think expedient for the purpose of better carrying into1 
effect the objects of this Act, but not inconsistent with 
the provisions thereof. 
9. The Secretary of State may direct any person per- 
forming experiments under this Act from time to time to 
make such reports to him of the result of such experi- 
ments, in such form and with such details as he may 
require. 
10. The Secretary of State shall cause all registered 
places to be from time to time visited by inspectors for 
the purpose of securing a compliance with the provisions 
of this Act, and the Secretary of State may, with the 
assent of the Treasury as to number, appoint any special 
inspectors, or may from time to time assign the duties of 
any such inspectors to such officers in the employment of 
the Government, who may be willing to accept the same, 
as he may think fit, either permanently or temporarily. 
II. Any application for a license under this Act and a 
certificate given as in this Act mentioned must be signed 
by one or more of the following persons-that is to say, 
The President of the Royal Society ; 
The President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; 
The President of the Royal Irish Academy ; 
The Presidents of the Royal College of Surgeons in 
London, Edinburgh, or Dublin ; 
The Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians in 
London, Edinburgh, or Dublin ; 
The President of the General Medical Council ; 
License by 
Secretary of 
State. 
Reports to 
Secretary of 
State. 
Inspection by 
Secretary of 
State. 
Certificate of 
scientific 
bodies for 
exceptions to 
general 
regulations. 
225 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
The President of the Faculty of Physicians and 
Surgeons of Glasgow ; 
The President of the Royal College of Veterinary 
Surgeons, or the President of the Royal Veterinary 
College, London, but in the case only of an experi- 
ment to be performed under anaesthetics with a view 
to the advancement by new discovery of veterinary 
science ; 
and also (unless the applicant be a professor of physiology, 
medicine, anatomy, medical jurisprudence, materia medica, 
or surgery in a university in Great Britain or Ireland, or in 
University College, London, or in a college in Great 
Britain or Ireland, incorporated by royal charter) by a 
professor of physiology, medicine, anatomy, medical juris- 
prudence, materia medica, or surgery in a university in 
Great Britain or Ireland, or in University College, London, 
or in a college in Great Britain or Ireland, incorporated 
by royal charter. 
Provided that where any person applying for a certificate 
under this Act is himself one of the persons authorised to 
sign such certificate, the signature of some other of such 
persons shall be substituted for the signature of the 
applicant. 
A certificate under this section may be given for such 
time or tor such series of experiments as the person or 
persons signing the certificate may think expedient. 
A copy of any certificate under this section shall be 
forwarded by the applicant to the Secretary of State, but 
shall not be available until one week after a copy has been 
so forwarded. 
The Secretary of State may at any time disallow or 
suspend any certificate given under this section. 
12. The powers conferred by this Act of granting a 
license or giving a certificate for the performance of 
experiments on living animals may be exercised by an 
Power of judge 
to grant license 
for experiment 
when necessary 
in criminal 
case. 
226 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
order in writing under the hand of any judge of the High 
Court of Justice in England, of the High Court of Session 
in Scotland, or of any of the superior courts in Ireland, 
including any court to which the jurisdiction of such 
last-mentioned courts may be transferred, in a case where 
such judge is satisfied that it is essential for the purposes 
of justice in a criminal case to make any such experiment. 
Legal Proceedings. 
13. A justice of the peace, on information on oath that 
there is reasonable ground to believe that experiments in 
contravention of this Act are being performed by an un- 
licensed person in any place not registered under this Act 
may issue his warrant authorising any officer or constable 
of police to enter and search such place, and to take the 
names and addresses of the persons found therein. 
Any person who refuses admission on demand to a police 
officer or constable so authorised, or obstructs such officer 
or constable in the execution of his duty under this 
section, or who refuses on demand to disclose his name or 
address, or gives a false name or address, shall be liable to 
a penalty not exceeding five pounds. 
14. In England, offences against this Act may be pro- 
secuted and penalties under this Act recovered before a 
court of summary jurisdiction in manner directed by the 
Summary Jurisdiction Act. 
In England "Summary Jurisdiction Act" means the 
Act of the session of the eleventh and twelfth years 
of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter forty- 
three, intituled "An Act to facilitate the performance 
of the duties of justices of the peace out of sessions 
within England and Wales with respect to summary 
convictions and orders," and any Act amending the 
same. 
Entry on 
warrant by 
justice. 
Prosecution of 
offences and 
recovery of 
penalties in 
England. 
227 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
" Court of 
summary 
jurisdiction." 
"Court of summary jurisdiction" means and includes 
any justice or justices of the peace, metropolitan 
police magistrate, stipendiary or other magistrate, or 
officer, by whatever name called, exercising jurisdic- 
tion in pursuance of the Summary Jurisdiction Act : 
Provided that the court when hearing and determin- 
ing an information under this Act shall be constituted 
either of two or more justices of the peace in petty 
sessions, sitting at a place appointed for holding petty 
sessions, or of some magistrate or officer sitting alone 
or with others at some court or other place appointed 
for the administration of justice, and for the time 
being empowered by law to do alone any act 
authorised to be done by more than one justice of 
the peace. 
15. In England, where a person is accused before a 
court of summary jurisdiction of any offence against this 
Act in respect of which a penalty of more than five pounds 
can be imposed, the accused may, on appearing before the 
court of summary jurisdiction, declare that he objects to 
being tried for such offence by a court of summary juris- 
diction, and thereupon the court of summary jurisdiction 
may deal with the case in all respects as if the accused 
were charged with an indictable offence and not an offence 
punishable on summary conviction, and the offence may 
be prosecuted on indictment accordingly. 
l6. In England, if any party thinks himself aggrieved 
by any conviction made by a court of summary jurisdiction 
on determining any information under this Act, the party 
so aggrieved may appeal therefrom, subject to the conditions 
and regulations following : 
(1) The appeal shall be made to the next court of 
general or quarter sessions for the county or 
place in which the cause of appeal has arisen, 
holden not less than twenty-one days after the 
Power of 
offender in 
England to elect 
to be tried on 
indictment, 
and not by 
summary 
jurisdiction. 
Form of appeal 
to quarter 
sessions. 
228 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
decision of the court from which the appeal is 
made ; and 
(2) The appellant shall, within ten days after the 
cause of appeal has arisen, give notice to the 
other party and to the court of summary juris- 
diction of his intention to appeal, and of the 
ground thereof; and 
(3) The appellant shall, within three days after such 
notice, enter into a recognisance before a justice 
of the peace, with two sufficient sureties, con- 
ditioned personally to try such appeal, and to 
abide the judgment of the court thereon, and 
to pay such costs as may be awarded by the 
court, or give such other security by deposit of 
money or otherwise as the justice may allow ; 
and 
(4.) Where the appellant is in custody the justice 
may, if he think fit, on the appellant entering 
into such recognisance or giving such other 
security as aforesaid, release him from custody ; 
and 
(5) The court of appeal may adjourn the appeal, and 
upon the hearing thereof they may confirm, 
reverse, or modify the decision of the court of 
summary jurisdiction, or remit the matter to 
the court of summary jurisdiction with the 
opinion of the court of appeal thereon, or make 
such other order in the matter as the court thinks 
just, and if the matter be remitted to the court 
of summary jurisdiction the said last-mentioned 
court shall thereupon re-hear and decide the 
information in accordance with the order of the 
said court of appeal. The court of appeal may 
also make such order as to costs to be paid by 
either party as the court thinks just. 
229 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Prosecution 
of offences 
and recovery 
of penalties in 
Scotland. 
17- In Scotland, offences against this Act may be pro- 
secuted and penalties under this Act recovered under the 
provisions of the Summary Procedure Act, 1864., or if a 
person accused of any offence against this Act in respect 
of which a penalty of more than five pounds can be im- 
posed, on appearing before a court of summary jurisdiction, 
declare that he objects to being tried for such offence in 
the court of summary jurisdiction, proceedings may be 
taken against him on indictment in the Court of Justiciary 
in Edinburgh or on circuit. 
Every person found liable in any penalty or costs shall 
be liable in default of immediate payment to imprisonment 
for a term not exceeding three months, or until such 
penalty or costs are sooner paid. 
18. In Ireland, offences against this Act may be pro- 
secuted and penalties under this Act recovered in a summary 
manner, subject and according to the provisions with 
respect to the prosecution of offences, the recovery of 
penalties, and to appeal of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) 
Act, 1851, and any Act amending the same, and in Dublin 
of the Acts regulating the powers of justices of the peace or 
of the police of Dublin metropolis. All penalties recovered 
under this Act shall be applied in manner directed by the 
Fines (Ireland) Act, 1871, and any Act amending the same. 
IQ. In Ireland, where a person is accused before a court 
of summary jurisdiction of any offence against this Act in 
respect of which-a penalty of more than five pounds can 
be imposed, the accused may, on appearing before the 
court of summary jurisdiction, declare that he objects to 
being tried for such offence by a court of summary juris- 
diction, and thereupon the court of summary jurisdiction 
may deal with the case in all respects as if the accused 
were charged with an indictable offence, and not an 
offence punishable on summary conviction, and the offence 
may be prosecuted on indictment accordingly. 
Prosecution 
of offences 
and recovery 
of penalties 
in Ireland. 
Power of 
offender in 
Ireland to 
elect to be 
tried on 
indictment, 
and not by 
summary 
jurisdiction. 
230 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
20. In the application of this Act to Ireland the term 
" the Secretary of State " shall be construed to mean the 
Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the 
time being. 
21. A prosecution under this Act against a licensed 
person shall not be instituted except with the assent in 
writing of the Secretary of State. 
22. This Act shall not apply to invertebrate animals. 
Interpretation 
of " the Secre- 
tary of State " 
as to Ireland. 
Prosecution 
only with 
leave of Secre- 
tary of State. 
Not to apply 
to invertebrate 
animals. 
231 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
APPLICATION FOR LICENSE. 
Address 
T)ate 
* Here insert 
name and pro- 
fession (see 
sec. ii of Act) 
of applicant. 
To the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Home 
Department. 
+ Here insert 
registered 
place. If the 
place is not 
registered it 
will be neces- 
sary for the 
person having 
authority over 
the building to 
apply to the 
Secretary of 
State for its 
registration. 
Sir, 
I* 
beg to apply under the above-mentioned Act for a License 
for the performance of experiments on animals. 
The place in which it is proposed that the experiments 
are to be performed is t 
J Here insert 
a general 
description of 
proposed ex- 
periments and 
their object; 
also state, if 
that is the 
case, the inten- 
tion of appli- 
cant to send in 
a certificate 
or certificates 
(describing 
each certificate 
by its appro- 
priate letter) 
with reference 
to the same 
experiments, 
or any other 
circumstances 
that may be 
material. 
The experiments which it is proposed to perform are J 
This application is supported by the recommendations 
appearing below. 
I am, 
Sir, 
Your obedient Servant, 
§ Here appli- 
cant to sign 
his name. 
We recommend that the above application be granted. 
|| Here the 
person recom- 
mending is to 
sign his name. 
I. 
IT Here state 
profession. 
** Here specify 
statutory 
qualification. 
(See sec. n,) 
2. 
232 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
APPLICATION FOR REGISTRATION. 
Sir, 
beg to apply that 
may be registered for the performance therein of experi- 
ments under the Act 39 & 40 Viet., c. 77. 
Sir, 
Your obedient Servant, 
The Under-Secretary of State, 
Home Department. 
The application 
must be made by 
or on behalf of 
the person or 
persons having 
authority to dis- 
pose of the use 
of the building. 
The building 
must be named 
or described so 
that it can be 
identified. 
233 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Certificate A. 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to us t 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform on living animals certain 
experiments described below : We hereby certify that, in 
our opinion, insensibility in the animal on which any such 
experiment may be performed cannot be produced by 
anaesthetics without necessarily frustrating the object of 
such experiment. 
This certificate will not be in force after the day 
of or after the completion of 
experiments. 
Signatures of Certifiers ( f 
to be attached here i 
Date 
* Here insert 
name, address, 
and profession of 
person to whom 
certificate is to 
be given. 
f Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. 
If it be desired 
that the certifi- 
cate should 
either operate 
beyond two 
years, or should 
contain no limit 
as to the number 
of experiments, 
it will be advis- 
able that the 
applicant for the 
certificate should 
communicate 
beforehand with 
the Secretary of 
State. 
Description of proposed experiments. 
234 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Certificate B. 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to us t 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform on living animals certain 
experiments described below, such animals being, during 
the whole of such experiments, under the influence of 
some anaesthetic of sufficient power to prevent their feeling 
pain : We hereby certify that, in our opinion, the killing 
of the animal on which any such experiment is performed 
before it recovers from the influence of the anaesthetic 
administered to it would necessarily frustrate the object of 
such experiment. 
This Certificate will not be in force after the day 
of , or after the completion of 
experiments. 
Signatures of Certifiers ( f 
to be attached here I 
Date 
* Here insert 
name, address, 
and profession 
of person to 
whom certificate 
is to be given. 
I Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. 
If it be desired 
that the certifi- 
cate should 
either operate 
beyond two 
years, or should 
contain no limit 
as to the numbei 
of experiments, 
it will be advis- 
able that the 
applicant for the 
certificate shoulc 
communicate 
beforehand witl 
the Secretary of 
State. 
Description of proposed experiments. 
235 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Certificate C. 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to us f 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform at 
by way of illustration of lectures to be there delivered, 
certain experiments described below on living animals, 
such experiments being performed under the provisions 
contained in the said Act as to the use of anaesthetics ; 
We hereby certify that, in our opinion, the proposed ex- 
periments are absolutely necessary for the due instruction 
of persons to whom such lectures are to be given, with a 
view to their acquiring physiological knowledge, or know- 
ledge which will be useful to them for saving or prolonging 
life or alleviating suffering. 
This Certificate shall be in force so long as the holder 
is in possession of a license under the said Act. 
Date 
* Here insert 
name, address, 
and profession 
of person to 
whom certificate 
is to be given. 
(Sec. ii of Act.) 
t Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. (Sec. 
ii of Act. 
Description of proposed experiments. 
236 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Certificate D.1 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to usf 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform on living animals certain 
experiments described below, for the purpose of testing 
the former discoveries described below, alleged to have 
been made for the advancement of physiological knowledge, 
or knowledge which will be useful for saving or prolong- 
ing life or alleviating suffering : We hereby certify that, in 
our opinion, such testing is absolutely necessary for the 
effectual advancement of such knowledge. 
This Certificate shall be in force until the day 
of , and no longer. 
Date 
* Here insert 
name, address, 
and profession of 
person to whom 
certificate is to 
be given. (Sec. 
11 of Act.) 
+ Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory- 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. (Sec. 
11 of Act.) 
Description of proposed 
experiments. 
Description of former 
discoveries for the purpose 
of testing which the pro- 
posed experiments are to be 
made. 
1 This Certificate has fallen into disuse. 
237 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
* Here insert 
lame, address, 
and profession of 
person to whom 
certificate is to 
be given. (Sec. 
ii of Act.) 
Certificate E.1 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to usf 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform on dogs and cats, the experi- 
ments described below without antesthetics : We hereby 
certify that, in our opinion, for the reasons specified below, 
the object of any such experiment will be necessarily 
frustrated, unless it is performed on an animal similar in 
constitution and habits to a dog or cat, and that no other 
animal is available for any such experiment. 
This Certificate shall be in force until the day 
of , and no longer. 
Date 
t Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. (Sec. 
ii of Act.) 
Description of experi- 
ments to be performed. 
Reasons why the object 
of any such experiment will 
be necessarily frustrated un- 
less it is performed on an 
animal similar in constitu- 
tion and habits to a dog or 
cat, and why no other 
animal is available for any 
such experiment. 
1 Certificate EE has been introduced, since the Act was passed to go 
with Certificate B, as Certificate E goes with Certificate A. 
238 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Certificate F. 
WHEREAS* 
of 
has represented to ust 
that he proposes, if duly authorised under the above- 
mentioned Act, to perform on horses, asses, or mules, the 
experiments described below : We hereby certify that, in 
our opinion, for the reasons specified below, the object of 
any such experiment will be necessarily frustrated, unless 
it is performed on a horse, ass, or mule, and that no other 
animal is available for such experiment. 
This Certificate shall be in force until the day 
of , and no longer. 
Date 
* Here insert 
name, address, 
and profession of 
person to whom 
certificate is to 
be given. (Sec. 
ii of Act.) 
+ Here insert 
name, address, 
and statutory 
qualification of 
each person 
certifying. (Sec. 
ii of Act.) 
Description of experi- 
ments to be performed. 
Reasons why the object 
of any such experiment will 
be necessarily frustrated 
unless it is performed on a 
horse, ass, or mule, and why 
no other animal is available 
for any such experiment. 
239 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
II 
Anaesthetics Used for Animals 
In almost every case, the anaesthetic used is chloro- 
form or ether, sometimes combined with and followed 
by morphia or chloral. The nature of the anaesthetic 
used in each case must, of course, be stated in the 
returns sent to the Home Office. Of the use of ether, 
it need only be said that animals take it well, and that 
there is no difficulty in rendering them unconscious 
with it. 
With some animals chloroform is equally good; with 
others it is dangerous to life. But Prof. Hobday, of 
the Royal Veterinary College, has lately published 
an account of five hundred administrations of chloro- 
form to dogs, for the operations of veterinary surgery, 
with only one death. ^Lancet^ September, 1898.) Still, 
for dogs and cats, ether is used in preference to chloro- 
form. Other animals take chloroform well.1 And it 
is wholly false to say that "just a whiff" of chloroform 
or ether is given, or "just enough to keep the animal 
1 The Veterinary Record lately published an excellent paper by Mr. 
Tasker on the best method of administering chloroform to horses ; and 
the Lancet, February 18, 1899, says, in a review of it, "We fear that 
much unnecessary suffering to animals has in the past been allowed 
through the dread of incurring the supposed risk of giving chloroform to 
valuable horses, dogs, &c. As has been pointed out by Mr. Hobday and 
others, the lower animals can be most successfully given chloroform if 
they are properly dealt with, if a rational method is adopted, and if the 
management of the anaesthetic is committed to a trained person, and not 
entrusted to a stable helper or a rustic, who is as incapable of giving 
chloroform to a horse as to a human being." 
240 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
quiet." Lately, in an account of some experiments, 
it was stated that in two or three cases the anaesthesia 
was incomplete. Such use of chloroform or ether 
may be made, for good reasons, in certain surgical 
procedures, or for the alleviation of the pains of child- 
birth : but alike in surgery and in experiments on 
animals it is altogether exceptional, or something more 
than exceptional. 
Morphia is seldom used alone ; but in some cases 
it is used after chloroform or ether. It is certain that 
an animal, so far under the influence of morphia that 
it lies still, cannot be suffering ; for the drug does 
not act directly on the muscles, but on the higher 
nervous centres. And, for the purposes of the ex- 
periment-to put the matter on the lowest ground- 
the animal must be kept at rest. 
Lately, it was stated that " morphia acts upon dogs 
as a violent stimulant rather than as a narcotic, large 
doses causing excitement and convulsions." The 
reference is to an account, in the British Medical 
'Journal^ January 14, 1899, of a paper by Professor 
Lugaro, of Florence, on certain microscopic varicosities 
on the terminal filaments (dendrites) of the nerve- 
cells of the surface of the brain. These infinitely 
minute varicosities are said to contract when the 
brain is active or fatigued, and expand when it is at 
rest ; and Lugaro's study of this vanishing-point of 
structure is the last word, at present, on the physical 
changes in sleep and unconsciousness. He used 
241 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
various anaesthetics and narcotics in his experiments, 
not so much to allay pain, for the experiments can 
hardly be called painful-the animals were killed by 
an instantaneous method of injection-but that the 
nerve-cells of the brain might be caught and fixed at 
the moment of contraction or expansion of the vari- 
cosities of their terminal filaments. The purpose of 
the chloroform, ether, morphia, and chloral, that he 
used, was to produce diverse conditions, such as 
obtain during cerebral action or inaction. There 
was no operation save that necessary for the injection 
into a vessel, and then instantaneous death. In 
animals that had been excited by morphia, as some 
men and women are excited by it, the brain-cells 
under the microscope still registered the mental state 
at the moment of death. It happens, now and again, 
that a dog is not influenced by morphia, is excited, 
not narcotised, by it. But this is altogether excep- 
tional ; an animal in such a condition could not be 
used for experiment; and the physiologist has other 
anaesthetics. Except in these rare cases, animals take 
morphia well, and are profoundly influenced by it. 
Curare is not an anaesthetic under the Act. In 
1875-76, the evidence as to its action was somewhat 
unsettled ; but most of the witnesses held that it acted 
only on the motor system, and had no anaesthetic 
influence. It was therefore ruled out by the Act : 
and its use was thus defined in the present year (1899) 
by the Home Secretary :- 
242 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
"It is illegal to use curare as an anaesthetic. It is often 
used in addition to anaesthetics, for very good reasons ; 
and, as it does not render an anaesthetised animal sensitive, 
it would be absurd to forbid its use." 
Some of those who are opposed to all experiments 
on animals say that the operation is done under 
chloroform or ether-what they call "a whiff of 
chloroform "-and the animal is then subjected to 
horrible tortures heightened by curare. But, apart 
from the fact that the internal organs, even in man, 
are so little sensitive to touch that they may be called 
insensitive, and apart from the fact that morphia is 
combined with curare, there is evidence that curare, 
in such doses as are given in those few cases where 
it is used, acts not only on the motor system but also 
on the sensory system :- 
"It is quite true that curare in small doses has the effect 
of paralysing the motor nerves without affecting the nerves 
of sense ; but in such doses as are used in the laboratory 
it paralyses both sets of nerves, and this has actually been 
proved on man, as there have been cases of accidental 
curare poisoning in men who recovered, and in whom 
sensation has been totally abolished, while the action of 
the drug was apparent. Moreover, curare is nowadays not 
used alone, but is always used in combination with morphia, 
ether, chloroform, or other anaesthetics." (Prof. Riiffer, 
Liberty Review, October, 1893.) 
" Much indignation has been felt about the use of 
curare, and the Act of 1876 expressly forbids its use as an 
243 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
anaesthetic. When it is used, it must be supplemented 
with some other drug to relieve pain. A good deal of 
misconception exists as to the actual physiological effect 
of curare, or woorali, or oorali, as it is variously called. It 
is the arrow poison of Guiana. It undoubtedly shows its 
effects first upon the muscles and their nerves. It kills 
by arresting respiration, by paralysing the respiratory 
muscles. It is a powerful poison, and unless respiration is 
maintained artificially the animal dies asphyxiated. Claude 
Bernard believed that it did not in any way affect the 
sensory nerves, and he described in theatrical terms the 
animal as being unable to stir, but suffering horrible 
torture. Tennyson unfortunately committed himself in a 
rash moment to the support of this view, speaking of it as 
the ' hellish woorali.' It is satisfactory to be told now 
that before his death he repented of his mistake, and said 
so to his greatest medical friends. It is pretty certainly 
known now that Claude Bernard was wrong, and that, 
though curare acts first upon the motor nerves, it also, 
though less rapidly, paralyses the sensory nerves, always 
supposing that by artificial respiration the animal is kept 
alive long enough for the less rapid effect to be produced. 
It would be out of place here to give the experimental 
evidence which satisfies physiologists upon this point. One 
case only is known to have occurred in which the full 
influence of curare could bc studied upon a human being, 
and in which at the same time the presence or absence of 
anaesthetic effect could be noted. The case is reported 
by Mr. Joseph White, late of Nottingham, and a former 
President of the British Medical Association. A servant- 
girl accidentally transfixed her arm with a poisoned arrow 
while dusting a trophy of Indian arms in her master's hall. 
The arrow was withdrawn within two minutes, and the 
girl was seen by Mr. White half an hour later. She was 
then collapsed, and was breathing very badly. Artificial 
244 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
respiration was kept up, aided by faradisation. The wound 
was freely excised along its entire length. Two hours 
later reaction set in, and the patient gradually recovered. 
On regaining consciousness, she expressed the utmost 
surprise at seeing the wound in her arm, as she had felt 
nothing of the operation. She had, in fact, been un- 
conscious from within half an hour of the poison. Had 
Claude Bernard's dictum been correct, she ought, though 
paralysed as to her muscles, to have been throughout the 
whole time conscious and sensitive. Probably the truth 
is that, like all other nerve-poisons, the effect of curare 
varies with the dose. The muscular nerves are the first 
affected, then the sensory, and finally the central nervous 
system. As a matter of fact, however, morphia or some 
other narcotic is always given in addition to curare when 
it is used in laboratory work in England." (Edinburgh 
Review, July, 1899.) 
Here are two very definite statements of the action 
of curare : one by Prof. Riiffer, who was in 1893 
Hon. Secretary of the Institute of Preventive Medicine; 
the other by a writer who seems to speak from 
experience. 
Seven years ago, we had a good instance how these 
things are misrepresented. At the Church Congress 
at Folkestone, October, 1892, Mr. Horsley called 
attention to a book entitled "The Nine Circles," 
in the following words :- 
" In the book, all the experiments are grouped by Miss 
Cobbe as English and Foreign respectively. I have taken 
the trouble to collect, from this gospel of Bishop Barry 
245 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
and Canon Wilberforce, all the experiments in which 
cutting operations are described as having been performed 
by English scientists, and in which I knew anaesthetics to 
have been employed. These experiments are twenty-six 
in number. In all of them, chloroform, ether, or other 
anaesthetic agent, was employed. But of these twenty-six 
cases, Miss Cobbe does not mention this fact at all in 
twenty, and only states it without qualification in two 
out of the remaining six. When we inquire into these 
twenty omissions in the twenty-six cases, we find in the 
original that again and again Miss Cobbe has, in making 
her extracts, had directly under her eyes the words ' chloro- 
form,' 'ether,' ' etherised,' 'chloroformed,' 'anaesthetised,' 
' during every experiment the animal has been deeply 
under the influence of an anaesthetic,' and so forth." {The 
Standard, October 7, 1892.) 
The " Nine Circles " was compiled for Miss Cobbe, 
not by her ; it was " planned and compiled by her 
direction." Mr. Berdoe was " urgently requested by 
her to point out to her any scientific errors or possible 
inadvertent misrepresentations of fact, and correct or 
expunge them." And he " carefully read through the 
proof-sheets." Miss Cobbe wrote the preface, and 
her name is on the title-page. The book was with- 
drawn at once after the Church Congress, and a 
revised edition was issued. At the present time, by 
reason of a division in the ranks of the Victoria Street 
Society, Miss Cobbe is editor of the Abolitionist^ and 
Mr. Berdoe of the Zoophilist. 
246 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Ill 
Reports of the Government Inspector for 
England and Scotland 
The annual Reports of the Inspectors under the 
Act can be procured from Messrs. Eyre and Spottis- 
woode, Government Publishers, East Harding Street, 
Fleet Street, E.C. For want of space, only the 
three last published Reports for England and Scotland 
can be put here. But the following sentences from 
the 1890 Report are to be noted :- 
"In my visits of inspection to the various licensed places 
I am accustomed to examine all the animals minutely and 
individually, and I desire to state emphatically that it has 
never fallen to my lot to see a single animal which ap- 
peared to be in bodily pain. As regards the nature of the 
experiments, 765 were physiological, 976 were pathological, 
and 361 were therapeutic or pharmacological. 
" It is made a condition of the license that licensees shall 
furnish the Secretary of State with a copy of all published 
writings which contain details of experimental work. 
From these writings, as well as from personal observation 
as inspector, I am able to give a list of some of the chief 
subjects which have occupied the attention of licensees, and 
concerning the importance of which there can hardly be 
two opinions. In the domain of pathology, investigations 
have been made concerning tuberculosis, cancer, diphtheria, 
pneumonia, tetanus, acute necrosis, malaria, lead-poisoning, 
rabies, distemper, grouse disease, anthrax, ' black quarter,' 
' pink eye,' &c. In the department of physiology, the 
questions of animal heat, circulation, respiration, secretion, 
247 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
and the action of the central nervous system have been 
investigated ; while among the therapeutical questions 
which have been examined are the actions of chloroform, 
morphia, nicotine, salicylic acid, strophanthus, and many 
other bodies which are new or less widely known, together 
with investigations into the protective and other powers 
of the products of bacteria and ferments. The amount 
of patient labour bestowed by the licensees upon their 
investigations is very great, and can hardly be imagined by 
those who are not conversant with modern methods of 
research." 
The Report for 1896. 
Sir, 
I have the honour to submit the following Report on 
Experiments performed in England and Scotland during 
the year 1896, under the Act 39 and 40 Viet. c. 77, 
including :- 
I. The Names of all Persons who have held 
Licenses or Special Certificates during any 
part of the Year ; together with a Statement of 
the Registered Places at which the Licenses 
were valid, and of the Persons who signed the 
Applications for Licenses and granted Certifi- 
cates under the Act. 
II. The Total Number of Experiments performed 
during 1896, classified and arranged according to 
their general Nature. 
Report. 
The names of all those persons who held licenses during 
1896 will be found in Tables I. and II. The total 
number of licensees was 236, of whom 70 performed 
no experiments. 
The names of all those " licensed places " to which 
248 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
licensees were accredited are given in the tables. All 
licensees were restricted to the licensed place or places 
specified on their licenses, with the exception of those 
who were permitted to perform inoculation experiments 
in places other than a "licensed place," with the object 
of studying outbreaks of disease among animals in remote 
districts. 
Tables I. and II. afford evidence,- 
I. That licenses and certificates have been granted 
and allowed only upon the recommendation of 
persons of high scientific standing ; 
2. That the licensees are persons who, by their 
training and education, are fitted to undertake 
experimental work and to profit by it ; 
3. That all experimental work has been conducted 
in suitable places. 
Table III. shows the number and the nature of the 
experiments performed by each licensee mentioned in 
Table I., specifying whether these experiments were 
done under the license alone or under any special 
certificate, so that the reader may judge which experi- 
ments (if any) were of a painful nature. 
Table III. is divided into two parts, A and B, for the 
purpose of separating experiments of the nature of inocu- 
lations and hypodermic injections, or similar proceedings, 
from the rest. In each of the preceding reports which I 
have had the honour to make, I have drawn attention to 
the fact that the only experiments performed without 
anaesthetics are of the nature of inoculations or hypodermic 
injections, but in order to lessen the chance of any mis- 
apprehension on this matter I have placed these experi- 
ments in a class by themselves. 
The process of inoculation is inadequately provided for 
in the Act of Parliament. 
It would be cruel, rather than otherwise, to anaesthetise 
249 an animal before subjecting it to the trivial operation of a 
prick with a needle, and yet the wording of the Act is 
such that the administration of anaesthetics can, in no case, 
be dispensed with except by a Certificate (A) stating that 
"insensibility cannot be produced without necessarily 
frustrating the objects " of such experiments. Notwith- 
standing that the wording of Certificate A is not wholly 
applicable to the circumstances, it is nevertheless allowed 
for inoculations. 
The rapidly increasing knowledge of diseases caused by 
inoculable organisms has necessitated the study of the 
life history of such organisms by inoculation experiments 
and other measures. 
Inoculation is also largely used for the diagnosis of 
disease in man and animals ; to determine the necessity or 
otherwise of surgical interference ; and to decide whether 
valuable herds of animals shall be sacrificed or preserved. 
The discovery of antitoxins has led to their preparation 
on a large scale ; but, as these remedies cannot be safely 
and effectually used upon human beings without being 
previously tested upon rodents, the preparation of 
antitoxins has necessitated a large number of inoculation 
experiments. 
The large increase of inoculations and allied experi- 
ments which has been noticeable for the last few years is 
likely to continue. 
Among the diseases a knowledge of which has been 
increased by inoculation experiments may be mentioned, 
tubercle, diphtheria, plague, cholera, small-pox, enteric 
fever, septicaemia, puerperal fever, anthrax, pleuro- 
pneumonia, swine fever, glanders, tetanus, silk-worm 
disease, chicken-cholera, cattle plague, tse-tse fly disease, 
snake-bite, &c. 
The total number of experiments included in Table 
III. (A) is 1,516. 
EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
250 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
Of these there were performed,- 
Under license alone... ... ... 969 
„ Certificate C ... ... 184. 
„ Certificate B ... ... 188 
,, Certificate B + EE ... 175 
In experiments performed under the license alone, or 
under Certificate C, the animal suffers no pain, because 
complete anaesthesia is maintained from before the com- 
mencement of the experiment until the animal is killed. 
In experiments performed under Certificate B (or EE 
or F linked with B) the animal is anaesthetised during 
the operation, but is allowed to recover. These opera- 
tions, in order to ensure success, are necessarily done with 
as much care as are similar operations upon the human 
subject, and the wounds being dressed antiseptically no 
pain results during the healing process. 
Table III. (B) is devoted entirely to inoculations and 
hypodermic injections and some few other proceedings. 
It includes 5,984 experiments whereof there were per- 
formed,- 
Under Certificate A ... ... 5,217 
,, Certificate A + E ... ... 67 
„ Certificate A + F ... ... 13 
„ Certificate B ... ... 687 
Nearly all the experiments under B included in this 
table have been inoculations made (under anaesthetics 
upon rodents) with the object of diagnosing rabies ; the 
public having largely acted upon the advice printed upon 
the back of dog-licenses, which is to the following 
effect :- 
" If a dog suspected of being rabid is killed after 
it has bitten any person or animal, a veterinary 
surgeon should be requested to forward the spinal 
cord to the Brown Institution, Wandsworth-road 
(or some other licensed institution), in order that 
251 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
it may be ascertained with certainty whether 
the animal was suffering from rabies." 
The licensees, as usual, have been loyal to the spirit of 
the Act. There were only two cases in which the letter 
of the Act was doubtfully complied with. These may be 
quoted as showing the difficulties of interpreting the Act 
in relation to inoculations. 
The first case was that of a licensee who holds a 
Certificate A (dispensing with anaesthetics) for the 
inoculation of guinea-pigs with tuberculous matter. In 
his annual return he reported four inoculations (as per- 
formed under A) for which an anaesthetic was administered. 
It was necessary to take notice of this, because Certificate 
A is never allowed, except for proceedings so slight as to 
cause no appreciable pain. This gentleman has explained 
to me that anaesthetics were used because it was necessary 
to ensure perfect tranquillity while a minute incision was 
made in the skin, but that after the recovery from the 
anaesthetic the animals never afforded any evidence of 
discomfort. This being the case, it is possible that the 
experiment might have been performed under the license 
alone, but it clearly could not be allowed under Certificate 
A as used in relation to inoculations. 
The second case was that of a gentleman who holds a 
license only, and who returned four experiments which 
consisted in the attempt (which failed) to give ringworm 
to four mice by applying the fungus, which is the cause of 
the disease, to the back of the animals by a few bloodless 
scratches without anaesthetics. It would be cruel, rather 
than otherwise, to administer an anaesthetic for such a 
proceeding. No experiment under the license alone, 
however, can be performed without an anaesthetic, and 
the licensee held no certificate enabling him to dispense 
with anaesthetics. It might possibly be contended that 
such a proceeding is not " an experiment calculated to 
252 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
give pain " within the meaning of the Act. This, how- 
ever, is a question which has to be decided by the licensee 
and those who sign his application for a license. These 
experiments have been included in Table III. B, and 
have been placed in column A. 
During the year the usual inspections of licensed places 
have been made by Sir James Russell and myself, and have 
been severally reported. 
I have the honour to be, Sir, 
Your obedient Servant, 
G. V. Poore, M.D. 
Inspector. 
The Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew White Ridley, 
Bart., M.P., Her Majesty's Secretary 
of State for the Home Department. 
26 March, 1897. 
The Report for 1897. 
Those paragraphs in the 1897 Report which also 
occur in the 1896 Report need not be again put here. 
The total number of Licensees was 224, of whom 61 
performed no experiments. There was thus a decrease 
of 12 in the number of licensees. The total number of 
experiments included in Table III. (A) was 1462. 
There was thus a decrease of 54 in the number of 
experiments other than inoculations, injections, or 
similar proceedings. The total number of experiments 
ncluded in Table III. (B) was 7,360. The Report 
says :- 
" Table III. (B) is devoted entirely to inoculations and 
lypodermic injections, and some few other proceedings. 
253 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
It includes 7,360 experiments, whereof there were per- 
formed :- 
Under Certificate A 6,799 
„ Certificates A and E ill 
„ Certificates A and F 14 
„ Certificate B 436 
"Nearly all the experiments under B included in this 
table have been inoculations made (under anaesthetics upon 
rodents) with the object of diagnosing rabies ; the public 
having largely acted upon the advice printed upon the back 
of dog-licenses, which is to the following effect :-'If a 
dog suspected of being rabid is killed after it has bitten any 
person or animal, a veterinary surgeon should be requested 
to forward the spinal cord to the Brown Institution, 
Wandsworth Road (or some other licensed institution), in 
order that it may be ascertained with certainty whether 
the animal was suffering from rabies.' 
" In the past year there were seven instances of licensees 
inadvertently overstepping their powers under the Act. 
The word ' inadvertently ' is used because in each case the 
facts were reported in good faith by the licensees them- 
selves, and in each case they expressed their great regret at 
the inadvertence. 
" Two licensees omitted to make the usual application for 
the renewal of their licenses at the end of 1896, and only 
discovered this omission when the time came for sending 
in their annual return for 1897 ; strictly speaking these 
two licenses were non-existent during 1897, but neverthe- 
less the holders of them have been included in the accom- 
panying Tables. 
" Two licensees slightly exceeded the number of experi- 
ments allowed by a Certificate. 
" One licensee performed four experiments under 
anaesthetics, though he only held Certificate A, which 
dispenses with their use. 
254 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
" Two licensees acting conjointly gave hypodermic in- 
jections of drugs without anaesthetics, but without holding 
Certificate A. These have been placed under Certificate A. 
" During the year the usual inspections of licensed 
places have been made by Sir James Russell and myself, 
and have been severally reported. 
" I have the honour to be, Sir, 
" Your obedient Servant, 
" G. V. Poore, M.D., 
" Inspector. 
" The Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew White Ridley, 
Bart., M.P., Her Majesty s Secretary of 
State for the Home Department. 
"23 March, 1898." 
The Report for 1898. 
(Ordered to be printed June 8, 1899.) 
"The total number of licensees during 1898 was 
234, of whom 61 performed no experiments. 
" The total number of experiments included in 
Table III. A is 1,511. 
" Of these, there were performed- 
Under License alone 889 
„ Certificate C 179 
,, Certificate B 207 
„ Certificates B and EE 236 
"Table III. B is devoted entirely to inoculations 
and hypodermic injections and some few other pro- 
ceedings. It includes 7,640 experiments, whereof 
there were performed- 
255 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Under Certificate A 7,263 
„ Certificates A and E 46 
„ Certificates A and F 24 
„ Certificate B 307 
" Nearly all the experiments under Certificate B 
included in this table have been inoculations made 
(under anaesthetics upon rodents) with the object of 
diagnosing rabies; the public having largely acted 
upon the advice printed upon the back of dog- 
licenses. 
" During the past three years, the number of experi- 
ments included in Table III. A has shown little 
variation (1,516, 1,462, 1,511), while those included 
in Table III. B have increased (5,984, 7,360, 7,640). 
Many of these latter experiments are performed in the 
course of professional duty for the diagnosis of disease, 
the preparation of antitoxins, the testing of water, and 
so forth. 
" It may be mentioned that during the past year 
43,000 doses of diphtheria antitoxin have been issued 
from two institutions. The inoculations under 
Certificate B (Table III. B), mainly for the diagnosis 
of rabies, show a marked decrease in the last three 
years (687, 436, 307), owing to the decrease of rabies. 
"Two licensees overstepped (each by one experi- 
ment) the number of experiments allowed by the 
Certificate under which they were working. A suit- 
able caution was administered in each case. 
" During the year, the usual inspections of licensed 
256 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
places have been made by Sir James Russell and my- 
self, and have been severally reported." 
IV 
Official Statements 
The working of the Act is subjected to ceaseless 
espionage both inside and outside Parliament. Candi- 
dates at elections are heckled over it ; bullying 
letters are written to Her Majesty's Ministers ; scien- 
tific journals are ransacked to find evidence for 
" The Cause " ; black-lists of men to be boycotted 
are published ; and people are asked to give nothing to 
the big hospitals with schools, and everything to one 
or two little hospitals without schools. Nothing much 
comes of it all : but it may be worth while to put here 
some recent statements, made with authority, as to 
the administration of the Act. They are taken, that 
their accuracy may be above suspicion, from the 
Zoophilist. 
I 
In reply to a deputation opposing the registration of 
the British Institute of Preventive Medicine, the 
Home Secretary said, in 1896 :- 
" I have been most careful in inquiring from the inspec- 
tors how they conduct their visits. They are surprise 
visits-nearly all surprise visits-and I get a great deal of 
257 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
information as to the results and the carrying on of these 
experiments which is not made public, in order to satisfy 
me, as having a very responsible position in the matter, that 
there is no abuse ; and I really do believe that, granting 
you are to have experiments of this kind at all-which is 
sanctioned by Parliament-they are most carefully watched 
and guarded now, and that there is not that amount of 
abuse which in some quarters it is thought there is. I am 
convinced of that, at all events." {Zoophilist, August I, 
1896.) 
II 
From the Zoophilist^ August 2, 1897 : "Our 
Cause in Parliament." 
" In the House of Commons, on the 8th of July, Mr. 
John Ellis (Nottingham, Rushcliffe), asked the Secretary 
for the Home Department whether the figures for experi- 
ments on living animals contained in Return No. 239 of 
this Session were obtained from the licensees who per- 
formed them, and in that case whether any steps were 
taken to verify their accuracy ; whether each of the 
'licensed places' was inspected during the year to which 
the return related, and how many of them more than once; 
whether any of the visits of inspection were surprise visits, 
and, if so, how many ; and whether he had personally 
satisfied himself that the licenses and certificates were all 
issued only to such places and persons and with such 
objects as were contemplated by the Cruelty to Animals 
Act, 1876 ? 
"Mr. Collings, Under Secretary for the Home Depart- 
ment, replied : Yes, the returns are obtained from the 
licensees, and the check, of course, upon them is supplied 
by the visits of the inspectors, which, with a few excep- 
tions, are paid without notice. Four registered places at 
258 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
which no licenses were in force, and the laboratory- 
attached to the Board of Agriculture, which was only- 
registered on the 1st of December, were unvisited during 
the year. Five places were visited once only, eight twice, 
twenty-five three times, two four times, three five times, 
and one six times. No licensee was found during any of 
these visits to be exceeding his powers. The answer to 
the last paragraph of the question is in the affirmative. 
"In the House of Commons, on the 18th of July, Mr. 
Weir (Ross and Cromarty) asked the Secretary of State for 
the Home Department whether he had yet been able to 
institute the promised inquiry into the allegations made by 
Dr. E. Berdoe in regard to the use of curare in the practice 
of vivisection ; and, if so, would he state the result of his 
inquiry ? 
" Sir M. W. Ridley (Home Secretary) : Yes, I have made 
full inquiry into the allegations contained in the letter and 
statement which the hon. member forwarded to me, and find 
that they are absolutely baseless. The experiments referred 
to were performed on animals under full chloroform 
anaesthesia ; the morphia, to which alone allusion was made 
in the published account of the experiments, being used in 
addition. Curare was used, but not as an anaesthetic." 
In reply to a further question, the Home Secretary 
said, " Curare is prohibited by law from being used as 
an anaesthetic, and I am satisfied that it is not so 
used." Two days later : " As I have already stated, I 
am satisfied that curare is not used as an anaesthetic. 
There are cases, however, in which its use, along with 
the anaesthetic, is indispensable for the success of the 
investigation ; but its use does not make the anaesthe- 
tised animal sensible to pain." 
259 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
Ill 
From the Zoophilist^ March I, 1897. "The 
Official Returns. Questions in Parliament." (Ques- 
tions relating to the two irregularities reported in the 
1896 report.) 
"The Home Secretary said: The irregularities con- 
sisted, in the one case, in the licensee performing an 
operation on a cat without having the necessary certificate; 
in the other case, in the licensee performing two experi- 
ments necessitating a certificate which he had omitted to 
obtain. In the first case, the licence was revoked and not 
regranted until after a period of three months and a half, 
and steps were taken to prevent a recurrence of the irre- 
gularity. In the second case, the consideration of the 
application for a renewal of the license was deferred for a 
month. In neither case was it thought desirable to take 
further proceedings." 
IV 
From the Zoophilist^ April 1, 1897. "More Ques- 
tions on the Returns as to Vivisection, &c." 
"In the House of Commons, on Friday, March 12th, 
Mr. MacNeil asked the Secretary of State for the Home 
Department whether in view of the fact that the number 
of experiments performed in the year 1895 on the bodies 
of living animals in these countries, amounting in all to 
4,679, of which 3,119 were performed under special 
certificates dispensing with anaesthetics, the term ' experi- 
ment ' meant the whole series of experiments carried out 
on a particular line of research, and that 200 or 300 
animals are at times used in a single experiment, while 80 
or 90 is a common number ; whether there is any record 
260 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
kept of the number of animals used in the 4,679 experi- 
ments of 1895 ; and whether he will, under the powers 
conferred on him by 39 and 40 Vic. c. 77 s. 9, direct that 
the vivisectors' Return for 1896 will state the number of 
animals used in each experiment ? 
" The Home Secretary : The hon. member is under an 
entire misapprehension.1 The number of animals used 
does not exceed the number of experiments given in the 
return." 
iv a 
In reply to further questions from Mr. MacNeil, on 
March 12th and 23rd, the Home Secretary made the 
following statements :- 
" The inspectors both visit registered premises during 
the performance of these experiments and see the bodies 
of animals upon which these experiments have been per- 
formed. Certificate A is never allowed except for inocu- 
lations, and similar trivial operations, and in every case a 
condition is attached to prevent unnecessary pain. The 
safeguards against the infliction of unnecessary pain are the 
character of the persons to whom licenses are given, the 
careful inquiry that is made by the Home Office before- 
hand, and lastly the stringent conditions under which 
licenses are given and certificates allowed, and which it is 
the duty of the inspectors to see are properly observed. 
"The inspectors have been appointed by my predeces- 
1 This gross " misapprehension " is repeated by a writer in the Bradford 
Observer, July 12, 1898, who says : "Anyone casually reading the report 
(1897) would imagine that each experiment was on the body of a single 
animal. It is nothing of the kind. An experiment is a series of inves- 
tigations in some particular branch, and sometimes twenty, thirty, or 
forty animals are sacrificed in the one experiment." This idiotic letter 
is reprinted in the Zoophilist for August 1, 1898, under the heading, 
" Our Cause in the Press," without comment. 
261 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
sors without regard to their advocacy of or opposition to 
the system established by statute, under which experiments 
may be performed on living animals. If occasion arises, I 
shall pursue the same policy. The scientific knowledge 
required in an inspector implies a knowledge of experi- 
ments on animals, and I am satisfied that the inspection is 
carried out with the strictest regard to the laws and to 
considerations of humanity. I am persuaded that you 
cannot possibly examine and tell whether operations are 
conducted according to law unless you employ professional 
gentlemen who know something about the matter." 
V 
From the Zoophilist^ August I, 1898, p. 74 : 
" Breaches of the Law by Vivisectors." 
"In the House of Commons on Tuesday, the 6th 
July, Sir Barrington Simeon (Southampton) asked the 
Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his 
attention had been drawn to the last report of the inspec- 
tor under the Act relating to experiments on living 
animals ; whether he had observed that seven licensees 
confessed to having committed offences against the law, 
of which two consisted in persons going on vivisecting in 
1897 without the requisite license ; and that the inspector 
having treated these two persons in the same way as 
licensed persons, condoned their offences ; would he state 
who these persons were, and whether any remonstrance, 
reprimand, or other communication had been or would be 
addressed to them ? 
"Sir M. W. Ridley (Lancashire, Blackpool): Yes, 
certainly, I am aware of the facts stated in the inspector's 
report to myself. The nature of the irregularities referred 
to is shown in the report, and it will be seen that in every 
262 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
case they arose from inadvertence. It is not the fact, 
however, that the irregularities were condoned; letters of 
reproof were sent, and in some cases severer measures 
taken. No good object would, I think, be served by 
publishing the names." 
v a 
"In the House of Commons on the 11 th of July, the 
matter was carried further by Mr. John Ellis (Nottingham, 
Rushcliffe), who asked the Secretary of State for the Home 
Department what were the severer measures which he 
stated had been taken in respect of the persons who were 
reported by the inspector as having committed breaches 
of the .Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, by performing 
painful experiments on living animals without the neces- 
sary licences or certificates ? 
" Sir M. W. Ridley (Lancashire, Blackpool).-Tempo- 
rary suspension of and refusal to renew licenses. 
"Mr. John Ellis asked the Secretary of State for the 
Home Department whether he could state or lay upon the 
table the terms of the conditions and regulations attached 
by the Home Office to the licences and certificates 
granted to persons for the performance of painful experi- 
ments on living animals under the Cruelty to Animals Act 
1876 ? 
" Sir M. W. Ridley.-The conditions are not always 
the same, but may vary according to the nature of the 
investigation. It is hardly possible, therefore, for me to 
state all the conditions attached to licences and certificates. 
The most important conditions, however (besides the 
limitations as to place, time, and number of experiments), 
and the conditions most frequently imposed, are those as 
to reporting and the use of antiseptics. The latter con- 
dition is that the animals are to be treated with strict 
263 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
antiseptic precautions, and, if these fail and pain results, 
they are to be killed immediately under anaesthetics. 
The reporting conditions are, in brief, that a written 
record, in a prescribed form, is to be kept of every experi- 
ment, and is to be open for examination by the inspector ; 
that a report of all experiments is to be forwarded to the 
inspector ; and that any published account of an experi- 
ment is to be transmitted to the Secretary of State. 
Another condition requires the immediate destruction 
under anaesthetics of an animal in which severe pain has 
been induced, after the main result of the experiment has 
been attained. 
" Mr. MacNeill (Donegal, S.) asked whether it was a 
fact that since the Act was passed in 1876 there had been 
no public prosecution under the Act ? 
" Sir M. W. Ridley.-I am not aware of that. 
"Mr. MacNeill.-Well, I am. (Laughter.) 
"In the House of Commons on Friday, July 22nd, Mr. 
J. G. Swift MacNeill put further questions to the Home 
Secretary, which ran as follows :-Whether his attention 
had been directed to the greater frequency of the admitted 
breaches of the law by vivisectors; and to the circum- 
stances that in the return for 1897 Dr. Poore, the 
inspector, states that illegal experiments, performed 
admittedly by persons without the necessary licences and 
certificates, have been recorded as performed by persons 
holding those licences and certificates, and whether Dr. 
Poore has been asked to give any explanation. How 
many inspections of places licensed for vivisection have 
been reported during 1897? Were these inspections 
carried on during experiments, or were the bodies of the 
vivisected animals subsequently examined ? Are there 
any inspections of experiments by certificated operators in 
unregistered places ? 
"Sir M. W. Ridley, in reply, said: There were two 
264 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
such cases in each of the years 1894.-96, and seven in 
1897, but all arose from inadvertence, and were not, in 
my opinion, of a serious character, and certainly were not 
fitting cases for prosecution. There has only been one 
prosecution under the Act, and in that case the proceed- 
ings were dismissed. It is the case that two of the 
licensees (by what 1 am satisfied was mere inadvertence) 
omitted to apply for renewal of their licences. This is 
stated on page 5 of the report. It is also stated on page 7 
that the list of licensees contains the names of these two 
gentlemen. The licences would certainly have been 
renewed if the ordinary application had been made. I 
see no objection to this course having been adopted. Dr. 
Poore paid sixty-one visits of inspection to licensed places 
in 1897, and Sir James Russell sixty-eight. Some of these 
visits took place during the performance of experiments, 
and many animals that had been experimented upon were 
seen by the inspector. The only experiments performed 
elsewhere than at registered places are inoculation opera- 
tions in connection with the diseases of cattle, and inspec- 
tion in such cases is deemed unnecessary and does not 
take place. With regard to the publication of the names 
of persons who have performed illegal experiments, I do 
not think it necessary or right that such publication should 
take place when the illegality has not been of so serious a 
nature as to call for the institution of legal proceedings. 
" Mr. MacNeill.-Will the right hon. gentleman take 
care to give public notice that the Vivisection Act of 1876 
is a dead letter ? 
" No answer was returned." 
VI 
The Zoophilist of Feb. 1, 1899, contains an account 
of a meeting held at Plymouth on Dec. 20, 1898. 
265 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
The Chairman read replies from the Home Secretary 
touching a proposed new Bill relating to experiments 
on animals. In a letter explaining the objects of this 
Bill, it had been pointed out that it would "make it 
illegal to operate for scientific purposes upon a living 
animal before first putting that animal under a state of 
complete anaesthesia." To this the Home Secretary 
replied :- 
" This is the law already, unless the operator holds a 
special certificate from the Secretary of State dispensing 
with anaesthetics. Such special certificates are granted 
only for inoculations, feeding, and similar procedures 
involving no cutting. The animal has to be killed under 
anaesthetics if it be in pain as soon as the result of the 
experiment is ascertained. If the new law abolishes these 
certificates, it will put an end to the preparation and 
testing of anti-toxines and protective sera, as well as the 
most efficacious mode of studying infective diseases, and to 
the necessary practice of diagnostic inoculation." 
The second object of the Bill was to " make it 
obligatory on the vivisector to destroy the animal 
before recovering from anaesthesia." On this point 
the Home Secretary's reply was :- 
" This is also law already, unless the operator has a 
special certificate. These certificates are granted on con- 
dition that antiseptic precautions are used ; and if these 
fail and pain continues after the anaesthetics have ceased to 
operate, the animal is immediately killed painlessly." 
Another object of the Bill was "to make it illegal 
to use curare." To this the Home Secretary replied :- 
266 ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
" It is illegal to use curare as an anaesthetic. It is often 
used in addition to anaesthetics for very good reasons, and 
as it does not render an anaesthetised animal sensitive, it 
would be absurd to forbid its use." 
These passages from the Zoophilist show clearly that 
the administration of the Act is carefully watched : 
and to them may be added here some portion of three 
amazing letters, published in the Zoophilist of Oct. i, 
1898. They are from the Hon. Secretary of the 
National Anti-Vivisection Society to three of Her 
Majesty's Ministers : the First Lord of the Treasury, 
the Home Secretary, and the President of the Board 
of Agriculture :- 
1 
". . . . We are very anxious to receive from you an 
open assurance that you will not use your great position to 
assist in the endowment of physiological research, which, 
as the law is now administered, means the endowment of 
the torture of animals. Should we be so unfortunate as 
to be left by you without such an open assurance, we 
shall feel it our duty to employ the strength and resources 
of this Society in an endeavour to prevent your return to 
Parliament at the next election. We know of a large 
and increasing number of your constituents who are ready, 
in the unfortunate event of your being unable to reassure 
them as to your attitude in the matter of endowing torture, 
to place humanity above party politics." 
II 
" Sir,-No reply having been received by me to my 
letter to Mr. Cunynghame of the 7th of July, I have now 
267 EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS 
to inform you that this Society will feel it to be its duty 
to use every means in its power to prevent your return to 
Parliament at the next election, and as a protest against 
your having sheltered two persons who broke the law by 
vivisecting without licences for a whole year, from the 
legitimate penalties provided by the Act 39 and 40 Vic. c. 
77. When the law of the land provides that certain 
penalties should follow breaches of that law, and the 
Home Secretary will neither exact those penalties himself 
by prosecuting the law breakers, nor permit others to do 
so, a time has certainly come for some protest to be made 
in a manner that will at least command attention." 
Ill 
" Sir,-In view of your having permitted vivisection of 
a very painful character to be carried on at the public 
expense in a laboratory attached to the office over which 
you preside, this Society, as representing a great body of 
humane persons to whom the torture of animals appears 
entirely unjustifiable, feels bound to protest against your 
action in the only way that will certainly command your 
attention. And, accordingly, we beg leave to inform you 
that at the next election the forces of this Society will be 
used with the utmost vigour to prevent your return to 
Parliament. We know of many, and shall no doubt soon 
secure more of your constituents, pledged to place 
humanity above party, and vote against you on the next 
occasion that you present yourself." 
The Victoria Street Society is now more than 
twenty years old. It had on its side some of the best 
men in England-poets, statesmen, peers spiritual, 
peers temporal, great artists, great writers-what has 
268 it done ? It has spent large sums of money on its 
literature, has spread branches all over the Empire, 
promoted petitions, held meetings, interfered at elec- 
tions, gone again and again to Parliament; it has 
bullied hospitals, and Her Majesty's ministers, and 
men of science ; it has addressed itself to the whole 
world-Les mains sont vides aujourd'hui^ mais la bouche 
pent etre pleine de promesses. It has won a number of 
small victories, most of them at debating societies ; 
but its two chief victories have been won over itself. 
For it has at last decided that it will cease, for the 
present, to oppose inoculation experiments ; and it has 
come, at last, to a good understanding with the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
But this book is not concerned with the Victoria 
Street Society ; only with the results of experiments on 
animals, and with the Act. It was decided, and with 
authority, that it should be written for general reading, 
should be published without reserve, and should not be 
anonymous. To write a "medical book " for general 
reading is hazardous work-Utcunque jam jacta est a lea: 
spes mea in amore veritatis et candore doctorum animorum. 
ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. c. 77 
269 APPENDIX 
Note to Chapter IV. (p. 81). 
The Lancet^ Sept. 23rd, mentions that the Hackney 
Vestry this year sent to the Jenner Institute of 
Preventive Medicine one hundred samples of milk, 
obtained in the Hackney District, to be tested for 
tubercle-bacilli. The report from the Institute stated 
that "a series of microscopic examinations was made 
from each sample; but such a direct examination 
does not yield satisfactory results. The only reliable 
test is by means of inoculation experiments; and 
these were carried out with each sample of the milk. 
Seventeen samples were found to contain tubercle- 
bacilli of virulent character." 
Note to Chapter IX. (p. 149). 
1. For reports on the present plague at Oporto, 
from Dr. de Vicente and Dr. Mendoza, see Lancet^ 
Sept. 6 and 20, 1899. 
2. " A Dalziel's telegram from Bombay states that 
the Viceroy and his staff will shortly visit the plague 
270 APPENDIX 
and famine stricken centres. Prior to starting every 
one of the party will be inoculated against the 
plague." (Daily Chronicle, Oct. 17, 1899.) 
3. "It is reported that a modified form of Haff- 
kine's plague-prophylactic has been produced, which 
does not give rise to the illness and suffering accom- 
panying inoculation hitherto. Experiments are still 
being conducted, and it is perhaps premature to say 
that they have been successful. It has up to the 
present been believed that a good reaction (i.e., fever, 
pain, &c.) is necessary to ensure full protection. The 
illness, though temporary, caused by plague-inoculation 
is no doubt a very serious drawback to it. The 
weekly returns of plague are getting worse and worse- 
3,684 deaths this week against 2,687 *n the previous 
seven days. Poona city returns the appalling mortality 
of 1,103 deaths-a rate of over 400 per 1,000 per 
annum." (Lancet, Special Correspondent in India, 
Sept. 9, 1899.) 
4. Dr. Hornabrook's report from the Dharwar 
Plague Hospital (Lancet, Aug. 26, 1899), seems to 
prove that in those cases where inoculation has failed 
the disease is less dangerous to life. During August- 
December, 1898, the mortality was 61'86 for cases 
that had not been inoculated, 29'4 for the once inocu- 
lated, and 26'31 for the twice inoculated. 
5. The present rush for plague-serum is putting a 
heavy strain on the resources of the Institutes that 
supply it :- 
271 APPENDIX 
i. Paris. " The preparation of anti-plague serum is 
being rapidly proceeded with ; up to the present time the 
Institute has supplied it, in response to all the very nume- 
rous requests which have come from Portugal, Spain, 
Italy, and Turkey, without encroaching on the reserve 
kept in readiness for Paris and the departments." (Lancet, 
Sept. 16, 1899.) 
ii. India. " The spread of plague westward to Spain 
and Portugal seems to have excited more or less general 
alarm, and I hear that an unprecedented demand has 
suddenly arisen for the plague prophylactic fluid. The 
Government of India have been asked the cost of supplying 
from 50,000 to 100,000 doses, and the earliest date at 
which this quantity could be despatched. It is also 
desired to know if in case of need 50,000 doses a week 
could be sent to London. Russia desires to obtain a con- 
siderable stock for Port Arthur. Italy has been making 
inquiries for home use ; and also Portugal, in order to 
inoculate at Mozambique. The present laboratory is at 
Government House, Parel, Bombay, and has only recently 
been fitted up by the Government of India. About 
10,000 doses a day can be turned out, but it is thought 
that still further enlargements will be required if the 
demand should increase beyond this amount." (Lancet, 
Sept. 23, 1899.) 
Note to Chapter XL (p. 174). 
The following account of the work of the Malaria 
Expedition was published in The Outlook, Oct. 14, 
1899 
" The Colonisation of the Tropics. 
" The return of the triumphant Malaria Expedition of 
the Liverpool school this week in the steamship Fantee, 
272 marks an epoch in the progress of the colonisation of the 
tropics. Until the discovery of the malarial parasite in 
the body of the mosquito by Major Ross, scarcely two 
years ago, we knew little more of the origin of that 
scourge of the tropics under its score of names, 'Jungle- 
fever,' ' Swamp-evil,' ' Coast-fever,' ' African blight,' 
than of that of the Aurora Borealis. That it prevailed in 
marshes, in hot climates, and could-sometimes-be cured 
by quinine was about the practical sense of our knowledge. 
Ross's discovery, confirmed as it quickly was by Bignami 
and Grassi, opened an entire horizon of new possibilities. 
The vague and hopeless problem of the prevention of 
malaria became narrowed down to the definite and hopeful 
one of the prevention of mosquitoes, or at least of 
mosquito-bites. And it is not too much to say that the 
expedition now returning has brought this down from a 
theoretic possibility to a mere question of time and 
expense. 
" The important points established by the Expedition are 
three. First, that in Africa, as in India and Italy, it is 
one small and not very abundant species or sub-family of 
mosquitoes, Anopheles, that is the sole bearer of the infec- 
tion. This was proved by the double test of finding this 
species abundant in regions specially affected by malaria, 
and of discovering the parasite in the tissues of individual 
insects captured. And as Anopheles may be distinguished 
at a glance from the common ' skeeter ' by the fact of 
its perching with its body projecting spike-fashion at right 
angles from the wall instead of parallel with -it, as in all 
other species, its detection during its resting period, the 
day-time, is easy even for the non-expert eye. Second, 
that as this species fortunately flies only for about an 
hour before and two hours after sunset, keeping behind 
mosquito-barred or curtained windows during these hours 
is an absolute protection against malarial infection. This 
APPENDIX 
273 APPENDIX 
was most luckily-for every one except the victim- 
exemplified by the experience of one of the physicians who 
slept one night without mosquito-curtains, and was the 
only member of the party who had the slightest touch of 
malaria during their nearly three months' stay in one of 
the most malarious regions in the world. The third 
point is the definite 'locating' of the class of pools 
in which Anopheles breeds. Fortunately he is a most 
exacting and fastidious person. He will only breed in 
pools that are permanent, or at least exist during the 
greater part of the year. This is the reason why he is 
only about one-tenth as common as his harmless, but 
most exasperating cousin Culex, who will breed in any 
rain-puddle, water-butt, or even sardine-tin half-filled by 
a tropical shower. But this pool must not be too per- 
manent, otherwise it would be invaded by minnows, who 
regard the eggs and larvae of mosquitoes as the choicest 
of delicacies, so that any pondlet stocked with fish, or 
even where they can penetrate during floods or at high 
water, is barred to Anopheles. Lastly, in order to feel 
really at home, he must have an abundant growth of 
algae or slime-weeds, for upon these the young larvae feed 
greedily. To find a pool which satisfies all three of these 
nice and exacting requirements is most mercifully difficult, 
so that the result is that ' Anopheles pools ' may number 
only a dozen or so in an entire neighbourhood. 
" Major Ross declares that an expert eye ' soon comes 
to recognise them at first glance, by instinct,' and as a 
quart of kerosene will absolutely 'sterilise' a hundred 
square yards of pool surface, it ought, with a little time 
and patience, to be perfectly feasible to rid a whole tropical 
region of this great bar to colonisation." 
274 Ube ©tesbam (press, 
UNWIN BROTHERS 
WOKING AND LONDON.