utics are much, but
there are lines of experiment which _seem to promise_ great help in
therapeutics." [5529.] The results of two centuries of experiments, so
far as therapeutics are concerned, reduced to a seeming promise!

[A] "Medical Times and Gazette," October 5, 1872.

On two points, then, the evidence of the highest scientific
authorities in Great Britain seems conclusive--first, that experiments
upon living animals conduce chiefly to the benefit of the science of
physiology, and little, if at all, at the present day, to the
treatment of disease or the amelioration of human suffering; and,
secondly, that repetition of painful experiments for class-teaching in
medical schools is both unnecessary and unjustifiable. Do these
conclusions affect the practice of vivisection in this country? Is it
true that experiments are habitually performed in some of our medical
schools, often causing extreme pain, to illustrate well-known and
accepted facts--experiments which English physiologists pronounce
"infamous" and "atrocious," which English physicians and surgeons
stigmatize as purposeless cruelty and unjustifiable--which even Huxley
regards as unfitting for teaching purposes, and Darwin denounces as
worthy of detestation and abhorrence? I confess I see no occasion for
any over-delicate reticence in this matter. Science needs no secrecy
either for her methods or results; her function is to reveal, not to
hide, facts. The reply to these questions must be in the affirmative.
In this country our physiologists are rather followers of Magendie and
Bernard, after the methods in vogue at Paris and Leipsic, than
governed by the cautious and sensitive conservatism in this respect
which generally characterizes the physiological teaching of London and
Oxford. In making this statement, no criticism is intended on the
motives of those responsible for ingrafting continental methods upon
our medical schools. If any opprobrium shall be inferred for the past
performance of experiments herein condemned, the present writer asks a
share in it. It is the future that we hope to change. Now, what are
the facts? A recent contributor to the "International Review,"
referring to Mr. Bergh, says that "he assails physiological
experiments with the same blind extravagance of denunciation as if
they were still performed without anaesthetics, as in the time of
Magendie." In the interests of scientific accuracy one would wish
more care had been given