ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION. A method of studying disease by the use of lower animals in order to alleviate human suffering. The ancient Greeks practised it, even primitive tribes learned somewhat about human disease by observing lower animals and many human superstitions had their origin from such obser vations. Harvey's celebrated discoveries con cerning the circulation of the blood rested upon animal experimentation, and were it not for the large increase in knowledge made possible by its methods, much of our modern civilization would have been impossible. Animal experi mentation moreover has benefited all those ani mals which are useful to man, and most of the opposition to the application of its methods is founded upon very superficial and illogical reasoning.
The chief impetus to modern methods came after the introduction of general and local anaesthetics, such as ether, chloroform and cocaine. These substances banished all pain, to the animal and permitted the delicate manipula tions which were so essential to the develop ments of correct methods of technique.
Animal experimentation has supplanted a great deal of guessing about disease by direct methods of proving cause and effect. To give up the knowledge acquired would be to slip back into an era of barbarism, so far as medi cine is concerned. No essay could be written which could possibly exhaust the innumerable benefits which every member of an enlightened community enjoys. The chief advances have been made along so many different lines that it becomes difficult to single out those of most importance. Although disease itself in the human being is nature's great vivisector, nature's methods are so ruthless and widespread that without animal experimentation the processes which we call disease could not be minutely analyzed. The insight obtained concerning the physiological processes of every kind of huma: activity would be impossible without anima experimentation. Harvey's monumental studj and his discovery of the circulation of the blood is but one of a million discoveries which have established a true physiology. Without a sound physiology there can be no rational med icine. The knowledge of the circulation, of the digestive system, of the formation of the blood of the ductless glands, of the kidneys, the movements of the intestines, and above all the vast and intricate workings of the nervou; system — all of these have been made possible by animal experimentation.
The successful attack upon disease is no less a result of the studies on animals. Pas early studies in infectious diseases were made upon lower animals. Our knowledge of every disease of infectious origin has been vastly advanced. Tuberculosis, typhoid felt:. syphilis, gonorrhoea, diphtheria, all pus infec tions, meningitis, poliomyelitis, and one might go on indefinitely, have all been better under stood and hence nearer cure through animal experimentation. It is less than a score of years since the secret of syphilis was unraveled by its methods — and syphilis kills more people every year than 10 world wars will ever kill. The excessive prudery of the human being who would rather indulge his infantile sexual ity than understand it keeps this disease attic as a sort of policeman to aid in the attack upon man's essential sexual immorality. Gonorrhea is the most widespread of all diseases, scatter ing the sufferings of disease wherever man goes. It is still permitted to undermine the health of a nation, because of this same prudere which calls itself morality but is a hideous mask which conceals man's immorality and lust power.
Whenever large bodies of men are assem bled, as in large contract enterprises, in the manoeuvres of war or similar mass actions. typhoid fever has often been a veritable scourge. Animal experimentation laid the solid foundations of anti-typhoid inoculations which have been eminently successful. The conquer' of the scourge of smallpox which entered the palace as well as the hovel in Shakespeare's time has been practically eradicated through Jenner's original animal experimentations. To treat of all of the vast benefits to the farmer in the treatment of hog cholera, chicken cholera and the innumerable diseases of farm animals, which have come through animal experimenta tion, would alone fill a volume. Consult Can non, 'Reference Handbook of Medical Sci ences' (1913).