Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/52

 VII.

PRURIGO SECANDI.

NOTHER serious ethical danger connected with unrestrained experiment on the lower animals is the enormous increase of audacious human surgery, which tends to overpower the slower but more natural methods of medical art, and to divert attention from hygiene.

This modern increase of surgery, entailing permanent mutilation, has received a special name, prurigo secandi, or cacoethes secandi. It prevails in France, and in every country where no restraint is placed on animal experimentation,