Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/56

44 though now by courtesy named research, is no more valuable than the child's spinning of the cockchafer, and should be as sharply checked.

The genesis of discovery in biology, with its necessary relations to therapeutics, has yet to be written. Extending experience is more and more clearly showing us, as a practical fact, that whilst observation and rational—i.e., humanely limited — experiment are legitimate and noble efforts for the attainment of improved medicine, cruel and merely curious experiment, condemned by our moral faculties, are misleading and mischievous.

Men like Professor Henschel, of Upsala, and Professor Pettenkofer, of Munich, warn our eager young investigators against drawing conclusions as to human beings from experiments made on animals.

We ﬁnd, as a matter of fact, that all the permanent advances of medicine have been gained whilst pursuing rational and righteous methods; whilst all the fiascoes of supposed discovery have resulted through departing from them.

Anæsthetics, antiseptics, and sanitation are not the result of cruel experimentation.