Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/15

Rh To stand still, we must accept our present knowledge as a finality, complacently pursuing the well-worn paths; neither hoping nor trying for anything better—happily, again, an impossibility.

To grow better, we must try new methods, give new drugs, perform new operations, or perform old ones in new ways; that is to say, we must make experiments. To these experiments there must be a beginning: they must be tried first on some living body; for it is often forgotten that the dead body can only teach manual dexterity. They must then be tried either on an animal or on you. Which shall it be? In many cases, of course, which involve little or no risk to life or health, it is perfectly legitimate to test probable improvements on man first, although one of the gravest and most frequent charges made against us doctors is that we are experimenting upon our patients.

But in many cases they involve great risk to life or health. Here they can not, nay, they must not, be tested first upon man. Must we, then, absolutely forego them, no matter how much of promise for life and health and happiness they possess? If not, the only alternative we have is to try them on the lower animals, and we would be most unwise, nay, more, we would be cruel, cruel both to man and to animals, if we refused to pain or even to slay a few animals, that thousands, both of men and of animals, might live.

Who would think it right to put a few drops of the hydrochlorate of cocaine (a year ago almost an unknown drug) into the eye of a man, not knowing what frightful inflammation or even loss of sight might follow? Had one dared to do it, and had the result been disastrous, would not the law have held him guilty and punished him severely, and all of us said Amen? But so did Christison with Calabar bean, and well-nigh lost his own life. So did Toynbee with prussic acid on himself, and was found dead in his laboratory. Accordingly, Roller,