CHAPTER XIIRecapitulation of PrinciplesI. The attainment of truth, not the gratification of curiosity or of personal ends, is the sole and distinctive aim of genuine scientific research.II. It is a radical intellectual error to apply the same methods of investigation, suitable to inorganic facts, to the study of organic facts. Natural law being mind ruling matter, every method employed in research into organic Nature must respect and take into account the inseparable mental factor in each type of sentient life, or it becomes unscientific, and may promote fallacy, not truth. Destructive experiment on living creatures, even under the partial suspension of consciousness produced by anæsthetics, is an erroneous method, producing confused or contradictory results.III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by health and disease. Experiments, whether for therepair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type of life to be benefited by the experiment.IV. Any experimentation which creates involuntary suffering in living creatures vitiates the necessary conditions of scientific research, and tends to degrade human conscience by producing indifference to suffering.V. In training our future practitioners of the healing art, the cultivation of respect for life and the strengthening of enlightened sympathetic conscience in dealing with all poor or helpless creatures are of paramount importance. The present system of medical education requires revision in order to make health, not disease, the central subject of study.Finally, full and generous encouragement to those who are engaged in important painless research is urgently needed. Such research should be carried on, if possible, in connection with the great body of serious scientific investigations, by persons of proved ability and clear moral sense, and the work should be cordially open to the observation of all earnest friends.Such research, reconciling by right methods of investigation intellectual activity with human conscience, would increase our knowledge and advance our well-being in accordance with the higher reason of the race. Only when thus guided by intelligence and conscience can biological research deserve the noble name of science.It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that medicine will become a science.FOOTNOTES:[10]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Functions and Limits, p. 15.[11]This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the French naturalist, Le Roy.[12]The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are graphically described from personal observation in Sir B. W. Richardson’s treatise,The Mastery of Pain.[13]See the standard work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology(New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., pp. 416-466. The value of this translation is greatly increased by its excellent index.[14]Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless dogs to be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a shell made in the municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, riddling and mangling them fearfully.[15]The humane and carefully-guarded Bill drawn up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced by the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected.[16]The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to municipal affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. He says: ‘My immediate object, however, is not to preach upon the general question, but to make a practical suggestion. What we want to know is, Which of the two ways of doing any particular work is the cheaper and better? Much experience of public departments leads me to doubt their own reports upon their own doings; not, of course, from any dishonesty on the part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man to make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well as from want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute confidence in the reports made to the London County Council on the results of their own experiments.’[17]‘Professor Leon le Fort, Professor Verneuil, Professor Duplay, and Professor Tillaux, have been asked by a public journal for their opinions on the operative mania (furie opératoire) said to be prevalent at present. Professor le Fort says it is much more widespread in France than in other countries, and in a long letter he protests against the custom amongst the young French surgeons, in order to bring their names before the public, “to seek out some operation unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the patient.” Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations in general, and especially of gynæcological operations. He deplores the prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked. Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.’ SeeMedical Reprints, May, 1893.[18]This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin Pasha Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young negro girl.[19]The entirely negative results of all experiments made upon the lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or where the poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series of experiments on the lower animals made in many countries. The extent and severity of these experiments, as well as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, vol. i., pp. 476-480.[20]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Function and Limits, pp. 92, 93.
CHAPTER XIIRecapitulation of Principles
I. The attainment of truth, not the gratification of curiosity or of personal ends, is the sole and distinctive aim of genuine scientific research.
II. It is a radical intellectual error to apply the same methods of investigation, suitable to inorganic facts, to the study of organic facts. Natural law being mind ruling matter, every method employed in research into organic Nature must respect and take into account the inseparable mental factor in each type of sentient life, or it becomes unscientific, and may promote fallacy, not truth. Destructive experiment on living creatures, even under the partial suspension of consciousness produced by anæsthetics, is an erroneous method, producing confused or contradictory results.
III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by health and disease. Experiments, whether for therepair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type of life to be benefited by the experiment.
IV. Any experimentation which creates involuntary suffering in living creatures vitiates the necessary conditions of scientific research, and tends to degrade human conscience by producing indifference to suffering.
V. In training our future practitioners of the healing art, the cultivation of respect for life and the strengthening of enlightened sympathetic conscience in dealing with all poor or helpless creatures are of paramount importance. The present system of medical education requires revision in order to make health, not disease, the central subject of study.
Finally, full and generous encouragement to those who are engaged in important painless research is urgently needed. Such research should be carried on, if possible, in connection with the great body of serious scientific investigations, by persons of proved ability and clear moral sense, and the work should be cordially open to the observation of all earnest friends.
Such research, reconciling by right methods of investigation intellectual activity with human conscience, would increase our knowledge and advance our well-being in accordance with the higher reason of the race. Only when thus guided by intelligence and conscience can biological research deserve the noble name of science.
It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that medicine will become a science.
FOOTNOTES:[10]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Functions and Limits, p. 15.[11]This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the French naturalist, Le Roy.[12]The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are graphically described from personal observation in Sir B. W. Richardson’s treatise,The Mastery of Pain.[13]See the standard work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology(New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., pp. 416-466. The value of this translation is greatly increased by its excellent index.[14]Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless dogs to be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a shell made in the municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, riddling and mangling them fearfully.[15]The humane and carefully-guarded Bill drawn up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced by the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected.[16]The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to municipal affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. He says: ‘My immediate object, however, is not to preach upon the general question, but to make a practical suggestion. What we want to know is, Which of the two ways of doing any particular work is the cheaper and better? Much experience of public departments leads me to doubt their own reports upon their own doings; not, of course, from any dishonesty on the part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man to make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well as from want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute confidence in the reports made to the London County Council on the results of their own experiments.’[17]‘Professor Leon le Fort, Professor Verneuil, Professor Duplay, and Professor Tillaux, have been asked by a public journal for their opinions on the operative mania (furie opératoire) said to be prevalent at present. Professor le Fort says it is much more widespread in France than in other countries, and in a long letter he protests against the custom amongst the young French surgeons, in order to bring their names before the public, “to seek out some operation unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the patient.” Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations in general, and especially of gynæcological operations. He deplores the prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked. Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.’ SeeMedical Reprints, May, 1893.[18]This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin Pasha Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young negro girl.[19]The entirely negative results of all experiments made upon the lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or where the poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series of experiments on the lower animals made in many countries. The extent and severity of these experiments, as well as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, vol. i., pp. 476-480.[20]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Function and Limits, pp. 92, 93.
[10]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Functions and Limits, p. 15.
[10]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Functions and Limits, p. 15.
[11]This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the French naturalist, Le Roy.
[11]This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the French naturalist, Le Roy.
[12]The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are graphically described from personal observation in Sir B. W. Richardson’s treatise,The Mastery of Pain.
[12]The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are graphically described from personal observation in Sir B. W. Richardson’s treatise,The Mastery of Pain.
[13]See the standard work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology(New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., pp. 416-466. The value of this translation is greatly increased by its excellent index.
[13]See the standard work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology(New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., pp. 416-466. The value of this translation is greatly increased by its excellent index.
[14]Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless dogs to be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a shell made in the municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, riddling and mangling them fearfully.
[14]Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless dogs to be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a shell made in the municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, riddling and mangling them fearfully.
[15]The humane and carefully-guarded Bill drawn up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced by the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected.
[15]The humane and carefully-guarded Bill drawn up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced by the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected.
[16]The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to municipal affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. He says: ‘My immediate object, however, is not to preach upon the general question, but to make a practical suggestion. What we want to know is, Which of the two ways of doing any particular work is the cheaper and better? Much experience of public departments leads me to doubt their own reports upon their own doings; not, of course, from any dishonesty on the part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man to make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well as from want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute confidence in the reports made to the London County Council on the results of their own experiments.’
[16]The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to municipal affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. He says: ‘My immediate object, however, is not to preach upon the general question, but to make a practical suggestion. What we want to know is, Which of the two ways of doing any particular work is the cheaper and better? Much experience of public departments leads me to doubt their own reports upon their own doings; not, of course, from any dishonesty on the part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man to make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well as from want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute confidence in the reports made to the London County Council on the results of their own experiments.’
[17]‘Professor Leon le Fort, Professor Verneuil, Professor Duplay, and Professor Tillaux, have been asked by a public journal for their opinions on the operative mania (furie opératoire) said to be prevalent at present. Professor le Fort says it is much more widespread in France than in other countries, and in a long letter he protests against the custom amongst the young French surgeons, in order to bring their names before the public, “to seek out some operation unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the patient.” Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations in general, and especially of gynæcological operations. He deplores the prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked. Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.’ SeeMedical Reprints, May, 1893.
[17]‘Professor Leon le Fort, Professor Verneuil, Professor Duplay, and Professor Tillaux, have been asked by a public journal for their opinions on the operative mania (furie opératoire) said to be prevalent at present. Professor le Fort says it is much more widespread in France than in other countries, and in a long letter he protests against the custom amongst the young French surgeons, in order to bring their names before the public, “to seek out some operation unknown in France, then seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the patient.” Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a reputation. Professor Verneuil protests against the abuse of operations in general, and especially of gynæcological operations. He deplores the prurigo secandi with which so many of the French surgeons are attacked. Professor Duplay and Professor Tillaux express the same opinions.’ SeeMedical Reprints, May, 1893.
[18]This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin Pasha Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young negro girl.
[18]This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin Pasha Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young negro girl.
[19]The entirely negative results of all experiments made upon the lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or where the poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series of experiments on the lower animals made in many countries. The extent and severity of these experiments, as well as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, vol. i., pp. 476-480.
[19]The entirely negative results of all experiments made upon the lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or where the poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series of experiments on the lower animals made in many countries. The extent and severity of these experiments, as well as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirsch,Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, vol. i., pp. 476-480.
[20]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Function and Limits, pp. 92, 93.
[20]Sir B. W. Richardson,Biological Experimentation: its Function and Limits, pp. 92, 93.