Experiments on life, as fundamental to the science of preventive medicine and as of question between man and brute : an address delivered on August 3rd, 1881, at the opening of the State Medicine Section of the International Medical Congress then assembled in London / by John Simon.

  • Simon, Sir John, 1816-1904.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments on life, as fundamental to the science of preventive medicine and as of question between man and brute : an address delivered on August 3rd, 1881, at the opening of the State Medicine Section of the International Medical Congress then assembled in London / by John Simon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    I think it not unlikely that the illustrious life of John Hunter was shortened by the experiments which he did on himself with the ignoble poison of syphiUs. There have been cases, too, where criminals have been allowed to purchase exemption from capital or other punishment at the cost of allowing some painful or dangerous experiment to be performed on themselves. And cases are not absolutely unknown where unconsenting human beings have been subjected to that sort of experiment. But, waiving such exceptions, the rule is, as I have said, that scientific experiments relating to causes of disease are performed on some animal which common opinion estimates as of lower importance than man. Now, as between man and brute, I would not wish to draw any distinction which persons outside this room might find invidious ; but, assuming for the moment that man and brute are of exactly equal value, I would submit that, when the life of either man or brute is to be made merely instrumental to the estabUshment of a, scientific truth, the use of the life should be economical. Let me, in that point of view, invite you to compare, or rather to contrast with one another, those two sorts of experiment from which we have to get our knowledge of the causes of disease. The com- mercial experiments which illustrated the dangerousness of sewage- polluted water-supplies cost many thousands of human lives; the scientific experiments which, with infinitely more exactitude, justi- fied a presumption of dangerousness, cost the lives of fourteen mice. [See Note A.] So, again, with experiments as to the causation of tubercle :—^judging from the information which I quoted to you, I should suppose that the human beings whose milk-supply on any given day includes milk from tubercular cows might be counted, in this country, in tens of thousands; but the scientific experiments which justify us in declaring such milk- supply to be highly dangerous to those who receive it were con-, elusive when they amounted to half a dozen. So far, then, as regards the mere getting of experimental knowledge, we must not, with a view to economy of life, be referred to popular, rather than scientific, experiment. And in the same point of view, it perhaps also deserves consideration that the popular experiments, though done on so large a scale, very often have in them sources of am- biguity which lessen their usefulness for teaching.