experiments. The animals were anesthetised from beginning to end of the experiments, and were killed under the anaesthetic without recovering consciousness. The following questions were put and answered: Q. (Mr. Tomkinson) All these experiments of Dr. Crile were for the same object; to test the amount of shock caused by different operations, and the effect of it?—A. Yes, the effect of it. Q. On the circulation of the blood?-A. Yes. Q. And that was done sixteen times over 1-A. Yes. Q. Sixteen healthy, beautiful dogs-fox-terriers-were taken. To use an ordinary vulgar expression, do you think the game was worth the candle?-A. Yes, I am perfectly sure of it. Q. You admit, do you not, that those operations, published as they have been in that form, have created a tremendous sensation, and probably one of the strongest sources of opposition to the system and attack upon it?A. Yes; because of the gross misrepresentations of those operations. Q. But is not the description of them by the operator?A. Yes, certainly; but not the description that has been given of them to the public. On the contrary, several times they have been made the subject of pamphlets which I have been advised legally I could take no action upon, because in an ingenious way the fact of anesthetics having been given was not introduced; but the whole effect of the pamphlet was to convey to the ordinary man in the street that those operations were done without anesthesia. Q. Do you think so?-A. But the whole strength of the anti-vivisection party is the capacity for writing a thing and giving it a false impression altogether by means of innuendo. That is very glaringly shown in all this evidence which has been laid before the Commission. Q. I cannot say that they have ever been described to me as having been without anaesthetics, but accompanied with an expression of opinion that complete anesthesia was hardly possible through such tremendous operations, and was not likely to have been carefully supervised when the animals were kept alive the whole time?-A. Exactly. And on what authority has that last statement been made, that anæsthesia cannot be kept up under such tremendous operations? Why, operations that we do on human beings are far more tremendous by way of nervestimulation. Q. I think there has been more than one witness here who has expressed great doubt whether a dog is easily kept just on the border line.-A. That is exactly the point that I referred to before. I felt sure that evidence of that kind had been given; and I say that that is simply a matter of knowledge of giving anæsthetics. It is sheer ignorance to say that a dog cannot perfectly well be kept under chloroform, or any other dangerous anæsthetic that you like to mention. VI THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF DRUGS PROFESSOR CUSHNY, M.D., F.R.S., February 26 DR. A. R. CUSHNY, Professor of Pharmacology and Materia Medica at University College, London, said that he desired to explain the influence which the experimental method in pharmacology had exercised on therapeutics in the course of the last half-century, during which time the study of pharmacology had been carried on by the examination of animals. He took digitalis as an example. It was introduced about 1785, as a remedy for dropsy. It was used in dropsy, for many years, without any understanding how it acted. About 1860, Clarus said that digitalis slows and weakens the heart, and concluded that it was useful in aneurism, and in acute fevers. "That was the result of about seventy-five years of clinical observation. Within a few years, Traube and Brunton showed, by experimental methods, that one effect of digitalis is to raise the bloodpressure to a marked extent, which is exactly the worst treatment possible in aneurism." Brunton and Traube and Schmeideberg showed that the heart was affected; but at that time the knowledge of the physiology of the heart was so imperfect that they could not go any further. It was not until the physiology of the heart was developed that the exact way in which the heart was affected could be worked out. It was from these experiments that the exact indications for digitalis in cases of pneumonia had been made out. Another instance of the value of experiment was the discovery that lead, administered as a drug, was useless to stop hæmorrhage. "Numberless examples of this increased accuracy in the therapeutic use of drugs might be cited as the results of the minute examination of their effects in animals. Many old drugs have been discarded as the result of these inquiries, while others have proved to have properties which were previously unsuspected. The physician now has a much clearer view of what his remedies can do." Professor Cushny went on to speak of the introduction of new drugs as the direct result of experimental inquiry. It was by this method that Liebreich had discovered the action of chloral, Baumann and Kast had discovered sulphonal, and Cervello had discovered paraldehyde. No soporific had been introduced in the last forty years, except by means of animal experiment. Again, it was by the help of experiments on animals that Koller had introduced cocaine into practice, and Vinci had introduced eucaine. No local anesthetic had been discovered except by means of experiments on animals. Again, the whole group of antipyretics, such as antipyrine, antifebrine, and phenacetin, had been introduced by means of experiments on animals. Again, it was through experiments on animals that Fraser discovered the use of physostigmin in ophthalmic surgery, and the use of strophanthus in medicine. All the vascular-dilators, such as amyl nitrite, had been discovered by experiments on animals; so had all the vascular-contractors, such as adrenalin. Again, the diuretics, caffein and theobromin, and the urinary disinfectants, including urotropin, had been introduced by the same method. Again, modifications, such as heroin and aspirin, of older remedies had been introduced by this method; so had the new antiseptics, such as lysol, thymol, and formaldehyde; so had ethyl chloride, apomorphine, and the preparations made from thyroid gland. "This list by no means exhausts the new drugs introduced by means of the experimental method in the last forty years, during which it has been systematically practised with a view to investigating the action of remedies. I have no desire to minimise the importance of other methods of investigation; but when one contrasts the number of valuable drugs introduced into therapeutics without the aid of experiments on animals, one finds it disappointingly meagre. I exclude the discovery of the local antiseptics, such as carbolic acid, iodoform, and salicylic acid. Apart from these, I find that in the last forty years, during which the experimental method has been so fruitful in valuable remedies, the only drug of even mediocre importance introduced by other methods is pilocarpin. "Another service which the method of animal experiment has done to therapeutics is in the sifting-out of valueless drugs. A large number of old vegetable and animal bodies which used to cumber the pharmacopoeias is slowly disappearing, as the medical profession learns that they are inactive, and as the theory on which they were introduced is shown to be erroneous. A much larger number of new bodies, the result of the activity of the chemical industry, have to be examined, and accepted or rejected as they prove to be useful or poisonous. And among those accepted, comparisons of their virtues have to be continuously made. So highly does the chemical industry value the aid given it in this way, that its leaders are no longer willing to wait for the dictum of |