Pursued in this manner, the science of physiology
will be rescued from the charges of uncertainty and
cruelty, and will be regarded by all men, at once
as an important and essential branch of knowledge
and scientific research.
This appears to me to, he true, when the object
of investigation is merely to acquire knowledge,
although we may not foresee its future application
to any useful purpose ; how much more so when
its application is obvious beforehand ! I will suppose
the case of drowning: whether our object be
the restoration to life of a fellow-creature taken out
of the water in a state of suspended animation ; or
the rescue from death of another fellow-creature
under a criminal prosecution for supposed murder,
I cannot imagine that an experimental investigation
to determine the surest means of restoration
in the first case, or the evidence of accidental or
forcible death in the second, can for one moment
be deemed otherwise than absolutely incumbent
upon us. And if such a case be so imperative
upon us, where shall we draw the line of distinction
between it and others ?
The whole science of medicine and surgery,
indeed, is dependent on physiology. To exclude
physiological investigation, would be to erect an
utter barrier to the progress of our art, viewed in
any other light than as mere empiricism. They
alone can repair a machine who understand its
construction and its movements.
In thus stating the argument in regard to what
is right and just, in physiological investigation, I
have steered a course equally distinct from the
heartless cruelties practiced by some soi-disant
physiologists, and the senseless declamations of
others against what they are pleased to call vivisections.
The whole argument may be concentrated
to a point:—are Harvey, Haller and Hale,
worthy of our applause for their researches into the
circulation, and the action of the heart?. Let us
remember that they performed experiments. It is
not, therefore, to experiments that we can object,
but to such experiments as are unnecessary or useless,
or performed without regard to the pain or
sufferings inflicted. We may at the same time
-admire the conduct of one experimentalist and
condemn that of another.
Having ascertained any fact or facts, they should
in my opinion, in accordance with a sixthprinciple,
be laid before the public in the simplest, plainest