The failure of vivisection and the future of medical research : being the prize essay in a competition instituted by the Leigh Browne Endowment / by Arabella Kenealy, L.R.C.P. & L.M. (Dublin).

  • Arabella Kenealy
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The failure of vivisection and the future of medical research : being the prize essay in a competition instituted by the Leigh Browne Endowment / by Arabella Kenealy, L.R.C.P. & L.M. (Dublin). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a far more important part in the communication of phthisis than does the tubercle bacillus. In my own practice I have obtained “ cures ” apparently miraculous by merely re¬ moving sufferers from association with some relative who was so draining their powers. A striking example was that of an exhausted woman, of nevertheless tireless activity, who, upon four separate occasions when expectant motherhood was draining her strength, reduced to death’s door, by drawing upon its vitality, a child who was closely in association with her. On each occasion the child’s life was saved only by sending it to a distance from its mother ; whereupon the mother, deprived of her source of vital energy, herself fell ill. In such phenomena appears again Nature’s method of preserving a great level average of health and development, and of preventing the individual from outstripping the race. Here, again, excellent reason is shown for improving the life-conditions of our poorer brothers, lest their starved and devitalised bodies prove a perpetual drain upon the nerve- forces of better-nurtured systems. To sum up : The thing required to-day in Medical Science is a new and higher standpoint. From a higher elevation a broader and more comprehensive view is possible, and the true dimensions and relations of things are revealed. The orthodox unprogressive majority, represented by present-day Medical Scientists, must yield before the thin end of the wedge of a progressive minority. History shows that by the time a creed, political, religious, or scientific, has become orthodox it is already out of date. We must move forward with the mighty tide of Evolution. We must adjust ourselves to new conditions. Otherwise, the mighty tide of Evolution will engulf us. Then Nature will begin again. She has begun again many times. And always it has been from disregarding or fighting her laws that races have gone under. A steadily advancing, ever-evolving race, intelligently developing its forces in line with and in co-operation with Nature, has yet to be born.
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