What animal experimentation or so-called vivisection has done for humanity / by J.P. Warbasse.

  • James Peter Warbasse
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: What animal experimentation or so-called vivisection has done for humanity / by J.P. Warbasse. 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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    These figures are practically identical with those of London, Berlin, Paris, Liverpool, and other cities. One hundred thousand lives are being saved annually in Europe and America by diph- theria antitoxin. Besides lowering the mortality of the disease, a small injection acts absolutely as a preventive, and the well may be exposed without fear. Within the past year I contracted virulent diphtheria. The false membrane developed in the upper part of the pharynx, but had not extended to the throat, where it might be seen, until the third day. I played with my children, and after being sent to bed, four of my children repeatedly romped with me. The dis- ease was then identified. Antitoxin was given to every member of the household. The .disease was checked. No other cases developed. Twenty-five years ago all of those children would have contracted diphtheria, and two deaths would have occurred. The conquest of diphtheria has been preceded by years of patient, often discouraging, research; a large number of rabbits and guinea-pigs have been sacrificed, and now many horses are subjected to the inconvenience of receiving an injection of micro- organisms, and having some blood drawn off at certain intervals. These horses in the service of humanity are sleek and well cared for, and take their daily exercise with as much apparent relish as do their richly caparisoned brethren who perform no more useful service than drawing a Huffy dame and a pug-dog thru the park on pleasant afternoons. Society will shortly forget about the scourge of diphtheria, the mothers who have stood by the bedside of choking children will have passed away; but we are near enough to it still to know what it has meant. Yellow fever was conquered by animal experiments. The animals employed are mosciuitos and men. Some day society will erect its monuments to such as Reed, Lazear, Carrol and their associates, the men who have saved, rather than to the warriors whose glory has been in direct ratio to the number of lives which they sacrificed. These men, studying the problem in Cuba, identified a certain species of mosquito as the host of the yellow fever germ. They slept on the bedding where yellow fever patients had died. While the rooms were screened against mosquitos, they were not able to contract the disease. They also allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitos which had not had access to people suffering with yellow fever, and found that the disease was not transmitted. But one link to complete the chain of evidence remained, would a mosquito that had been fed upon the blood of a yellow fever patient transmit the disease to a healthy man. They believed it would; but positive proof was needed. There was no dearth of volunteers who offered them- selves for this final test. Both Carrol and Lazear permittee themselves to be bitten by mosciuitos known to be infecten. Carrol recovered, Lazear died; Reed and Carrol have since dieil, exhausted by their labors. Ihe literature of the world contains no drama more inspiring
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