The futility of experiments with drugs on animals / by Edward Berdoe.

  • Berdoe, Edward, 1836-1916.
Date:
1889
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The futility of experiments with drugs on animals / by Edward Berdoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    and kidneys were congested, yet all these things we are told are painless and trifling because they do not involve vivisec- tion in the ordinary sense. Husemann, Dujardin-Beaumetz, and Stille, are at variance as to the physiological action of the drug. Its action upon man appears to be quite different from the effects observed on the rabbits, and it has been entirely superseded as a remedy for rheumatism by the Salicylates, so that the sufferings of the animals have not in this instance conferred any boon on medicine. Urea.—Segalas demonstrated that urea injected into the veins of animals notably increased the discharge of urine. According to Rabateau it exhibits no diuretic action in human beings even in very large doses. Veratria.—{Veralriiie, P. B.)—Obtained from cevadilla seeds. This is an exceedingly powerful and dangerous alkaloid. Even the minutest quantity brought in contact with the nostrils occasions great and continued irritation, sneezing, and coughing. Injected hypodermically, it causes the most intense pain, as though one were burned with hot needles. Even the fortieth or from that to a twentieth of a grain inserted under the skin causes a tingling which begins in the fingers and toes and extends over the whole body. Yet we know that Kolliker {Virchow's ArcMv, Bd. x., p. 261) opened the skulls of living frogs and dropped in a solution of the poison, causing violent general tetanic convulsions. Prevost {Rohin's Journal dc VAnatoinle, 1868, ]). 209) performed similar experiments, and of course the Frenchman contradicted the German on every jjoint. We include this drug in our observa- tions, as it illustrates how exceedingly cruel the painless hypodei-mic injections may be, though they involve no cutting operations whatever. Professor Wood says the study of its ])hysiological action shows that its rational therapeutical use (note the distinction!) must be limited.—{Therapeutics, p. 169.)