Treatise on human physiology : For the use of students & practitioners of medicine / By Henry C. Chapman. Illustrated with 595 engravings.
- Henry Cadwalader Chapman
- Date:
- 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Treatise on human physiology : For the use of students & practitioners of medicine / By Henry C. Chapman. Illustrated with 595 engravings. 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 comparing the resnlts obtained by the various methods made use of. As objections are often made to the experimental study of physi- ology, it will not, it is hoped, be considered superfluous if we, for a moment, consider some of the most important of those usually advanced. It is often urged as an objection to a vivisection, that the pain inflicted so disturbs the normal condition that any result as to the function of a part determined in this way is valueless ; the suiferino; entailed vitiatino; anv conclusion as to the healthv function of the part examined. This objection is, of course, not made if anaesthetics are used. There are, however, experiments performed in which it is necessary that the animal should be in the full pos- session of its foculties and which, from the conditions of the inves- tigations, make the use of anaesthetics impossible. As regards such investigations it may be said, without doubt, that animals sufl'er far less from the pain inflicted in a vivisection than man does from a similar wound due to an accident or the knife of the surgeon. This is due to several causes ; the animal is in ignorance of what is going to be done, forgets the operation almost immediately, his nervous organization is less susceptible than tliat of the human being, and his wounds heal up more quickly. The influence of pain, though less in an animal than man, must nevertheless be always taken into consideration. Whenever the vivisection is performed without an anaesthetic, the physiologist ought not to draw any conclusion from the experiment until the animal has had time to recover from the effects of the shock, hemorrliage, etc., and has so far returned to his normal condition that the influence of pain, if any still exists, is so small in amount that it cannot be considered as interfering with the func- tion of the structure examined. It is evident, therefore, that if the physiologist had no higher motive, selfishness would induce him to be as merciful as possible and to eliminate, so far as he is able, pain, as a possible source of fallac}- in his conclusions. The animal, both during and after vivisection, should be treated just as a patient undergoing an operation would be by a wise sur- geon ; the object in both cases being to restore, as rapidly as pos- sible, the physiological conditions—the conditions of health. As an illustration of what has just been said, as regards the amount of permanent disturbance produced in an animal by a vivisection, it may be mentioned that Blondlot's jiointer bitch, in which a gastric fistula had been made, was used, after her recovery, by her master for eight years in the field for hunting purposes, and in the labora- tory for obtaining gastric juice, and that during that period the dog had two litters of pups. The Canadiau, St. ]Martin, on whom the gastric fistula was caused by a gunshot wound, producing far more dangerous effects than the vivisection just referred to, lived to be eighty-four years old, enjoyed good health all his life, married and had children, per-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21226131_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
