But has this hope been fulfilled? Pasteur, we are told, has claimed the discovery of a cure for hydrophobia through experiments on animals. It may be well worth its cost if only true; but we cannot forget that its practical value is by no means yet demonstrated. Aside from this, has physiological experimentation during the last quarter of a century contributed such marked improvements in therapeutic methods that we find certain and tangible evidence thereof in the diminishing fatality of any disease? Can one mention a single malady which thirty years ago resisted every remedial effort, to which the more enlightened science of to-day can offer hopes of recovery? These seem to me perfectly legitimate and fair questions, and, fortunately, in one respect, capable of a scientific reply. I suppose the opinion of the late Claude Bernard, of Paris, would be generally accepted as that of the highest scientific authority on the utility of vivisection in "practical medicine;" but he tells us that it is hardly worth while to make the inquiry. "Without doubt," he confessed, "our hands are empty to-day, although our mouths are full of legitimate promises for the future."

Was Claude Bernard correct in this opinion as to the "empty hands?" If scientific evidence is worth anything, it points to the appalling conclusion that, notwithstanding all the researches of physiology, the chief forms of chronic disease exhibit to-day in England a greater fatality than thirty years ago. In the following table I have indicated the average annual mortality, per million inhabitants, of certain diseases, first, for the period of five years from 1850 to 1854, and secondly, for the period twenty-five years later, from 1875 to 1879. The authority is beyond question; the facts are collected from the report to Parliament of the Registrar-general of England:

Average Annual Rate of Mortality in England, from Causes of Death, per One Million Inhabitants.

NAME OF DISEASE.During Five Years, 1850-54.During Five Years, 1875-79.
Gout,1225
Aneurism,1632
Diabetes,2341
Insanity,2957
Syphilis,3786
Epilepsy,105119
Bright's disease,32182
Kidney disease,94114
Brain disease,192281
Liver disease,215291
Heart disease,6511,335
Cancer,302492
Paralysis,440501
Apoplexy,454552
Tubercular diseases and diseases of the Respiratory Organs,6,4246,886
Mortality from above diseases:9,02610,994

This is certainly a most startling exhibit, when we remember that from only these few causes about half of all the deaths in England annually occur, and that from them result the deaths of two-thirds of the persons, of both sexes, who reach the age of twenty years.[25] What are the effects here discernible of Bernard's experiments upon diabetes? of Brown-Sequard's upon epilepsy and paralysis? of Flint's and Pavy's on diseases of the liver? of Ferrier's researches upon the functions of the brain? Let us appeal from the heated enthusiasm of the experimenter to the stern facts of the statistician. Why, so far from having obtained the least mastery over those malignant forces which seem forever to elude and baffle our art, they are actually gaining upon us; every one of these forms of disease is more fatal to-day in England than thirty years ago; during 1879 over sixty thousand more deaths resulted from these maladies alone than would have occurred had the rate of mortality from them been simply that which prevailed during the benighted period of 1850 to 1854! True, during later years there has been a diminished mortality in England, but it is from the lesser prevalence of zymotic diseases, which no one to-day pretends to cure; while the organic diseases show a constant tendency to increase. Part of this may be due to more accurate diagnosis and clearer definition of mortality causes: but this will not explain a phenomenon which is too evident to be overlooked.

"It is a fact," says the Registrar-general, in his report for 1879, "that while mortality in early life has been very notably diminished, the mortality of persons in middle or advanced life has been steadily rising for a long period of years." It is probable that the same story would be told by the records of France, Germany, and other European countries; it is useless, of course, to refer to America, since in regard to statistical information we still lag behind every country which pretends to be civilized.[26] Undoubtedly it would be a false assumption which from these facts should deduce retrogression in medical art or deny advance and improvement; but they certainly indicate that the boasted superiority of modern medicine over the skill of our fathers, due to physiological researches, is not sustained by the only impartial authority to which science can appeal for evidence of results.

What then is the substance of the whole matter? It seems to me the following conclusions are justified by the facts presented.

I. All experiments upon living animals may be divided into two general classes; 1st those which produce pain,—slight, brief, severe or atrociously acute and prolonged; and 2nd, those experiments which are performed under complete anæsthesia from which either death ensues during unconsciousness, or entire recovery may follow.