Gerald Francis Yeo

“ There is hardly a thought that can strike a practitioner that does not in some way depend upon physiological facts which have been elicited by experimental research. I do not mean to state that the accurate and painstaking observation of clinical facts and postmortem appearances has not done much—probably more than anything else—to bring our medical knowledge to its present stand-point; but I contend that clinical observation and post-mortem experience without physiological research would never have been able to advance medicine to the position it holds in modern times ”

“ The value of physiology depends on the knowledge it gives us of the normal operations of the body, and not on the few cases in which certain experiments happen to aid us in understanding disease, and thus directly promote the practice of the healing art. Our argument is rather this: Physiology is the foundation of both pathology and therapeutics, which together make up medicine; and therefore rational medicine depends directly upon physiology for its strong growth and genuine progress. ”

“ Now, physiology can not advance without vivisection; experiment on living animals is as essential to its progress (though far less general in application) as is dissection for the study of anatomy. Therefore, experimental research, including that carried out on living animals, is as necessary for the progress of the practice of medicine as is experimental research in any other science for its advancement and application to daily life. ”

“ The immediate object of physiological experiment is, then, not to make out new practical methods of treating disease, but rather to attain to a more complete and sound understanding of those general laws which govern the actions of the living body in health—laws which must ever form the only firm basis of the knowledge of disease, and the only sure guide to judicious modes of treatment. ”

“ Such a test is totally wrong and misleading when applied to the utility of experiment on the lower animals. The matter must be viewed from a wider standpoint than that embracing only single instances of direct benefits accruing from specific experiments.
The primary object of experimental research is to advance physiology—the science which teaches us the uses of the various organs and textures of the body in the normal state, and how the working of the animal economy is carried on in health. ”

“ Before attempting to bring forward single cases, as instances where certain experiments have been of direct use to medical and surgical practice, I shall examine the question from the opposite stand-point, by taking some simple case of every-day occurrence, and glancing at its routine examination and treatment. We can then see to what extent vivisection influences the practitioner in the details of his daily work. We may safely take a case at random; one not associated very closely in our minds with any brilliant experimentation will, perhaps, be the best. ”

“ By vivisections the chief errors in its application were by slow degrees removed, and now we rest almost exclusively on the improved method of tying arteries as the means of arresting the flow of blood from a recent wound. First of all, the nerves used to be included in the ligature. Vivisection showed the folly of thus attempting to confine the animal spirits, or nervous fluid, and practice proved that thus tying the nerves always caused excruciating agony, and often gave rise to fatal spasms (tetanus) , which made ligature to be dreaded even by its warmest advocates. ”

“ The rational practice of physic, as it is carried on in the present day, is in a great measure the outgrowth of a slowly growing physiological science, upon which it depends, and from which it can not be separated. ”

“ PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN KING'S COLLEGE.
OVER and over again we have been challenged by the opponents of science to give "one conclusive example where experiment has been of direct use to practical medicine." To any one familiar with the history of scientific medicine there can be no difficulty in finding numerous such instances, and, as a matter of fact, many examples have from time to time been given by various writers ”

“ Experiments upon living animals has shown us that this power of absorbing extends to such things as catgut, a material readily made into strong cords. Properly prepared catgut is, therefore, almost universally used as a ligature, the ends are cut off short, and the knot is left to be absorbed, and never once thought of again. ”

“ But, further, were we not familiar by vivisections, and by the removal of tissues from the bodies of recently killed animals, with the fact that the textures can retain their life and function for a considerable period after their normal circulation has ceased, who would have dared to suggest that the entire limb of a living man should be deprived of its blood during the time occupied by a tedious operation?
Then, with regard to the means of permanently arresting the escape of blood from the wounded vessels. We have no longer a receptacle for blood ”