very naturally exists as to what physiologists and doctors mean by
“experiment.” In ordinary language an “experiment” suggests a haphazard
venture, the doing of something blindly and in ignorance, just “to see
what will happen.” It is true that long ago in the eighteenth century
there were men callous enough and ignorant enough to make such “fool’s
experiments” on living animals. But when scientific men speak of “the
experimental method” and the acquisition of knowledge by experiment,
they do not allude to haphazard attempts to see what will happen when
something extraordinary is done. The experiment of the experimental
method is arranged so as to provide a definite answer to a definite
question, and the question has been thought out by a man who knows the
whole record of previous experiment and knowledge in regard to the
subject which is under investigation.
Thus in the inquiry as to the possible prevention of the deadly effect
of snake poison introduced into the human body by the bite of snakes,
the first question asked was, “Is it true, as sometimes stated, that a
poisonous snake is not poisoned by having its own poison injected into
its flesh?” The experiment was tried. The answer was, “It is true.”
Next it was asked, “Is this due to the action of very small doses of
the poison which pass constantly from the poison gland into the snake’s
blood, and so render the snake ‘immune,’ as happens in the case of
other poisons?” The experiment was tried. Snakes without poison glands
were found to be killed by the introduction of snake’s poison in a
full dose into their blood. Then it was found that a horse could be
injected with a dose of snake poison, or half the quantity necessary
to cause death, and that it recovered in a few days. The question was
now put, “Is the horse so treated rendered immune to snake poison,
as the snake is which receives small doses of poison into its blood
from its own poison gland?” Accordingly the experiment was made.
The horse was given a full dose of snake poison, and did not suffer
any inconvenience. At intervals of two days it was given increasing
injections of snake poison without suffering in any way, until at last
an injection in one dose of thirty times the deadly quantity of snake
poison--that is, enough to kill thirty unprepared horses--was made into
the same horse, and it did not show the smallest inconvenience. The
question was thus answered: Immunity to snake-bite can be conferred by
the absorption of small quantities (non-lethal doses) of snake poison.
The next question was this: “If something has been formed in the
horse’s blood by this process, which is an antidote to snake poison,
should it not be possible, by removing some of the horse’s blood and
injecting a small quantity of it into a smaller animal, to protect
that animal from snake bite?” The experiment was accordingly made.
Rabbits and dogs received injections of the blood of the immune horse.
An hour after they received full doses of snake poison. They suffered
no inconvenience at all; they were “protected,” or “rendered immune.”
The next question was, “Will the antidote act on an animal after it has
already been bitten by a snake?” The experiment was made. Rabbits were
injected with snake poison. After a quarter of an hour they were on the
point of death. A dose of the immune horse’s blood was now injected
into each--in ten minutes they had completely recovered and were
feeding. The means was thus found of preventing death from snake-bite.
The protective horse-blood was properly prepared, and sent out at once
to Cochin China and to India. It was there tried upon human beings who
had been accidentally bitten by deadly snakes, and it proved absolutely
effective; it saved the men’s lives. It is now used (wherever it can be
obtained in time) as the sure antidote to snake-bite, though it is not
at present possible to supply it whenever and wherever it is needed.
That is an example, briefly told, of the experimental questioning of
Nature--such as is pursued in the laboratories of medical men and
physiologists. They do not perform haphazard experiments; but each
experiment is so arranged as to give a definite answer to a definite
question, leading to a large result. By no other process can knowledge
of many things, which it is urgent for us to have, be obtained. We
should have to wait centuries if we merely watched Nature, and hoped
for some accidental circumstance to reveal the facts.
What, after all, do we understand and mean by “pain”? It is not
merely the sharp sting, and consequent shrinking caused by wounds and
violence. That, we know well enough, is a beneficent arrangement by
which men as well as animals are prevented from knocking themselves
to pieces, and are driven into avoiding danger to life and limb. But
“pain” includes, besides this, the anguish arising from the weary,
fruitless struggle against disease and starvation, from the disaster to
the household caused by the untimely death of its mainstay, from the
slaughter of children by poisonous foods, and from the neglect of the
laws of health of body and mind.
Ignorance, the “curse of Hell,” is the cause of all suffering.
Knowledge is the wing which takes us heavenward, and frees us from
misery. I cannot put it better than in Shakespeare’s words. It is
man’s destiny to diminish pain on this earth, and that not by timidly
shrinking from and emotionally raving about the horrors of pain, but by
facing them and deliberately accepting the responsibility of producing
a small and brief suffering to a few animals as the price of the
salvation of his fellow-creatures from the far greater pain which is
the assured and fatal companion of ignorance--accursed ignorance!
A recent writer has told us that he cannot believe that good will
follow from the wilful destruction by man of Nature’s greatest and most
beautiful production--a living thing. He poses as a sentimentalist and
seems to regard it as the indication of a superior and gentle mind to
refuse to sanction the removal or even the temporary discomfort of what
Nature has called into life. I, too, claim to be a sentimentalist,
but the sentiment which thrills me is one of revolt against the
needless and remediable suffering of all humanity--suffering which man
has brought on himself by his stumbling, half-hearted resistance to
Nature’s drastic method of purifying and strengthening the race, her
remorseless slaughter of the unfit. It is this suffering which some
would allow their fellow-men still to endure, now and for generations
to come, rather than have their own tranquillity disturbed by the
record of that modicum of immediate pain and sacrifice of animal
life which is the price of freedom for mankind from far greater pain
hereafter. We have to learn to mitigate and to minimise pain, not
to run away from it. It is childish to weep over the distortion and
destruction of Nature’s products by man’s violence and ignorance. What
we can and should do is to see that our dealings with this fair earth
and its living freight are guided not by vain regret, but by knowledge
and foresight.
THE END
R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.