England, he volunteers as a missionary to Central Africa. Among his many titles, fern-owl, wheelbird, churr-owl, dor-hawk, jarr-owl, nighthawk, eve-churr, night-swallow, goatsucker, but one, the last, is opprobrious. The country bumkin will assure you with a grave face that hedgehogs suck cows, and that the night-jar acts in a similar way towards cattle, sheep, goats, etc. A thing which he can no more do, than you, respected reader, could jump over the moon. The rustic is given to believing that which he has never seen, where natural history is concerned, and the more he has never seen it the more intensely he believes it. He disdains to check his fancies by facts, and owing to this mental attitude save mankind from ravages which might mean starvation. Sometimes the night-jar carries his friendship a little further, and benefits beasts directly as well as their masters indirectly by swooping to and fro underneath cows, skilfully darting close to the udders, in order to rid them of the troublesome flies which collect there; a boon which the meek beasts themselves understand and value. This kindly habit has caused the monstrous libel to be circulated that this invaluable bird steals milk!! Some purblind sage dubbed him "goat-sucker," and the nickname sticks to him still. Sad and strange to say powder and shot are this beautiful creature's wages almost wherever he is found-paid by the farmer, the game THE NICHT-TAR many cruel superstitions have crept into. his creed, articles of belief which he hugs very tightly indeed, and refuses to part with on any such paltry pretext as the impossibility of proof. It is no good to say that such things cannot be; he will answer that seeing is believing, but then. the seeing is invariably done by proxy. The benefactions of this entirely insectivorous bird are so vast that, except by wholly losing them, we could hardly appreciate their magnitude. Many of the moths on which he habitually feeds, just at the moment when they are about to multiply themselves by millions, the turnip, cabbage, yellow-underwing and buff-tip moths for instance, to say nothing of various destructive beetles, are the scourges of vegetation. The land is as the garden of Eden before them and behind them a howling wilderness. Birds with his tastes keeper, the cruel sportsman who kills as a pastime, and the pseudo-naturalist. Tell where my lane is? Not I! Tomorrow there would be a man with a gun, setting all the daisy-spangled valley atremble with hideous echoes-a thunder not of God. My beautiful stand-offish love would lie bleeding, gasping out his harmless, useful life; next week his lovely body would stand uglified out of all recognition in some glass case. His sorrowful widow would be at her wit's end how to fill the destitute mouths of her twin orphans; may-be some prowling "naturalist" would find them too, and carry off the pair of dumpy, precious little souls to perish. By your leave, the night-jar and I will keep our world of summer snow and crystal lights to ourselves, as long as we can. EDITH CARRINGTON. Erroneous Method in Medical Education. BY DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. (Addressed to the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary.) DESIRE to bring before you some grave considerations which are the results of my long experience in medicine. A Physiological or Pathological Laboratory arranged for the legitimate investigation of the material composition of the tissues and secretions of the human body, is an interesting and important department of medical study. The laboratory, however, is now commonly used as a place for experimenting upon living animals as if they were dead matter, or simple machines. This method of research is proving, in several ways, extremely injurious to the progress of the Healing Art. The practice of Vivisection and unlimited experimentations upon our humbler fellow creatures must be considered by us both under its intellectual and its moral aspects. From both these points of view, very careful observation has led me to the conviction that this method of investigation is a grave error. There is an ineradicable difference of physical structure between Man and unknown to us, we possessing no power even comparable with many of their powers. Their relations to nature differ in many ways from our relations. It is true that they eat and sleep and dream; that they possess intellectual and moral powers and are susceptible of education. They exhibit a rough rudimentary sketch of our higher spiritual powers, and are related to us in many ways. But the differences are SO great, their whole attitude towards external life is so different, that they may be truly said to live in a different world from ours. So that in no possible instance can we draw a positive conclusion respecting the lower animal nature, that can be transferred as reliable information to guide us in relation to the action of the human organs and functions, either in health or disease. This misleading difference is true not only in relation to the spontaneous working of functions, but it is also true in respect to the actions of poisons, of drugs, and the artificial production of diseases. Animals can be rendered scrofulous, diabetic, syphilitic, leprous, by forcing the poison of diseases into their bodies. Morbid action, atrophy, slow death, can be produced by removing portions of their organs; but no deductions drawn from these artificial conditions can be transferred to man in order to cure human disease, or restore lost function. The scrofula, diabetes, syphilis, or rabies takes on a different form when the lower animal has been artificially poisoned by these diseases. In not a single instance known to science has the cure of any human disease resulted necessarily from this fallacious method of research. DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. every species of lower animals. Nowhere is there identity of structure or of function. Resemblance or parallelism often exists, but identity never. Take the dog, for instance, whose attachment to Man furnishes us with the widest opportunities of observation. In no single function of its body is the action of the function the same as in Man. All the processes of digestion, including its large group of connected organs, differ from those of the human being. Observe carefully the processes of healthy living animals. You will find that their senses act in a different way to ours, a way which is often quite In 1849-50 I was a student in Paris, and with the narrow range of thought which marks youth, I was extremely interested in the investigations respecting the liver and gall bladder, which Claude Bernard (Majendie's successor) was then carrying on, and lecturing upon at the Collège de France and the Sorbonne. I called upon M. Bernard to ask him where I could find some works on "Physiologie Appliquée which would show me how the results of these investigations could be applied to the benefit of man. M. Bernard received me with the utmost courtesy, but told me there was no such book written-the time had not yet come for the deductions I sought-experimenters were simply accumulating facts. We are still, fortysix years later, vainly accumulating facts! In the summer of 1891, Dr. Semmola, "one of the most brilliant pupils of Claude Bernard," lectured in Paris on Bright's disease, which he has been studying for forty years with unlimited experimentation on the lower animals, for the purpose of producing in them artificial inflammation and disease of the kidneys. What is the result to the human being of all this prolonged and ingenious suffering inflicted on helpless creatures ?" Dr. Semmola insisted upon temperance in eating as well as drinking, and said that the best way to preserve health was to eat only what was needed for the nourishment of the body."-No cure for the human malady had resulted from this persistent experimentation. Is it not intellectual imbecility to waste thought and ingenuity in putting animals to lingering and painful deaths in order to re-assert the well-proved fact, that intemperance in eating and drinking will produce forms of digestive and excretory disease, varying with the idiosyncracy of the individual! In late discussions in the French Academy of Medicine relative to chloroform, where Laborde and Franck exhibited experiments on animals, Dr. Le Forte (distinguished surgeon) says, "None of these experiments give us any instruction whatever which is useful in practical surgery. Whatever their scientific interest may be, their deductions are in no way applicable to man. Experimenters relate causes of death, but nothing of the sort is generally found in the deaths of practical. surgery. The man faints when operations are begun too soon, or is frightened by preparations. He dies because being a man, his nervous system re-acts in a different way from that of the dog or the rabbit. Do not count in any way upon the teachings of physiologists in practical matters. Don't let your patients see any preparations-give the chloroform slowly -wait till he is profoundly asleep.—That is all you can do." Again, at another discussion at the Academy, M. Verneuil says : "It is incorrect to say that laboratory experiments give certainty to medicine, and make it scientific instead of empirical. The fact is that experimentation has put forth as many errors as truths. There is not sufficient identity, either physiologic or pathologic, between man and the mammifères such as the dog and the rabbit. The different ways of dying under chloroform have been long ago stated by surgeons. The experiments shown by M. Laborde on the rabbit must be absolutely rejected, as contrary to experience (in man). Maurice Perrin showed to Vulpian in 1882 that the nervous re-actions in man differ from those in animals, and the effects produced by chloroformisation could not be relied on as being the same as on man. Vulpian entirely accepted this. The experiments of physiologists have taught us absolutely nothing in the way of preventing chloroform accidents; surgeons have been beforehand (as was natural) in practising artificial respiration and every other method of recovery. However interesting these experiments on animals may be considered, they do not explain satisfactorily the cause of chloroform accidents in man, and in no way show the way of avoiding them." I could multiply these facts by indefinite quotations from experienced physicians, of the intellectual uselessness of a method of research which ignores the spiritual essence of Life, and hopes to surprise its secrets by ruthless prying into the physical structure of the lower animals. We are learning that vivisection is examination of the beginning of death, not life. Loss of blood is a loss of nutriment, the result is muscular debility and enfeeblement of the vital organs, and the introduction of a disturbance in the vital processes, which ends in their destruction. This method of research is now being discredited by many of the most enlightened members of our Profession. But what I wish especially to call your attention to, is the educational uselessness of vivisection in training students and the moral danger of hardening their nature and injuring their future usefulness as good physicians. It is not true that vivisection is necessary to the medical student in order that she may attain the thorough knowledge of human physiology, which is needed for the intelligent exercise of the medical profes Class demonstrations in opening the bodies of the lower animals to examine their organs and tissues, is misleading in respect to the action of human organs. The action of the human salivary glands, the action of the cavities of the human heart, the secretion of the gastric juice, etc., can be more correctly realised by careful anatomical study in connection with clinical observation of the effects of healthy and diseased action in the human being, than by any amount of bloody experiment and mutilation of still living cats and dogs. Such demonstration may gratify that instinct of curiosity which always exists in youthful human nature; or it may pander to that craving for excitement which makes the spectacle of a surgical operation so much more attractive to the undeveloped mind, than careful clinical study--a tendency which is also seen in gambling, watching executions, bull fights, etc., but these are tendencies to be repressed in serious and responsible study, not encouraged. The precious mental activities of the student need to be specially trained into observation of our human faculties, in health and in disease. The establishment of a Physiological Laboratory for experimenting on living animals, in a medical school, is not only giving a wrong direction to intellectual activity, but is wasting the valuable time of the student, and diverting the attention of the young practitioner from that careful and intelligent study of the human organism which alone can lead to practical beneficial results. This practice must therefore be condemned as giving a false direction to the intellectual faculties of the young. Of the moral danger involved in such methods of study, there can be but one opinion by thoughtful and observant persons within the ranks of our Profession. The exercise of our superior cunning in destroying an animal's natural means of self-defence, that we may (with convenience to ourselves) watch changes that occur in its organs during the slow process of a lingering death, is an exercise of curiosity which inevitably tends to blunt the moral sense, and injure that intelligent sympathy with suffering, which is a fundamental quality in the good physician. The prac tice of recklessly sacrificing animal life for the gratification, either of curiosity, excitement, or cruelty, tends inevitably to create a habit of mind which affects injuriously all our relations with inferior or helpless classes of creatures. It tends to make us less scrupulous in our treatment of the sick and helpless poor. It increases that disposition to regard the poor as "clinical material," which has become, alas! not without reason, a widespread reproach to many of the young members of our most honourable and merciful profession. The hardening effect of vivisection is distinctly. recognized in the Profession, although often excused under the abused termscientific. Dr. Loye, who with another physician studied the process of guillotining a malefactor at Troyes, thus writes: "Both of us believed that our wide experience of bloody vivisection would have hardened us to go through the spectacle without very great emotion." My dear friends, it is our duty and privilege, as privilege, as women, entering into the medical profession, to strengthen its humane aspirations-to discourage its dangerous tendencies. We must not be misled by clever or brilliant materialists, who take the narrow view that physical life can be profitably studied without reverencing the spiritual force on which it depends. A physiological and pathological laboratory, legitimately conducted for the investigation of healthy and diseased human secretions, in connection with clinical observation, may be made a valuable aid to medical advancement, and I would always encourage the organization of such a laboratory. But to use it for cutting up animals dying under anæsthetics is stupidity; and to convert it into a torture chamber of the lower animals is an intellectual error, and a moral crime. I earnestly ask all women physicians to consider the special responsibility which rests upon them, to take that large religious view of life, which alone can check any degrading tendencies in intellectual human activity, and elevate our noble Profession. Let us not be misled by sophistical arguments, but look steadily at the actual facts of animal torture, and work persistently for the total abolition of vivisection from our medical schools. this way, we shall justify our entrance into medicine, and prove ourselves strong supporters of that noble humanity which is the especial characteristic and solid foundation of the Medical Profession. In The Humane Poets. No. 3. ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796. more Fa Southron may venture an opinion there is no dearer figure, no cherished memory to the vast majority of Scotchmen than that of the immortal ploughman-poet. Robert Burns was born in 1759 at a cottage in Ayrshire, which his father, William Burness, a poor gardener, had built with his own hands. The elements of learning, including also the rudiments of the French language, were imparted to young Robert at the parish school at Dalrymple. It was in his sixteenth year that he first, as it was termed by himself, "committed the sin of rhyme." After his father's decease, in absolute poverty, in 1784, Burns determined to try his fortune in Jamaica, and in order to raise money for his passage proposed to publish his few poems by subscription. Their unexpected but most deserved success detained the poet in Scotland, and at a later period he obtained a small office ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye; May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart. Go, live, poor wanderer of the woods and field! The bitter little that of life remains: No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains, To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. as exciseman. In 1792, at the suggestion This painting was presented June, 1858, by John Dillon, Esq., to the National Portrait Gallery. We quote two of Burns' poems which exhibit his deep and tender sympathy with the animal creation :WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT. TO A MOUSE TURNED UP IN I would be laith to rin an' chase thee, I'm truly sorry man's dominion Which mak's thee startle I doubt na', whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave, 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, And never miss 't! Seek, mangled wretch,some place of wonted rest No more of rest, but now thy dying bed! The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. Oft, as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait, The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate. HER NEST BY A PLOUGH. Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin; An' bleak December's winds ensuin Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain |