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EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS CONDEMNED.

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perspirationem facit. There is not a single physician, we are certain, however inattentive he may be to the progress of chronic affections, who has not had to observe the soothing influence exercised upon the general state of invalids by the disposition of mind alluded to by the celebrated professor of Padua in the aphorism we have just quoted. But it is above all the physician who can handle with success the instrument of this moral treatment; it is above all his friendly sympathising speech, which can shed hope upon this troubled soul. How much then must it be his imperative duty to bring to the practice of the art those moral qualities which ought, if I may so speak, enlarge and extend its limits."

That the inordinate and almost exclusive attention, which has, for the last forty years more especially, been paid to the physical effects of-or, in other words, the anatomical lesions left by-disease, has tended to materialise the intellectual character of medical men, we have already had occasion to maintain. That it is apt, at the same time, to deaden the sensibility, and check the outgoings of sympathy from the heart, will be admitted by many as well as by M. Simon.

"It is more especially since the study of Pathological Anatomy has introduced its important data into the science of Medicine, that the compassion of the physician for the sufferings of human nature has ceased to be perceived in works descriptive of disease, and that it no longer gives a colouring to the sad details of suffering and death. There, the heart never breathes any warmth into science; there, sentiment never beams upon the dark picture of the miseries of life. Whether it treats of a disease which, like pulmonary phthisis, seems to select its victims from among those into whose minds the hand of God has poured his most precious gifts, or of that terrible affection which strikes the mother in the midst of the sweet delights of maternity, and deprives the infant at its birth of that heart in which it should pass the first years of the second phasis of its life, as the first was passed in the cradle of flesh where it was conceived; in a word, in diseases too numerous to be named, where art can only deplore its impotency, as well as in those in which it displays all its efficacy, there is nothing which proceeds from the heart, there is nothing which evidences the sympathy of the physician for the sufferings of humanity; it would seem as if this humanity were become simply an object of natural history;-absentem, marmoreamve putes. There are even some of these works where not only you would search in vain for a reflection of that human sympathy which ought so naturally to arise in the heart of the physician, but where, in place of this sentiment, you will observe a kind of ill-dissembled joy, in the prospect of the fatal event which gives the opportunity of verifying an uncertain diagnosis."

Alas! is there not too much truth in the bitter reproof which these last words convey ? It cannot be denied. The satisfaction at finding one's professional predictions confirmed by dissection, too often, we fear, sears the heart against any tender emotions which might otherwise have arisen.

We are glad to find that Dr. Simon, while he does not absolutely condemn the performance of experiments upon living animals, denounces with great force and truth that revolting spirit of reckless disregard of suffering which has characterised not a few of the physiologists of the present day. Even he however is, we think, far too tender to such men as Majendie and Flourens, in excusing these barbarities on the score of the " remarquables enseignements" which they have taught us. We attach infinitely less value to the vaunted discoveries of these experimenters than he and perhaps most medical men seem willing to admit; and for this very simple reason: have they taught us better than we knew before how to prevent

and cure disease, or to mitigate suffering, or to prolong and sweeten life? Oh no; but then they have solved some perplexing physiological problem, or corrected some prevailing physiological error, or established some grand physiological doctrine! Truly has our author said that, "before any one can acquire that special aptitude to discover truth amidst the proteiform reactions of struggling sensibility, one needs to have the placidity of a butcher, or of one of the knackers of Montfauçon."

Even to the dead relics of humanity, it is right and proper that some show of respect, some degree of religious decorum, be paid. It is quite possible to associate this sentiment of regard with the exigencies of science. There is no doubt but that he, who thinks of the change which that pale corpse is yet destined to undergo, will cease to view it as mere brute matter to be experimented upon. When a more generous philanthropy shall animate the zeal of medical men in behalf of their suffering brethren, they will be naturally led to view their mortal remains with a feeling almost akin to religious respect. Might it not be well to promote and encourage this feeling by inscribing on the walls of the dead-house and dissectingroom a moral sentence, a hallowed text here and there, to recall the frivolous or irreverent mind to thoughtful meditation? Think you that science would lose aught of what might be truly useful, if its pursuit was blended with an occasional solemn reflection? No, it would only become more sanctified and ennobled. A remark of Victor Hugo may be justly applied to this subject. "Through all things," says this distinguished writer, "see that a moral and sympathetic thought is made to circulate, and then there will be nothing deformed or repulsive. Associate a religious idea with an object the most hideous, and straightway it will become pure and holy. Affix God to a gibbet, and you have the cross."

It would have given us great pleasure to have followed our author in the examination of many of the other chapters of his work. Our object, however, has been rather to give our readers an idea of its general tone and bearings, than to analyse it in detail. It might, indeed, have been not without use in the present day, when there is so much laxity of professional decorum if not of professional principle also, to have considered some of the special duties of medical men to one another, as well as to the public. Want of space, however, entirely precludes us from doing so now; but we regret this omission the less, as the great object in every enquiry upon ethics and morality should be to trace them upwards to the source from whence they flow, the only sure foundation on which they can be built-Religion. If the spring be pure, the stream will be pure also; make the tree good, and its fruit will be good also.

There is, however, one chapter to which, as treating of our own gentle craft,-"De la critique en medecine”- -we must afford a brief and passing notice. A single extract will suffice:

"If all medical writers were influenced solely by the love of truth and by the sincere desire to benefit their fellow-creatures, the task of the critic would be alike an easy and a pleasant one. But unfortunately such is not the case, and not a month passes over our heads that we do not meet with some lamentable instance or another of medical works, that are the offspring of very different motives. Such publications, as we are now alluding to, might be passed over, in other departments of literature or science, as utterly contemptible and unworthy of notice. In medicine, however, it is otherwise; for even the meanest

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SOLEMN OBLIGATIONS OF OUR PROFESSION.

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of them is evidence in itself of suffering and mischief that have already been inflicted. Is it not therefore to be desired by all who have the good of their profession, as well as the public advantage, at heart, that there should be some controuling power to check the spread and counteract the influence of the many flimsy and misleading works that are continually issuing from the press? The difficulty of correct observation, the natural tendency of the mind to find out between facts a relation which an unprejudiced person will utterly fail to perceive, and the constant operation of those active vital forces which are invariably involved in the production of disease, and which continually serve to disguise the influence of the curative means employed—such are (some of) the principal causes which render it necessary to have the controul of the critic upon medical works. Some one will probably say, how is he (the critic) to judge of the value of many new proposals, before he has had an opportunity of testing them by actual experience? The argument is more specious than solid. How many new proposals are but the iteration of what has already been tried, and found wanting! And how often do the very facts adduced in support of their claims but serve to disclose most convincingly their fallacy and worthlessness! It is, moreover, always to be borne in mind, that when we talk of experience in medical matters, the trial has to be made upon a human being, who applies to us for relief, and is not to be regarded as brute matter on which we may experiment at our will."

Whatever be the subject under discussion, M. Simon treats it with high and elevated views. Every thing appertaining to the life of man ought, in his opinion, to have an air of seriousness cast around it.

We think that, in the main, he is quite right. The medicine of the present day has too little spirituality in it; it savours too much of materialism. It is dissociated from some of its highest privileges, from its noblest ambition. It has mixed itself up with the mercantile spirit of the age; and its aims and ends have necessarily become secular and worldly. As long as this remains the character of our profession, it can never occupy the position in the social scale which it ought to do. It will be regarded as a highly useful art, but not as a dignified and dignifying science.

If medical men think fit to accept the eulogy of the Roman orator (quoted at the beginning of this article) upon their profession, let them remember that just in proportion to its claims to dignity and respect, so is the amount of its responsibilities and duties. Let them not suppose that these are summed up in the skilful ́ administration of remedies, or in the dexterous performance of operations. Let them recollect that the being whom they undertake to relieve, has susceptible moral feelings and a thinking, reasoning soul, as well as a sentient and impressionable body; and that that body and that soul are so intimately, although mysteriously, bound together, and so mutually dependent upon each other in this state of existence, that the one cannot suffer without the other sympathising and being acted upon. Let them think of the fact that many corporeal diseases are aggravated, or even induced, by a feverish or perturbed state of mind; while, on the other hand, some of the sorest ills that flesh is heir to, are more soothed by patient resignation and animating hope than by "all the drowsy syrups of the world." Let them bear in mind that every affliction, bodily and mental, is no blind accident or chance event; but has been sent in mercy, and is designed for some gracious end, and may therefore become the instrument either of peace and happiness or of misery and condemnation to him who is tried thereby; and that every sufferer No. 106. 30

whom they visit is hastening on to another world, and that every death which they behold, while it closes the pilgrimage on earth, is the commencement either of eternal joy or of everlasting woe. When they think of these solemn things, and remember at the same time that to all are the offers of peace and acceptance made; that all are invited to partake of the heavenly blessing; that there is still a fountain open whose waters have the power to heal, and that still a virtue goes out from Him, the very touch of whose garment sufficed to give health and vigour to her who had spent all her substance upon the physicians in vain-shall they who have taken upon themselves the sacred mission of ministering to the sick, not have one word of comfort or of kind admonition to offer to the poor sufferer, trembling on the very verge of dissolution, and who may have no other ear to listen to his prayers and sorrows save that of his physician? Do they not know how much the heart is softened by sickness, and how often the spirit, which has been hitherto thoughtless or insensate, is subdued under the chastisement of pain ?-that the ground thus prepared, is ready for the good seed, if dropped into it; that a word in season may become the message of glad tidings to the soul; that a blessing is promised alike to him who gives and to him who receives; that the apprehension of alarming the fears, and thus of aggravating the danger of an existing disease, can never be a justification for neglecting so hallowed a duty; that, if the opportunity be lost, the hour of repentance and consolation may be for ever gone for as the tree falleth, so must it lie; as death leaves the man, eternity shall find him. It is impossible for the physician to shut out these thoughts entirely from his mind; they will obtrude and force themselves upon his reflection, whether he will or not. A death-bed is too solemn a sight even to him, not to stir up, every now and then, a train of solemn meditation. Let him not wish to stifle or evade its appeal to his heart; let him rather seek to profit by the lesson which it conveys. We have been told that—

"An undevout astronomer is mad: "

What shall we say of an irreligious physician? The one has but to do with the marvels of the material universe, great and glorious as this is; the other is called upon not only to behold the fearful and wonderful mechanism of living sentient nature, but also to deal with the welfare and happiness of immortal men.

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ON THE BRAIN AND ITS PHYSIOLOGY.

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I. THE BRAIN AND ITS PHYSIOLOGY; A CRITICAL DISQUISITION ON THE METHODS OF DETERMINING THE RELATIONS SUBSISTING BETWEEN THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE ENCEPHALON. By Daniel Noble, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Octavo, pp. 450. London: John Churchill, 1846.

II. EXAMEN DE LA PHRENOLOGIE. Par P. Flourens, Secrétaire perpetuel de l'Académie Royale des Sciences (Institut de France) &c. Paris, 1842. Pp. 115.

III. QUELQUES CONSIDERATIONS EN REPONSE A L'EXAMEN DE LA PHRENOLOGIE DE M. LE PROFESSEUR P. Flourens. Par M. S. de Wolkoff. Baden, 1846.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that of all the departments belonging to the science of organization, that relating to cerebral anatomy and physiology is the most involved and obscure. Even setting aside all the unprofitable speculations as to the ultimate relations existing between mind and matter, an enquiry that embraces the mental faculties of men and animals; that regards the respective shares of the mind and of the external senses in the production of sensation; and that attempts to define the connexions existing between individual parts of the brain and individual powers of the mind, such an enquiry must be sufficiently difficult in its prosecution, and still more so in its successful solution. We do not therefore desire to imply, that there are any difficulties in this investigation offering an insuperable obstacle to the attainment of as complete a knowledge of the actions of the brain as of any other organ in the body; on the contrary, the progress made during the present century has not only added a vast number of individual facts to the pre-existing stock, but, which is infinitely more important, it has, by disclosing the clue to the true anatomy of the nervous system, laid the sure and certain foundation for the discovery of the whole of its physiology. This clue we hold to be the fact that the brain and spinal cord have a fibrous structure, a truth for which science is essentially indebted to Gall.

"The most accredited method," says Cuvier, in the Report to the Institute of France, speaking of the ordinary mode of dissecting the brain, "the most accredited method of the schools, is to take away successive slices of the organ, and to remark the appearances offered by each. This is the easiest in practice for the demonstration, but it is the most difficult for the imagination: the true relations of parts, which are always seen cut across, escape not the pupil alone, but the master himself." In allusion to the merits of Gall, M. Flourens, in his recent brochure, justly observes, "Gall was a great anatomist. The idea which he had of following and tracing the fibres of the brain is, for the anatomy of this organ, the fundamental idea."-Examen de la Phrénologie, p. 102.

It is true, indeed, that both of these writers attempt to deprive Gall of the renown attaching to the founder of cerebral anatomy; but a careful