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1 
 
ESSAYS IN MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 IN 
 
 MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH BJLACKW£LL, M.b/ ^ ' ' 
 
 VOLUME 11. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ERNEST BELL, YORK STREET 
 
 COVENT GARDEN 
 1902 
 
'. I 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 ESSAY 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 
 Thk Inki.L'knce ok Women in ihf. Proi k-^sion 
 OK Medicine . . . . 
 
 Erroneous Method in Mei .cal Kdi cati< 
 
 Why Hygien'j Congresse.s fail 
 Appendix ..... 
 
 Scientific Method in IUologv 
 
 Christian Socialism 
 
 On the Decay of Municipal Represkntativi 
 govern.ment - - . . . 
 
 Address Delivered ai the Opening of the 
 Women's Medical College, New York 
 
 The Religion of Healt:i 
 
 1 
 
 33 
 47 
 «5 
 v 
 si 
 
 19; 
 
 21' 
 
 -^"51,3^ 
 
r«jPi 
 
 Thu INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN THE 
 PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 Address f;ivfti at the Opening of the Winter Sis'^ion of tJic Lvndoit Sclund 
 of Medicine for Women, October, iSSy 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
% 
 
% 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN THE 
 PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 In the short time that we meet together to-day I 
 will ask you to let me dwell upon the way in which 
 the most beneficial influence of women in the medical 
 profession may be exercised. I wish also to point 
 out certain dangers, as well as advantages, with 
 which medical study is now surrounded. 
 
 The avenues by which all may enter into the pro- 
 fession are now so much more widely thrown open 
 that there is little difficulty in the way of any man 
 or woman who may wish to acquire a legal right to 
 practise medicine. In Paris all the public medical 
 institutions, both college and hospital, are thrown 
 open to students without distinction of sex. Not 
 only as ordinary students, but as internes and ex- 
 ternes, sex is no longer regarded there as a barrier 
 to opportunity and position. The democratic prin- 
 ciple is everywhere steadily gaining ground, and the 
 individual allowed to try his strength in the great 
 battle of life. Large numbers of women are taking 
 advantage of this wider individual liberty to enter 
 the medical profession. In Great Britain our 
 
 I — 2 
 
 I 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 ! 
 
 I ; 
 
 seventy-three registered lady-doctors are few com- 
 pared with the 3,000 in the United States, yet the 
 nine students who are now connected with our 
 London school, with, in addition, the Edinburgh 
 classes, the Dublin students, and the latest fact that 
 the Gla5^c;ow Medical College has just opened its 
 doors to women, clearly indicate that the movement 
 has taken sturdy root in our country, and when our 
 English work has been carried on for forty years, 
 there is every probability that our British lady- 
 doctors will equal numerically our kinsfolk across 
 the ocean. 
 
 I think, therefore, that all will see the importance 
 of considering the future of this growing army of 
 medical women, and I particularly desire that our 
 students of medicine should realize the far-reachmg 
 character, t le social effects, of this medical career 
 which they are entering on. It is quite certain that 
 the wide adoption of the medical profession by 
 women cannot continue to be an insignificant 
 matter; it must exercise an appreciable effect on 
 future society for good or evil. 
 
 If we were children entering upon a course of 
 education, it would be premature to take stock of 
 the results of education, and cast a far-seeing glance 
 into the future. 
 
 But it is different with adult women — women of 
 education, somewhat impatient of restraint — enter- 
 ing upon a larger liberty, and legitimately jealous of 
 any interference with that liberty. It is therefore 
 imperative upon us to consider very seriously this 
 
1 
 
 THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 matter of self-guidance at the outset of medical 
 education, to take in a large view of future respon- 
 sibility, and ask ourselves that most important 
 question respecting a medical training : What will 
 be its effect ? 
 
 The flippant or superficial person may at once 
 reply : Our object is to gain money and pursue a 
 remunerative calling by looking after sick people. 
 Women find so much diiificulty in honestly support- 
 ing themselves, that it is reason enough that they 
 can in this way do so, and the labourer is worthy of 
 his hire. But I say emphatically that anyone who 
 makes pecuniary gain the chief motive for entering 
 upon a medical career is an unworthy student ; he is 
 not fit to become a doctor, and he will be a labourer 
 not worthy of his hire. What should be thought of 
 a statesman who aspired to the direction of national 
 affairs on account of the salary of ;£"io,ooo ? The 
 nobleness of motive must enlarge with the nobleness 
 of occupation, or the unworthy occupier sinks to a 
 degradation measured by the height to which his 
 career should have raised him. 
 
 Now, there is no career nobler than that of the 
 physician. The progress and welfare of society is 
 more intimately bound up with the pre\ailing tone 
 and influence of the medical profession than with 
 the status of any other class of men. This ex- 
 ceptional influence is not only due to the great 
 importance of dealing with the issues of life and 
 death in health and disease, but it is still more 
 owing to the fact that the body .nd the mind are 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 SO inseparably blended in the human constitution, 
 that we cannot deal with one portion of this con- 
 pound nature without in more or less degree affecting 
 the other. Our ministrations to body and soul can- 
 not be separated by a sharply-defined line. The 
 arbitrary distinction between the physician of the 
 body and the physician of the soul — doctor and 
 priest — tends to disappear as science advances. 
 Every branch of medicine involves moral considera- 
 tions, both as regards the practitioner ,ind the 
 patient. Even the amputation of a limb, the care 
 of a case of fever, the birth of a child, all contain a 
 moral element which is evident to the clear under- 
 standing, and which cannot be neglected without 
 injury to the doctor, to the individual, and to society. 
 But probably it will be generally agreed that the 
 hope of gaining money must not be the primary 
 motive for choosing a medical career ; but that 
 interest in the line of study and kind of life, with a 
 perception of the wide and beneficent influence 
 which it can exert, should form the determining 
 motive for becoming a physician. 
 
 If, then, we recognise that, although just reward 
 for honest labour is fair, we must not enter upon 
 medicine as a trade for getting money, but from a 
 higher motive, this motive, as it influences conduct, 
 becomes on that account a moral motive or an ideil 
 which should guide our fu are practical life as 
 ^^nysicians. Now, this ideal necessitates a distinct 
 conception of what is right or wrong fo us, in 
 medicine, both as human beings and as women. 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 H 
 
 Simply sensuous life, without an ideal or without 
 . gher principles of action than the limited needs of 
 every day, tends to degrade the i' iividual and all 
 who surround him. 
 
 What we need is a clear idea of what is really 
 right or wrong, with the reasons on which the judg- 
 ment is based, instead of a confused notion or a 
 vague and ever-shifting standard. 
 
 No woman student of medicine can safely ignore 
 this subject. It is a vital one for us, and only a true 
 answer to it will make our entr .nee into the profes- 
 sion a marked advance in social prog'-ess. 
 
 I do not attempt to disguise the difficulty of laying 
 down the law of right and wrong in medicine ; not 
 only because medicine, as every other part of social 
 life, is subject to the growth of evolution, but be- 
 cause in a state of soci that has not yet succeeded 
 in moulding itself on c.j fundamental principles of 
 Christianity, we are involved in faulty social con- 
 ditions which prevent us from embodying our moral 
 perceptions in every phase of practical life. But, 
 remember, thought and endeavour may live a 
 righteous life, no matter what faulty conditions 
 surround us. When we have a clear view of right 
 and v.xong, we can mentally lepudiate whatever 
 appears to violate the moral law. We can 
 strenuously resist the deadening force of habitual 
 wrong-doing, and never cease the effort to find 
 some way of shaping our mental protest into 
 practical opposition to all forms of immorality. 
 
 You will see in the course of your medical studies 
 
8 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 — particularly if you study abroad — much to shock 
 youi enlightened intellect and revolt your moral 
 sense. In practice also you will be subjected to 
 strong temptations of the most varied character. 
 But just for the reason that as women we ought to 
 see more clearly the broken bridge or approaching 
 danger, in the onward rush of the male intellect, I 
 now dwell on our special responsibility, and shall 
 endeavour to give the reasons for it. 
 
 My object is not to limit, but to enlarge our work 
 in medicine, when I seek to define our ideal. It is 
 true that the great object of this human life of ours 
 is essentially one for every human being, man or 
 woman, barbarous or civilized. It is to become a 
 nobler creature, and to help all others to a higher 
 human status during this brief span of earthly life. 
 But as variety in unity is a law of creation, so there 
 are infinite methods of progress, producing harmony 
 instead of monotony, when the individual or classes 
 of individuals are true to the guiding principles of 
 their own nature. 
 
 For the ideal of every creature must be found in 
 the relation of its own nature to the universe around 
 it. Right and wrong are based upon the sound 
 understanding of this positive foundation. It is this 
 fact of variety in unity, in the progress of the race, 
 which justifies the hope that the entrance of women 
 into the medical profession will advance that profes- 
 sion. 
 
 In order to carry out this noble aspiration, we 
 must understand what the special contribution is. 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 9 
 
 that women may make to medicine, what the aspect 
 of morality which thev are called upon to empha- 
 size. 
 
 It is not blind imitation of men, nor thoufijhtless 
 acceptance of whatever may be taught by them that 
 is required, for this would be to endorse the wide- 
 sprea ! error that the race is men. Our tluty is 
 loyalty to right and opposition to wrong, in accord- 
 ance with the essential principles of our own nature. 
 
 Now, tht' great essential fact of woman's nature is 
 the spiritual power of maternity. 
 
 We should do miserable injustice to this great 
 fact if, looking at it with semiblind eyes, we only see 
 the shallow material aspect of this remarkable 
 speciality. It is the great spiritual life underlying 
 the physical which gives us our true womanly ideal. 
 
 What are the spiritual principles necessarily in- 
 volved in this specii.1 creation of on.e-half the race — 
 principle? which lie witlim the material facts of ges- 
 tation and the care of infancy and childhood, which 
 constitute the distinctive material domain of women ? 
 
 They are the subordination of self to the welfare of 
 others ; the recognition of the claim which helpless- 
 ness and ignorance make upon the stronger and 
 more intelligent ; the joy of creation and bestowal 
 of life ; the pity and sympathy which tend to make 
 every woman the born foe of cruelty and injustice ; 
 and hope — i.e., the realization of the unseen — which 
 foresees the adult in the infant, the future in the 
 present. 
 
 All these are great moral tendencies, and they are 
 
10 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 < i 
 
 i\ 
 
 necessarily involved in the mighty potentiality of 
 maternity. They lay upon women the weighty 
 responsibility of becoming more and more the moral 
 guides in life's journey. Women are called upon 
 very specially to judge all practical action as right or 
 wrong, and to exercise influence for this high 
 morality in whatever direction it can be most power- 
 fully exerted. 
 
 We see the indication of this providential inherited 
 impulse to moral action, in the great and increasing 
 devotion of women tc the relief of social suffering 
 and their sturdy opposition to wrong-doing, which 
 form a distinguishing characteristic of our age. 
 These spiritual mothers of the race are often more 
 truly incarnations of the grand maternal life, than 
 those who are technically mothers in the lower 
 physical sense. 
 
 With sound intellectual growth the range of moral 
 influence increases. But such sound growth can 
 only take place mder the guidance of moral 
 principle ; for moral perception becomes reason as 
 the intellectual faculties grow, and reason is the 
 true light for all. It is in this high moral life, 
 enlarged by intelligence, that the ideal of woman- 
 hood lies. It is through the moral, guiding the 
 intellectual, that the beneficial influence of woman in 
 any new sphere of activity will be felt. 
 
 Thus, from their inherited tendencies, as well as 
 from the existent individuality of their nature, women 
 must seek a high moral standard as their ideal, and 
 acknowledge the supremacy of right over every 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 ^3 
 
 sphere of intell.-cual activity. The hij^'hest type of 
 moral excellence which we can find in the a^'e in 
 which we live, the beneficence which it exerts, the 
 means by which it has been attained, form so many 
 landmarks to j^uide us in our search for the ri^'ht. 
 
 This very important metliod of growth has been 
 well stated by Huxley, that brave fif:jhter in the past 
 for freedom of thought. He has laid down this 
 weighty principle, that ' the past must be explained 
 by the present.' 
 
 This principle is of very wide application. 
 
 What produces the noblest hiunan creature now 
 in our nineteenth century ? What inspires hope ? 
 What sustains us most bravely to fight the battle of 
 life ? What makes life most worth li\ing ? 
 
 When we have ascertained these facts in the 
 present, they will explain the past, aud give the 
 foundations of right for guidance in the future. 
 
 It is a noteworthy feature of the present day that 
 some of our best men, witnessing the failure of so 
 many panaceas for the intolerable evils that afflict 
 society, are longing for that untried force — the action 
 and co-operation of good women. ' Our only hope 
 is in women ! ' is a cry that may sometimes be heard 
 from the enlightened male conscience. But still 
 more significant is the awakening of an increasing 
 number of women themselves. They begin to realize 
 that truth comes to us through imperfect human 
 media, and is thus rendered imperfect ; that every 
 human teacher must be accepted for his suggestive- 
 ness only, not as absolute authority. Women are 
 
 -3 
 
12 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 thus rising^ above the errors of the past, above blind 
 acceptance of imperfect authority, and are earnestly 
 strivinfj to learn the will of the Creator, and walk 
 solely accordinj^ to what they themselves, diligently 
 seeking,', can learn of that Divine will. 
 
 There is no line of practical work outside domestic 
 life, so eminently suited to these noble aspirations as 
 the leptimate study and practice of medicine. The 
 letjitimate study requires the preservation in full 
 force of those beneficent moral qualities — tenderness, 
 sympathy, j^uardianship — which form an indispen- 
 sable spiritual element of maternity ; whilst, at the 
 same time, the proi,'res.-. of the rac». demands that 
 the intellectual hori/on be enlarged, and the under- 
 standing; strengthened by the observation and reason- 
 ing which will give increased efficiency to those 
 moral (jualities. 
 
 The true physician must possess the essential 
 qualities of maternity. The sick are as helpless in 
 his hands as the infant. They depend absolutely 
 upon the insight and judgment, the honesty and 
 hopefulness, of the doctor. 
 
 The fact also that every human being we are 
 called on to treat, is, like the infant and the child, 
 soul as well as body, must never be forgotten. 
 Successful treatment requires the insight which 
 comes from recognition of these facts and the 
 sympathy that they demand. In the infinite variety 
 of human ailments the physician will find that she 
 must often be the confessor of her patient, and the 
 consulting-room should have the sacredness of the 
 
THK PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 13 
 
 Confessional, and she must always be the counsellor 
 and guide. 
 
 In those two departments of medicine which siein 
 to me peculiarly valuable to women physicians, 
 which I hall refer to later — vi/., midwifery atul 
 preventive tncdicine— it would be hard to sa\ whether 
 the moral or intellectual (|ualities of thi- jihysician 
 were called most largely into play, so inseparably 
 are they blended. What patience and hopefulness 
 also are demanded in the lingering trial of chronic 
 illness ! What discrimination and union of gt-iitieness 
 and firmness these cases recjuife ! Then think of 
 the children in our families ! T(! the girls and boys, 
 the young women and men, who grow u|) under our 
 ministrations, what an inspirer of nobKness and 
 purity, what a guardian from temptation the true 
 physician can be ! 
 
 Again, in the treatment of the poor, an immense 
 demand is made upon our pity, patience, and courage. 
 These poor victims of our social stupiditv are often 
 extremely trying. The faulty arrangements which 
 compel us to see thirty, fifty even, in an hour 
 exhaust the nervnus system of the doctor. It 
 requires faith and ourage to recognise the real 
 human soul ^nder the terrible mask of s(iualor and 
 disease in these crowded masses of poverty, and to 
 resist the temptation to regard them as ' clinical 
 material.' The attitude of the student and doctor 
 to the sick poor is a real test of the true physician. 
 
 Having thus realized the profound adaptation of 
 the nature of woman to the practice of the Art of 
 
M 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 
 III 
 
 1 I 
 
 Healing, let us consider in what way the intellectual 
 faculties may he strengthened, so as to give enlarged 
 efficiencv to the maternal qualities. In other words, 
 how shall we becomi' "'^liable doctors ? 
 
 What I have hitherto dwelt on is the necessary 
 attitude of mind or the atmosphere and light in 
 which women physicians must breathe and work if 
 they are to attain to their distinctive efficiency ; let 
 me now refer more particularly to the method of 
 training for our practical work. 
 
 The intellectual training required for the physician 
 is admirably adapted to supply deficiencies in the 
 ordinary experience of women. 
 
 The intellectual characteristics which must be 
 especially ;,'aincd during student life are : the faculty 
 of patient observation, exact statement of what is 
 observed, and cautious deductions from these obser- 
 vations. 
 
 These qualities form the foundation of sound 
 judgment and skilful medical practice. It is not a 
 brilliant theorizer that the sick person refjuires, but 
 the experience gained by careful observation and 
 sound common-sense, united to the kindly feeling 
 and cheerfulness which make the very sight of the 
 doctor a cordial to the sick. If these necessary 
 results of intellectual training can be secured in 
 harmony with the moral structure of womanhood, 
 then a step of real social progress is made by our 
 study of medicine. 
 
 This necessity for making the most painstaking 
 observation of facts, the found-^non to be laid by the 
 
 \ -a 
 ^ 1 
 
THE PROFHSSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 15 
 
 student in every branch of her s» " , is well illus?- 
 trated in the life of Darwin, uhi .*rites thus to a 
 friend : ' I have been hard at work for the last 
 month in dissectinj,' a little animal about the si/e of 
 a pin's head, from the Chronos Archipelaj^'o, and I 
 '-ould spend another month and daily see more 
 beautiful structure.' Of the value of this mt^thod of 
 persistent labour, his friend j^ives this noteworthy 
 testmiony : ' Your sajracious father never did a wiser 
 thin; iihan devote himself to these years of patient 
 toil. It is a remarkable instance of his scientific 
 insifjht and couraj^'e that he saw the necessity of 
 proper training; and did not shrink from the labour 
 of acquirinj; it." 
 
 In medicine, anatomy, physioloj^y and chemistry 
 are the primary studies where that foundaticju of 
 conscientious exactitude must be laid on which the 
 skill of the future physician so larj^'eiy depends. 
 
 The first and indispensable basis of mtdicine is 
 anatomy, with whicli physiolo^'\- is inseparably 
 blended ; for human physit)loj,'y can only be properly 
 studied in connection with the hunian structure, 
 whose condition in hi.alth and disease forms the 
 direct object of our profession. No student should 
 be satisfied until she has most careful!) followed out 
 the structure of every rej^'ion oi that human body 
 with whose life we shall have to deal. Careful 
 anatomical study is the sure and indispensable pre- 
 paration for that not advanced range of clinical 
 observation, where pathology and therapeutics bring 
 us into the direct study of the sick. 
 
 J 
 
i6 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 i ; 
 
 The more thoroughly the human organization is 
 investigated, the more wonderful will the unapproach- 
 able mechanism for the use of human life be seen to 
 be. We shall never regret any amount of time and 
 care spent in acquiring the most intimate knowledge 
 of human anatomy. For even if we never perform a 
 surgical operation, the thorough knowledge of the 
 human frami work with whose aberrations we have 
 to deal, gives a firm foundation for practice that 
 nothing else can supply. 
 
 The thoughtless slashing of the delicate and com- 
 plicated structure of the body, of which untrained 
 students are sometimes guilty, is indicative of a 
 careless, unconscientious future physician. If care- 
 lessness similar to what is sometimes observed in 
 the dissecting-room were carried on in the chemical 
 laboratory, life or limb would soon be sacrificed. 
 Yet a thorough grounding in the structure of every 
 vital organ is more indispensable to us than 
 chemistry, important as the study of chemistry is. 
 Let me here note how the moral element on which 
 I have so strongly insisted comes into play in this 
 the first of our medical studies. Reverence for this 
 physical structure of ours should always be shown 
 in the use and arrangements of the anatomical rooms. 
 Carelessness and irreverence in this department of 
 studv exercise a really deteriorating influence on 
 students of medicine. Respect for the material used, 
 care in its disposition, and a decent covering for 
 each work-table in the intervals of work, may seem 
 small observances, but they exercise a large influence 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 17 
 
 over the moral training of the student when per- 
 sistently carried out. 
 
 It does not enter into my present purpose to 
 enlarge upon the right method of studying each 
 branch of medicine, for that would require a series 
 of discourses. But I must give an emphatic warning 
 against the strange neglect of human physiology 
 which I observe. This seems to proceed from the 
 mistaken idea that necessary knowledge can be 
 obtained from other organisms which bear a mis- 
 leading resemblance to the human. 
 
 What I would insist upcju is, that we should en- 
 deavour to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted 
 with the nature and variations of healthy human 
 / physiology before we are perplexed with the changes 
 of pathology. 
 
 Auscultation and percussion ; observations of the 
 healthy variatit)ns of the pulse, the tongue, the skin, 
 and the various secretions, in as many healthy indi- 
 viduals, both adult and infant, as can be examined, 
 compared, and recorded ; the vital chemistry of the 
 human tissues and secretions in health and disease ; 
 the modifying effects of temperament, heredity, idio' 
 syncrasy, etc.— all this forms a department of human 
 physiology, strangely neglected as a practical study, 
 yet certainly of primary importance to the progress 
 of medicine. 
 
 But I must pass on to what is my immediate 
 purpose— viz., the relation of women to medicine. 
 Having dwelt on the moral and intellectual advan- 
 tages of medical study, I must refer to another 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
i8 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 , i 
 
 f 
 
 aspect of the subject— viz., the dangers which meet 
 our earnest students. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter has recorded the wide-spread recog- 
 nition of this dangerous aspect of medical study when 
 he says : ' There seems to be something in the process 
 of training students for the medical profession which 
 encourages in them a laxity of thought and expression 
 that too frequently ends in a laxity of principle and 
 of action ' ; and he further condemns the tone of some 
 works issued by the medical press. Now, this judg- 
 ment of a very cautious teacher so many years ago, 
 is worthy of the most serious consideration in the 
 present day. The freedom of entrance now accorded 
 to women into the medical profession, lays a very 
 heavy responsibility upon us, to prove that this new 
 and increasing movement will be a future blessing 
 
 to society. 
 
 We are happy in drawing into our schools a large 
 number of capable women— women who may not 
 only be a gain as physicians, but who may exert 
 a most beneficial influence on the profession itself, 
 if they bring into it fresh and independent life. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that our students are 
 now compelled to go abroad for the completion of 
 their medical education, for methods of study in- 
 jurious to morality are exaggerated abroad. The 
 abuse of the poor as subj jts of experimental investi- 
 gation, in whose treatment all decent reserves of 
 modesty are so often stripped away ; the contempt 
 felt foi the mass of women where chastity is not 
 recognised as an obligatory male virtue ; the 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 19 
 
 atrocious cruelty of their experiments on animals- 
 all these results of active intellect, unguided by large 
 morality, as seen in full force abroad, make me 
 deplore the necessity which drives so many of our 
 best but inexperienced students away, in search of 
 more efficient training than they can obtain at home. 
 The two special dangers against which I would 
 warn our students are : 
 
 First, the blind acceptance of what is called 
 ' authority ' in medicine. 
 
 Sixoncl, the narrow and superficial materialism 
 which prevails so widely amongst scientific men. 
 
 In relation to the first point— vi2., distrust of 
 authority— although I fully recognise the respect 
 which is always due to the position of the teacher, 
 and the consideration to be shown to all who are 
 called 'heads of the profession,' — I would very 
 strongly urge you to remember that medicine is 
 necessarily an uncertain science. 
 
 Life in its essence we cannot grasp. We under- 
 stand it only through its effects, and all human 
 judgment is fallible. Careful and wise observation 
 brmg us ever nearer to a knowledge of the con- 
 ditions which are necessary for human well-being ; 
 but experience compels us to recognise the constant 
 failure of theory or dogmatism in dealing with any 
 of the infinitely /aried phases of life. In medicine, 
 we are forced to recognise the errors in diagnosis 
 committed even by distinguished men, and to suffer 
 grievous disappointment from the failure of remedies 
 supposed to cure the sick. We cannot fail to note 
 
 2—2 
 
r 
 
 20 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 the contradictory results of experiments, the same 
 facts differing according to the observer-one fact 
 upsetting another, md one theory driven out by 
 a later one. This uncertainty resuhing from experi- 
 ment, is strikingly exemplified by the battle of 
 experts about the effects of arsenic displayed in a 
 late criminal trial. Or consider the frequent errors 
 of statistics (a branch of knowledge that enters 
 largely into medical science), owing to the imperfect 
 data on which they are often based, important 
 deductions being drawn from them which are logi- 
 cally indisputable, but entirely false, from the un- 
 sound premisses on which they rest. Thus, the 
 death-rate of London, though commonly stated at 
 23 or 24 per 1,000, is really an unknown quantity, 
 on account of the enormous influx of fresh life and 
 the efflux of broken-down lives. 
 
 Our women students especially need caution as to 
 the blind acceptance of authority. Young women 
 come into such a new and stimulating intellectual 
 atmosphere when entering upon medical study, that 
 they breathe it with keen delight ; t^ey are inclined 
 to accept with enthusiasm the V nt theory or 
 statement which the active inte^ of a ck :r 
 
 teacher lays before them. They are accustomed to 
 accept the government and instruction of men as final, 
 and it hardly occurs to them to question it. It is not 
 the custom to realize the positive fact, that methods 
 and conclusions formed by one-half of the race only, 
 must necessarily require revision as the other half of 
 humanity rises into conscious responsibility. 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 21 
 
 •W 
 
 It IS a difficult lesson also, fully to recognise the 
 limitations of the human intellect, which recognition, 
 nevertheless, is necessary before we can grasp this 
 important and positive fact in human experience- 
 viz, that the Moral must guide the Intellectual, 
 or there is no halting-place in the rapid incline to 
 error. The brilliant professor will always exercise 
 an unoue influence over the inexperienced student 
 and particularly over the woman student. I there- 
 fore strongly urge the necessity of cherishing a mild 
 scepticism respecting the dicta of so-called medical 
 science, during the period of student life-scepticism 
 not in relation to truth-that noble object which we 
 hope to approach even more nearly-but scepticism 
 in relation to the imperfect or erroneous statement of 
 what IS often presented as truth. 
 
 Of this o:.. guiding fact, as a basis of judgment 
 we may be quite sure— viz., that whatever revolts 
 our moral sense as earnest women, is not in accord- 
 ance with steady progress ; it cannot be permanently 
 true, and no amount of clever or logical sophistry 
 can make it true. It will be a real service that we. 
 as medical women, may render to the profession if we 
 search out-calmly, patiently, but resoluteh— whv 
 what revolts our enlightened sense of right and 
 wrong IS not true. We shall thus bring to light the 
 profound reason why the moral faculties are ante- 
 cedent or superior to the intellectual famlties, and 
 why the sense of right and wrong must govern 
 medical research and practice, as well as all other 
 lines of human effort. 
 
22 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 «i 
 
 As experience enlarges, we observe the immense 
 separation in lines of conduct which gradually 
 results from an initial divergence between right and 
 wrong— a divergence almost imperceptible at first. 
 We are thus compelled to come to the conclusion, in 
 relation to our own profession, that the worship ot 
 the intellect, or so-called knowledge, as an end in 
 itself, entirely regardless of the character of the 
 means by which we seek to gain it, is the most 
 dangerous error that science can make. This false 
 principle, if adopted by the medical profession, will 
 degrade it, and inevitably produce distrust and con- 
 tempt in the popular mind. 
 
 The second danger against which the student ot 
 medicine must guard is the materialism which seems 
 to arise from undue absorption in the physical aspect 
 of nature, and which spreads like a blight in our 
 
 profession. 
 
 The basis of materialism is the assertion that only 
 
 sense is real. 
 
 Our medical studies necessarily begin with minute 
 and prolonged study of what we term ' dead matter.' 
 If this study be carried on without reverence, it 
 appears to blind the student to any reality except 
 the material under his scalpel or in his crucible— i.e., 
 the facts that the senses reveal. Proceeding logically 
 from this false premiss, that only sense is real, mind 
 is looked upon as an outcome of the brain, and life 
 as the result of organization of matter, which is 
 destroyed when the organization of the material 
 body is broken up. 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 23 
 
 Some persons, successors of the materialistic eccle- 
 siastics who condemned Gahleo, cannot rise beyond 
 the gross evidence of their senses. To such persons 
 reason, which transcends sense, is a vagut unreahty, 
 and the clear teaching of reason may to them seem' 
 doubtful, or superstition. But the stout fight which 
 the old Italian nobly began, and which has been so 
 bravely carried on for freedom of thought in our own 
 day, is beginning to tell and reap a rich reward. 
 Our senses, so far from being the boundary of real 
 existence, are proved to be as untrustworthy guides 
 now, as when Galileo's accusers insisted that the sun 
 moved round the earth in twenty-four hours. The 
 relations of our senses to our conb-iousness change 
 with biological differences, as one creature can see 
 what is quite invisible to another. The boundary- 
 line which exists between our senses and our - on- 
 sciousness is constantly changing, and realities are 
 shown to exist, of which our ordinary consciousness 
 connected with the senses has no knowledge. Thus, 
 life beyond, and independent of the senses, is being 
 proved as positive and pregnant fact. 
 
 The great generalisations of modern science— the 
 Conservation of Energy, -he process of Evolution- 
 are the products of Reason. They are metaphysical 
 conceptions. Like the atomic theory or the law of 
 gravitation, they are practical formula: necessary 
 to the advancement of science from the structure of 
 our minds but they are the results of r-.^ason, not of 
 sense. 
 
 Love, Hope, Reverence, arc realities of a different 
 
I( 
 
 24 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 order from the senses, but they are positive and 
 constant facts, always active, ahvays workinj.^ out 
 miehty changes in human hfe. 
 
 A thoughtful writer has characterized Materialism 
 as an attempt to explain the Universe in terms of 
 mass and motion rather than in te-iis of Intelli- 
 gence. Love, and Will, and it is a true criticism. 
 Let me recall here the serious warning which Huxley 
 gives to the shallow materialist who limits existence 
 
 by the senses. , . , , . *u« 
 
 He says- 'The great danger whio; besets the 
 speculative faculty is the temptation to deal with 
 the accepted statement of facts in natural science 
 as if they were not only correct but exhaustive-as it 
 they might be dealt with exhaustively, in the same 
 way as propositions of Euclid may be dealt with. 
 In reality, every such statement, however true it may 
 be, is true only relatively to the means of observation 
 and the point of view of those who have enunciated 
 it. Whether it will bear every speculative conclusion 
 that may be logically deduced from it is quite another 
 question.' * In the complexity of organic nature 
 there are multitudes of phenomena which are not 
 deducible from any generalizations that we have yet 
 reached ; this is true of every other class of natural 
 objects (as the moon's motions, gravitation, etc.). 
 All that should be attempted is a working hypothesis, 
 assuming only such causes as can be proved to be 
 
 actuall}- at work.' 
 
 These are valuable warnings from our great 
 
 naturalist. 
 
 4 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 25 
 
 The tendency of unprejudiced science in our day 
 is to show the unsatisfactory character of the terms 
 ' matter ' and ' spirit.' For the exaltation of what we 
 term ' matter ' tends constantly to lose itself in what 
 we call 'spirit.' 
 
 Reality always transcends sense. As the vibra- 
 tions of ether are only known as light and colour, 
 and the vibrations of the atmosphere are translated 
 into sound, so in the careful observation of our own 
 mental states, in the experiences of dream-land, in 
 the study of clairvoyants and somnambulists and 
 the revelations of hypnotism, we gain an insight 
 into states of consciousness independent of the 
 senses— states where the old distinctions between 
 matter and spirit seem to become quite inapplicable. 
 One third of human life is spent in sleep, a 
 condition of which at present we know little, except 
 that it entirely changes the life of conscious sense, 
 and that it possesses a mysterious restorative power 
 of the most precious significance to us as physicians. 
 A study of all these mysterious conditions of human 
 life itself, many of which, although occurring abnor- 
 mally, have been presented again and again through 
 all the ages, is surely the most important of all 
 subjects for scientific medical investigation. Let us 
 always bear in mind, as has been well said, ' the fact 
 of illusion is not an illusory fact.' As an exception 
 to a rule -s the most suggestive fact for the investi- 
 gator to grapple with, so those exceptional focts of 
 human nature, which are nevertheless occurring in 
 every age and in every nation, are the facts of all 
 
26 
 
 THE 'NFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 
 ! I 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 hi 
 
 
 j 
 
 n 
 
 others the most worthy of investigation by the 
 scientific medical intellect. This new realm of 
 research, when lef^itimately pursued, promises results 
 of the very highest importance. 
 
 I must not now dwell longer on this new and 
 valuable department of medical investigation— 
 psycho-physiology. But it is an inspiring thought 
 that true science supports the noblest intuitions of 
 humanity, and its tendency is to <"urnish proof 
 suited to our age of these intuitions. I have specially 
 dwelt on this subject now, because the discourage- 
 ment which results from the false reasoning of 
 materialism, injuring hope, aspiration, and our sense 
 of justice, is especially antagoristic to women, whose 
 distinctive work is joyful creation. 
 
 In practical medicine the los£ is immense when 
 recognition of the higher facts of consciousness is 
 obscured, and the physician is unable to perceive life 
 more real th in the narrow limits of sensation. 
 
 The physician is called to stand by the death-bed 
 of the most carefully-tended patient. At that solemn 
 moment the clear glance that sees beyond the boun- 
 dary of sense, the reverential hand-c' p which con- 
 veys hope to the mourner, is the seal of his noble art 
 of healing and the profoundest consolation he can 
 offer to the bereaved. May the time come when 
 every physician can convey this highest gift of healing 
 with his ministrations ! 
 
 I have now considered the fundamental reason why 
 great advantage will result to society through the 
 intellectual cultivation of the woman physician, unless 
 
THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 27 
 
 : 
 
 the study of medicine be pursued in such a way as to 
 do violence to our nature by the destruction of sym- 
 pathy, reverence, and hopv.. 
 
 I have also dwelt on the method of training; 
 especially needful to our students— vi/., patient, 
 persistent drill in the fundamental studies of medical 
 education, a training' which will form the habit of 
 close and careful observation at the commencement 
 of medical life. 
 
 I would now offer a few words of counsel in 
 relation to the work which lies before us when we 
 enter upon the practical career of the physician, 
 for which our medical studies should carefully pre- 
 pare us. 
 
 I believe that the department of medicine in 
 which the j^^reat and beneficent inHuence of women 
 may be especially exerted, is that of the family 
 physician, and that not as specialists, but as the 
 trusted guides and wise counselhns in all that 
 concerns the physical welfare of the family, they 
 will find their most congenial field of labour. 
 
 It is to fit ourselves for this most useful and in- 
 fluential position— vi/., as the medical advisers of 
 families— theit, not limiting our education to any 
 speciality, we have laboured, and must contimie to 
 labour, to remove all obstacles in the way of obtain- 
 ing the fullest medical education. For this reason 
 I have laid so much stress upon the cultivation of 
 habits of careful observation, and I now would give 
 a warning against sensationalism in medical study. 
 
 The unreflecting student (not unnaturally) rushes 
 
28 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 after novelties. There is a certain excitement m 
 witnessing a formidable surgical operation, or seeing 
 a rare case of disease that may never again be pre- 
 sented to our observation. Hut these exceptional 
 occurrences do not tit us for our future medical life 
 as does the careful study of the commoner forms ot 
 di<;.>n.o for thoce are the cases that most nearly con- 
 cern us. Hut because they are common thev cease 
 to interest the unobservant student, who applies a 
 routine treatment. Hut the physician whose facul- 
 ties of observation have been thoroughly drilled has 
 learned this Icssnn-vi/., tha. no two cases of illness 
 are exactly alike, and that it is of the utmost im- 
 portance to our future success as practitioners to 
 note these individual differences, their results, and 
 whv some die whilst others recover. It is far more 
 important to our success as practical physicians to 
 thoroughly master measles and whooping-cough 
 scarlet fever and porrigo, than to study an isolated 
 case of hvdrophobia or leprosy. Moreover, I hold it 
 to be a special duty of our profession to extirpate 
 these common diseases, not to accept them hope- 
 lessly as necessary evils. And it is only by a pro- 
 founder and more comprehensive clinical study of 
 the ordinary diseases of domestic life that ve can 
 
 hope to do this. 
 
 There are two great branches of mediciiie whose 
 importance will, I hope, more and more engage the 
 attention of women physicians. These are mid- 
 wifery, which introduces us to the precious position 
 of the family physician ; and sanitary or preventive 
 
THE PKOl KSSION OF MliDIClNE 
 
 29 
 
 mtdicinc. which enables us to educate a healthy 
 ^'eneration. 
 
 These two departments of the healinjj art will 
 never cease from amon^'st i!s. I consider it a radical 
 defect in our jiresent system of medical education, 
 that these subjects are not brouf,'ht more prominently 
 forward, and both of them raised into first-class 
 professorial chairs. 
 
 Before closing. I must dwell for a few moments 
 on the vital importance of midwifery to the future 
 success of women physicians. This is the more 
 necessary because I observe a singular and Ki-ouin^' 
 disposition on the part of our students, whether in 
 America, France, or England, to despise or neglect 
 midwifery. I do not know whether this proceeds 
 from indolence, as midwifery is the most fatiguing 
 and enchaining branch of the profession, or whether 
 the neglect arises from failure to percei\e the reason 
 of our refusal to be simply midwive-, i'ov our in- 
 sistence upon a complete education really means our 
 determinati(jn to elevate, not repudiate, midwifery. 
 
 But the curious fact remains that many women 
 doctors appear to look down upon this most im- 
 portant branch, and often state that they do not 
 intend to undertake it. Vet it is througi/the con- 
 fidence felt by the mother during our skilful attendance 
 upon her, that we are called in to attend other ail- 
 ments of the family, and thus secure the care of the 
 family health. It is the-, tore of the utmost import- 
 ance to our future position in medicine to establish 
 our ability as thoroughly trustworth}- obstetricians. 
 
^>1^ 
 
 ^:^:i 
 
 30 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN 
 
 It is indispensable to the stability of our movement 
 that very thorough provision be made for the obstetr,- 
 cal education of all our medical graduates. I do not 
 think that any young woman physician is properly 
 equipped for her future difficult career unless she has 
 blnTo a great extent responsible for at least thirty 
 midwifery patients, of whose cases ^^^ ^as made 
 careful and discriminating records, and has had the 
 opportunitv of observing a great many more patients, 
 in addition to the drill in all operative manoeuvres 
 that can be given in college. We need a great 
 maternity department, thoroughly organised, which, 
 whilst arranged with kindest consideration for the 
 poor will put our students through a severe drill, 
 such as is considered necessary at La Maternite in 
 Paris That institution, which receives annually an 
 average of 2,500 patients, having over 10,000 app ica- 
 tions in the year, is not only an invaluable practical 
 school, but it has reduced the mortality amongst its 
 patients to a minimum ; and the searching method 
 of instruction there pursued could be studied by us 
 to great advantage as we try to secure a well-organized 
 maternity charity for our students in London Such 
 a charitv, if humanelv planned, would be a blessing 
 to poor mothers, and it would to a great extent 
 remove the reproach of being obliged to send our 
 enterprising young doctors abroad because London 
 does not afford them sufficient necessary practical 
 
 training. , 
 
 But time warns me to close these remarks, 
 although 1 would gladly have enlarged upon the 
 
THi, PROFESSION OF MEDICINE 
 
 31 
 
 primary importance of preventive medicine — the 
 medicine of the future— for it is quite certain that 
 the greater part of disease, even inchiding many 
 surgical operations, is preventable disease. It is 
 now, unfortunately, the case that unavoidable ab- 
 sorption in the treatment of disease makes the 
 practical physician too often ignore the yet larger 
 duty of preventing it. 
 
 I have tried to show (i) That women, from their 
 constitutional adaptation to creation and guardian- 
 ship, are thus fitted for a special and noble part in 
 the advancement of the healing art. (2) That the 
 cultivation of the intellectual faculties necessary to 
 secure their moral influence requires a long and 
 patient training by methods that do not injure 
 morality. (3) That the noblest department (.f 
 medicine to which we can devote our energies, will 
 be through that guardianship of the rising genera- 
 tion which is the especial privilege of the femily 
 physician. 
 
 In conclusion, my young friends and fellow- 
 workers, I wor.ld ask you all to join with me in the 
 pledge which I gave more than forty years ago to 
 
 the Chancellor of the Western University, who handed 
 to me our first Diploma of Doctor of Medicine. I 
 then promised ' that it should be the effort of my life 
 to shed honour on that diploma.' 
 
 This is the pledge that we must all prepare (or 
 when entering the noble profession of medicine : m 
 receiving honour we must add lustre to it, or We 
 become unworthy of it. 
 
s^ 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN MEDICINE 
 
 It is a difficult life that we enter upon, in entering 
 upon a medical career; but if our Christianity is 
 .'orth anything, it must be 'a battle "ot a dream. 
 We must be members of the church militant if we 
 wish to enter the church triumphant. Lite is a 
 grand preparation for the exercise of ever larger 
 powers, and I heartily welcome you to this winter s 
 course of study, hoping that it may be a little step 
 forward, but a sure one, towards that grai -al 
 
 which must be ever before us. 
 
 I 
 
 
ERRONEOUS METHOD IX MEDICAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 A.Unss.l ori^inally^ to t,u Alu„nur Assoaation of tkc Wo.uurs M./n.i 
 ColUxcofthc .Vov York Iiifiniuin 
 
 ' In iSiji 
 
 \0L. II. 
 
 A 
 
ERRONEOUS METHOD IN 
 EDUCATION 
 
 MEDICAL 
 
 Although it is many years since I have been able 
 to assist in the management of the Infirmary and 
 School which I helped to found in 1853, yet I watch 
 its growth with steady sympathy, and rejoice in its 
 success. 
 
 The last Report of the School, which has just 
 reached me, contains a very important item — viz., 
 the effort of the Alumnae Association to ' Equip a 
 Physiological Laboratory and place it under the 
 superintendence of Professor W. Oilman Thompson,' 
 a New York Vivisector. In relation to this effort, 
 I desire to bring before you some grave considera- 
 tions which are the result of my long experience in 
 Medicine. 
 
 These considerations refer, first, to the kind of 
 work that should be carried on in a Physiological 
 Laboratory, and, second, to the special influence 
 which women are called on to exercise in medicine. 
 
 A Physiological or Pathological Laboratory 
 arranged for the legitimate investigation of the 
 material composition of the tissues and secretions 
 
 • 
 
 3—2 
 
36 
 
 ERRONEOUS METHOD 
 
 ti 
 
 of the human body, is an interesting and 'n^porta^^^t 
 department of medical study. The ^f^r^^: 
 ever is now commonly used as a place for expcn- 
 me'ang upon living animals as if they .ere dead 
 matter, or simple machines. This method of 
 "search is proving in several ways extremely m- 
 jurious to the progress of the Heding Art 
 
 The practice of Vivisection and unlimited experi- 
 mentations upon our humbler fellow-creatures must 
 Z 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 con- 
 viction that this method of investigation is a grave 
 
 'Tet me here state distinctly that I willingly 
 acknowledge the good intentions of all and the 
 ability of some of the clever physiologists of the 
 present dav, although their method of experimenta- 
 tion is erroneous and the effects of that method 
 injurious, being founded on a fallacy. What I now 
 sav however, is directed chiefly to the instruction of 
 medical students and to the practice of our young 
 
 women doctors. 
 
 I ask you to consider, first, the intellectual fallacy 
 which underlies this method of research. It is a 
 twofold fallacy, resulting from the differences of 
 organization in different classes of living creatures, 
 and from the fact that when any organ is injured, it 
 is a process of destruction or death-not life-that is 
 
 exhibited. r i • i 
 
 There is an ineradicable difference of physical 
 
IN MEDICAL EDUCATION 
 
 i7 
 
 Structure between Man and every species of lower 
 animal. Nowhere is there identity of structure or of 
 lunction. Resemblance or parallelism often exists 
 bi^ 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 
 sanie as m Man. All the processes of digestion, in- 
 cluding Its large ^oup of connected organs, differ 
 from those of the numan being. Observe carefullv 
 the processes ot healthy living animals. You will find 
 that their senses act in a different way to ours-a way 
 which IS often quite 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. 
 Ihey 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 
 tunctions, but it is also true in respect to the actions 
 
 :i 
 
 ! 
 
 a 
 
38 
 
 ERRONEOUS METHOD 
 
 
 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 arti- 
 ficially poisoned by these diseases. In not a si-gle 
 instance known to science has the cure of any 
 hvman disease resulted necessarily from this falla- 
 cious method of research. 
 
 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 hver and gall bladder which Claude Bernard 
 (Majendie's successor) was then carrying on and 
 lecturing upon at the College de France and the 
 Sorbonne. I called upon M. Bernard to ask him 
 where I could find some work on * Physiologie 
 Appliquee ' 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 come for the deductions I 
 sought; experimenters were simply accumulating 
 fact's. We are still, forty years later, vainly accumu- 
 lating^ facts! This present summer Dr. Semmola, 
 ' one^)f the most brilliant pupils of Claude Bernard,' 
 
IN MEDICAL EDl'CATION 
 
 39 
 
 lectured in Paris on Brighfs disease, which he has 
 been studying for forty years with unlimited experi- 
 mentation 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. Semniola 
 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 experimen- 
 tation. 
 
 Is it not intellectual imbecility to waste thought 
 and ingenuity in putting animals to lingering and 
 painful deaths in order to reassert the well-proved 
 fact that intemperance in eating and drinking will 
 produce forms of digestive and excretory disease 
 varying with the idiosyncrasy of the individual ? 
 
 In late discussions in the French Academy of 
 Medicine relative to chloroform, where Laborde and 
 Franck exhibited experiments on animals, Dr. I,e 
 Fort (the 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 
 
40 
 
 ERKONliOUS MUTHOl) 
 
 nervous system reacts in a different way from that 
 of the dof; or the rabliit. Do not Cf)unt in any way 
 upon the teachings of physiologists in practical 
 matters. Don't let your patient see any prepara- 
 tions, give the chloroform slowly, wait till he is pro- 
 foundly 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 experi- 
 mentation has put forth as many errors as truths. 
 There is not sufficient identity, either physiologic or 
 pathologic, between man and the mammiferes 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 mi'st be absolutely rejected, as contrary 
 to exoerience (in man). Maurice Perrin showed ♦^o 
 Vulpian in 1882 that the nervous reactions in man 
 differ from those in animals, and the effects produced 
 by chloroformi^ation 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 chloro- 
 form 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. 
 
IN MEDICAL EDUCATION ^, 
 
 1 could multiply these facts by irulertnite .mota- 
 t.ons from experienced physicians, of the intellectual 
 uselessness of a method of research which i^M.ores 
 the spiritual essence of Life and hopes to surprise 
 Its secrets by ruthless prying into the physical struc- 
 ture of the lower animals. We are learning that vivi- 
 section IS examination of the beginning of death, not 
 ot 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. 
 I his method of research is now being discredited 
 by many of the most enlightened members of our 
 rrolession. 
 
 But what I wish especially to ca.l your attention 
 
 to, IS the educational uselessness of vivisection ir 
 
 raming 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 
 .horough knovsledge of human physiology which is 
 needed for the intelligent exercise of the medical 
 profession. Class demonstrations in opening the 
 bodies of the lower animals to examine their organs 
 and tissues are 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 realized by c-.ful anatomical study in con- 
 nection with clinical observation of the effects of 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 ; f 
 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 42 
 
 ERRONIiOUS METHOD 
 
 healthy and diseased action in the human beinj,', 
 than by any amount of bloody experiment pn ' 
 mutilation of still living cats and dogs, bucli 
 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 Pro- 
 fession. 
 
 The exercise of our superior cunning in destro\ iny 
 an animal's natural means of self-defence, that we 
 
IN MEDICAL F.niCATION 
 
 46 
 
 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 (juality in the good physician. The 
 practice of recklessly sacrificing animal life for the 
 gratiHcation, either of curiosity, excitement, or 
 cruelty, tends inevitably to create a habit of mind 
 which affects injuriously all our relations with in- 
 ferior 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 recog- 
 nised in the Profession, although often excused under 
 the abused term—* scientific' 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 vivi- 
 section would have hardened us sufficiently to go 
 through the spectacle without very great emotion.' 
 
 It is our duty and 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 material- 
 ists who take the narrow view that physical life can 
 be profitably studied without reverencing the spiritual 
 
 
44 
 
 ERRONEOUS METHOD 
 
 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 anaesthetics is stupidity, and 
 to convert it into a torture chamber of the lower 
 animals, is an intellectual error and a moral crime. 
 
 The possible results of slow deterioration in the 
 moral nature when we violate in any degree our 
 religious standard of justice and mercy may be most 
 strongly realized in living examples of diseased 
 inherited tendencies. Such a fearful example is 
 before us in the life history of the criminal, Jesse 
 Pomeroy, now in the State Prison of Charlestown, 
 Mass., who has spent his life in penal servitude, 
 expiating his atrocious mutilations and murders of 
 little children, committed when he was a lad of 
 fifteen. The deteriorating moral influence exercised 
 on offspring by vicious parental tendencies, is directly 
 exhibited in this living object lesson. The father of 
 this lad was a butcher. His mother, during the 
 gestation of this child, took a persistent and morbid 
 delight in watching the death of the animals 
 slaughtered by her husband. We see in the atro- 
 cities committed by her young son, a terrible example 
 of the evil effect which the mind can exercise, in 
 deteriorating individual character and in extending 
 its evil influence to others. All experience proves 
 
IN MEDICAL EDUCATION 
 
 45 
 
 the powerful influence exercised by the parental, and 
 especially the maternal, qualities upon the offspring. 
 Every woman is potentially a mother. The excuse 
 or toleration of cruelty by a woman upon any living 
 creature is a deadly sin against the grandest force in 
 creation — maternal love. 
 
 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. In this way w- shall 
 justify our entrance into medicine, and prove our- 
 selves strong supporters of that noble humanity 
 which IS the especial characteristic and solid founda- 
 tion of the Medical Profession. 
 
 ! a 
 
I 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE INTERNATIONAL 
 CONGRESS OF 1891 
 
 > :l 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The noblest aim of humanity is the application of 
 Truth to the conduct of life. By doing we develop 
 our faculty of knowing. 
 
 The difficulty, howev-er, of knowing how to apply 
 Truth in daily life is so great, and yet the need is 
 so urgent, that the most pressing duty of those 
 who have faith in the Divine is to bring forward 
 to the light of sympathetic conference, the facts 
 of life in which one's most intimate experience 
 lies. 
 
 Thus the merchant and manufacturer, the business 
 man and the legislator, the farmer, householder, 
 literary man, and those who, living upon interest,' 
 should know how that interest is gained, must ever 
 hold it to be true religious duty to seek, in conference 
 with others, the way of elevating every department 
 of life. 
 
 Religious or Unitary truth possesses invaluable 
 
 guidance for Medicine, i.ot only in its practical 
 
 application as an art, but in the methods by which 
 
 it can alone become a science. 
 
 VOL. II. . 
 
 4 
 

 . i 
 
 I i 
 
 50 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 Truth recognises this great fundamental fact- viz., 
 that spirit moulds form, that the senses alone are 
 not reliable guides in solving the problems of even 
 
 physical life. . , 
 
 Research and observation also show that essential 
 elements of Truth have always existed in Humanity ; 
 that we cripple our power of advancing in Truth if 
 we do not seek out these indications of the Divirc 
 in all past experience and carefully consider the 
 light they throw on present life. 
 
 We recognise in these weighty facts a great 
 Providential method of human growth and an infi- 
 nitely beneficent aid towards the attainment of that 
 moral Ideal wherein Goodness and Truth, Justice 
 and Mercy, Love and Wisdom, become one— in- 
 separably united. 
 
 One of the great truths given in past ages, which 
 it is necessary to study and enforce in the present 
 age, is the intimate connection which exists both 
 mentally and physically between human beings and 
 lower forms of animal life. 
 
 This is a truth of great moral significance. It 
 was dimly, perhaps grotesquely, seen in some re- 
 ligions of the past, but is so much lost sight of in 
 the present day that our responsibility for the care 
 of the inferior creation we were intended to train 
 with justice and gentleness, becomes too often a cruel 
 and odious tyranny. Even in some branches of 
 knowledge (knowledge which can only justly claim 
 the name of science when it is the most comprehen- 
 sive study of truth) injustice and cruelty are mislead- 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 51 
 
 ing ' intellect, and thus threatening danger to the 
 progress of the human race. 
 
 Being profoundly impressed by the fundamental 
 character of these truths as necessary guides in 
 medicme as well as in every department of human 
 life, when I learned that extensive preparations were 
 being made in the greatest city of the world for 
 consideration of perhaps the most important subject 
 that can engage our attention — vi^.. Health — I 
 arranged to be present as a delegate, and steadily 
 attended the Congress, comparing notes with other 
 friends who were attending its various sections. 
 
 In this way we gathered an accurate knowledge of 
 the tone of the discussions, the methods pursued, 
 and the tendencies of modern investigation. 
 
 These facts seemed to me of sufficiently serious 
 import to make them worth recording in the follow- 
 ing pages. 
 
 ■i* ! 
 
 4—2 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 The Seventh International Congress of Hygiene 
 was held in London from August lo to 15 of 1891. 
 It is noteworthy for the number and representative 
 character of its members, and also for the wide 
 range of subjects affecting the physical welfare ot 
 the race, which were considered. Representatives 
 from America and from Asia, as well as from the 
 various nations of Europe, assembled in the Great 
 Metropolis to consider the vital subject of Health. 
 These learned men met together daily during the 
 week in nine different sections, from ten to two 
 o'clock. They were occupied with the subjects of 
 Architecture, Engineering, Chemistry, the health of 
 soldiers and sailors, the care of early childhood, the 
 duty of the State in relation to the Health of the 
 Nation, Health Statistics, Bacteriology, and the 
 relations of Animal and Human Disease. 
 
 In the consideration of this wide range of subjects, 
 valuable experience and much useful information 
 were presented in the papers read and in the discus- 
 sions tnat followed. But in a Congress not held 
 together by any great guiding principle, where 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 53 
 
 persons of various nationalities, moulded by different 
 laws, methods of education, and social customs wore 
 represented, a great variety of opinion, of contra- 
 dictory facts, of imperfect statistics and superficial 
 theories, would necessarily be brought forward. 
 Nevertheless, a lemarkable concensus of opinion 
 established one great result of experience— a result 
 which may be considered the striking practical 
 lesson of the Congress— viz., that it is to sanitation 
 that we must look, aot only for the prevention of 
 disease, but largely also for its cure. 
 
 Supremacy of Hygiene — T^ikm^ the resuhs of 
 sectional discussions as a whole, it was very gene- 
 rally shown that, by our increasing knowledge of 
 hygienic law, its wide diffusion amongst the people, 
 and its intelligent application to daily life, we can 
 counteract the evil influence of heredity, get rid of 
 epidemics, improve the stamina of the race, advance 
 in longevity and in the natural enjoyment of our 
 earthly span of life. Thus it is by the advance of 
 sanitation that the Art of Healing can alone become 
 a science of Medicine. 
 
 A few illustrations will show how this growing 
 result of modern thought was both directly and 
 indirectly supported by the papers and discussions 
 of the various sections. 
 
 Thus Sir Charles Cameron, of Dublin, showed 
 the beneficial change wrought by ten years' sanitary 
 effort in the Dublin slums through rebuilding, drain- 
 ing, cleaning, and free disinfecting. Those wretched 
 quarters were a breeding-ground of human misery 
 
54 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 in 1871, where small-pox, typhoid fever, and all con- 
 tagious diseases seemed to be endemic. The annual 
 mortality was reduced in ten years by sanitary 
 measures from 34-11 to 28-80 in the most crowded 
 portions of this wretched quarter ; in its less crowded 
 part the mortality had fallen to a much lower figure, 
 notwithstanding the intemperance and destitution 
 which still continued to afflict the inhabitants. In 
 this example it should be especially noted that the 
 goodwill of the -^eople was enlisted, for the munici- 
 pality laid asid' he idea of pecuniary gain on the 
 sum expended 1 rebuilding, etc., and offered a better 
 lodging at a rent that could be paid, c^nd provided all 
 sanitary appliances free, thus losing, in the sense of 
 money profit, to gain in the far higher value — 
 health. 
 
 Another remarkable illustration from very large 
 experience was that given by Professor Smith, of 
 Aldershot, who is at the head of the cavalry depart- 
 ment of our armv. He showed, by most interesting 
 tables, that diseases formally rife amongst horses- 
 glanders, farcy, canker of the foot, etc.— were now 
 practically unknown in the army. This triumphant 
 result was entirely due to careful hygiene, the 
 utmost attention being paid to food, ventilation, 
 drainage of stables, the care of the feet and shoeing, 
 of saddles and harness, and reduction of the burden 
 which the horses were required to carry, to fifteen 
 stone as a fair average. As was justly remarked, 
 there is a limit to the weight that a horse can carry 
 or draw, beyond which is cruelty and injury. 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 55 
 
 Drs. Schrevens and Gibert, from I-rance ; Dr. 
 Abbott, of Mass.; Dr. Pagett, of Salford; in discuss- 
 ing diphtheria and typhoid diseases from defective 
 drainage, laid stress upon purity of air and cleanli- 
 ness of the soil as the chief points for consideration. 
 The same indispensable principle of sanitation was 
 shown in respect to meat and milk used for food. In 
 France 5 per 1,000 of animals used as food are 
 tuberculous, such disease resulting from wrong 
 methods of breeding, feeding, and managing these 
 useful animals. 
 
 Professor Ralli showed how parasites could be 
 conveyed from animals to men, and dwelt on clean 
 bedding, coverings, suitable food, water, free exercise, 
 as the necessary prophylaxis. 
 
 Dr. Hime, of Bradford, and Chauveau, of France, 
 dwelt upon terrible diseases, such as the woolsorters' 
 disease, to which men are exposed who handle the 
 skin, horns, etc., of animals — diseases which are 
 entirely preventable if the manufacturers engaged in 
 such trades would place the health of men above the 
 profit to be gained by trade ; thorough ventilation, 
 disinfection, and other sanitary measures would 
 entirely prevent the present reckless destruction of 
 health. The same was true in the large industry 
 of sorting rags imported from abroad, of match- 
 making, etc. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact that in the section of the 
 Congress devoted to the relation of diseases of men 
 and animals, which I especially attended, sanitary 
 prophylaxis alone was dwelt upon as the condition 
 
 f!« 
 
i' } 
 
 iO 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 ' 'i 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 of supreme importance. Inoculation was not advo- 
 cated by any speaker, except the ofticial repr< senta- 
 tive of the French Pasteur Institute.' 
 
 Compliments were duly paid to M. Paste ur. whose 
 skill and zeal in r. false method of researcli may 
 justly command intellectual recogmtion. Hi t no 
 one in any case advocated the theory of diftusin^' 
 mild forms of disease for the purpose of preventing 
 the severe type in the important and practial 
 discussions which took place daijv m relati. n to 
 diseases common to man and the lower animals. 
 
 Thus a great principle )f progress in the pre- 
 vention of disease and in the attainment of a 
 higher standard of health w;i^ directly oi indirectly 
 acknowledged by thi- varie 1 '-ody of mm of trained 
 intelligence and large experience- viz., the para- 
 mount importance of sanitary kiowledge and j -ac- 
 tice. 
 
 Obedience to the mnditions of healthy "rowth 
 is the law of progress, tt om u hich there is no escape. 
 It is the only way by which disease can be gradually 
 eradicated. Every attempt at evasion : "itably 
 brings its own retribut )n in arious ways, swiftly or 
 slowly, but surely. 
 
 All medical by-pntl K 'ng in a different direc- 
 tion from the conditir>' f healthy life, however 
 tempting '\n:\ may ap^ ar to active intellectual 
 curi sity, vr h< vever des -able it may seem '•o finl 
 a sh< ft cut to wealth, necessarily lead to error if t e 
 supreme import nee of sanitation be ignored. 
 
 Sec Apf)endix, p. 85. 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CON(.KESSES FAIL 
 
 57 
 
 Now, notwithstamJing the larpc amount of valuable 
 expe-iencf bro iRht together in this Intern, itional 
 Coigress, thei was nw S( rious omission in the 
 oth wise wide and interest ing plan ot tli* Congiess - 
 an I nission which haif direct prai al bearing 
 on the discussiim.^ carrie< on in the various s«-ctions. 
 This vitiating l.ick was ic failure t" reco^ ns' ihe 
 fundamental conn.ctio ' * mind and b, ly in th'- 
 phenoni' na of Life. Th< was no appointment of 
 any special st t .n which onld j^ive p.omin nee to 
 this sub ct. and 'lus strike the k note capahlt of 
 bringing '1 the v ions into harmony. 
 
 This 01/ 111 s the more notew <)r':hy because a 
 section r. , d> vo to the theories <jf bateriology, 
 wiiich, vill je n, are directly nppr)se(l to the 
 
 trut sr nee of Heali h. 
 
 1 "a ica. success in sanitation is inr^ossible with- 
 out the recognition of mind, both ., the actual 
 vvorki -- -f the organs of the living body and in t! 
 knov. ied nd acceptance by mankind of t!ie r 
 d.tio^ - which are essential to health. 
 
 If '^t luman constitution be governed by ia' 
 1 dience to \' hicli healthy growth i^ nl 
 
 pos>i. , ihen those laws must be caref Uy soi 
 for bei )re we can build ip a science ui 1 ygii iie. 
 To regard living beings a simply nKMuuial bodies, 
 without the constant an 1 varying mlluences of 
 m-^ntal action upon the working ol tiiose bodies, is 
 cu. intellectual err )r which disregards the; esseri- 
 tial condition of mental harmony in relation to 
 health. 
 
58 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 It must also be recognised that whatever may be 
 the discoveries of physiological science, they will 
 remain barren unless applied by individuals. In all 
 the concerns of life, whether in the application of 
 principles or in the unconscious formation of habits, 
 we are compelled to deal with the ceaseless power 
 or effect of Will. To treat even the most igi.i'rant 
 adults by arbitrary, unreasoning compulsion is a 
 scientific blunder.^ 
 
 The Two Problems of Hygiene. — The two funda- 
 mental questions for hygiene to solve are therefore : 
 1st. What are the conditions of healthy growth? 
 2nd. How can those conditions be secured ? 
 
 In answering these two fundamental questions 
 the problem of mental action enters into every 
 hygienic section of a Congress, and is the keynote 
 which must be struck if harmony of theory and 
 practice is to be attained. 
 
 But in consequence of too narrow a view of 
 hygiene these questions were not solved, and this 
 remarkable assembly of learned men, brought to- 
 gether with such careful preparation and hospitable 
 welcome, produced no practical results of the com- 
 
 1 Dr. Hambleton calculates the pecuniary loss from waste of 
 life in the army from preventable disease, chiefly of the lungs, 
 as at least half a million a year— a waste of life which adds 
 materially to the number of recruits required. Whilst stating 
 the hygienic measures in relation to clothing, special exercises, 
 air, and bathing, which have been shown to restore the inferior 
 physique of recruiis, he places as the crowning necessity ' ex- 
 plaining to the men the effects of good and bad habits upon 
 their health, so as to insure their co-operation.' 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 59 
 
 manding value that the public had a right to expect 
 from it. 
 
 Sanitary legislation was shown to be largely 
 evaded, but the reasons for this unsatisfactory 
 evasion were not examined; the results of experi- 
 r ental research were proved to be strangely contra- 
 dictory, but the conditions which would harmonize 
 them were not discovered ; unproved theories 
 abounded, but the fallacies that vitiated them were 
 not made clear. 
 
 Disappointment as to the practical utility of the 
 Congress was widely felt both at home and abroad. 
 
 This disappointment with the results of the Con- 
 gress has been publicly expressed by our foreign 
 guests. A clever abstract of the work done at this 
 Seventh International Hygienic Congress has been 
 published in Paris by the well-known editors of 
 The Review of Hygunic and Sanitary Police. Some 
 noteworthy statements are made in the introduction 
 to this volume which should be seriously considered 
 by all who reverence righteous sanitary science as 
 the foundation of human welfare, but who also know 
 that sanitary science must approve itself to the good 
 sense of a people, or it will be of little practical 
 utility. 
 
 Failure of English as well as Foreign Sanitation. — 
 This high French authority declares that notwith- 
 standing the efforts for sanitary improvement in 
 which England has set an example for fifty years, 
 the relative mortality of England has not diminished. 
 It is stated : * The subject of the mortality of England, 
 
 II 
 
6o 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 although not touched upon in the Congress, was 
 the subject of most private conversation. The real 
 figures of English mortality show a singular coinci- 
 dence with the mortality of other European countries. 
 It is shown that in none of these countries has the 
 mortality diminished during the last fourteen or fifteen 
 years, except when the birth-rate has diminished, 
 and only in an exact proportion to this birth-rate.' 
 England has no better record to show in this respect 
 than her Continental neighbours, not vvithstanding the 
 increasing demands of her specialists for extended 
 legislative powers. Our French critics remark that 
 ' English hygienists of to-day are demanding great 
 administrative ccntrali;jation ; their sanitary laws are 
 rigorous to a degree that other countries would 
 consider excessive ; local self-government as well as 
 individual liberty is less and less respected, and, 
 from the statements of specialists interested in the 
 subject, there is reason to believe that at no distant 
 date every branch of public hygiene will be entirely 
 administered by the Central Government.' 
 
 • It is to be hoped ' (they remark) ' that English 
 good sense will learn how to avoid the abuse of 
 centralization, for it is just as illogical to wait for 
 the intervention of the Central Government in the 
 sanitation of a parish or the prevention of a local 
 epidemic as to refuse such intervention when public 
 danger arises from negligence or stupidity. 
 
 These observations of hygienists, coming from 
 France, a country which we are accustomed to con- 
 sider (and which in some respects really is) much 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 6l 
 
 more over-ridden by officialism than England, are 
 extremely valuable. They serve to warn us of the 
 grave danger of depending upon centralized legisla- 
 tion or arbitrary authority withdrawn from popular 
 influence, and from that growth of individual en- 
 lightenment which arises through the sense of 
 responsibility. 
 
 Our friendly foreign critics justly ask: How is it 
 that England, first in the field of sanitary science, 
 with a rigorous system of compulsory legislation, 
 . with administration, laws, regulations, agents, and 
 also a gradual development of private hygiene, has 
 still to deplore the unhealthiness of such a large 
 number of towns, quarters, and habitations, and sees 
 no diminution in her annual rate of mortality? 
 
 They advance towards the root of the matter when 
 they observe in this same report that laws are one 
 thing, their application quite another thing ! * So 
 true it is that public hygiene depends upon general 
 education as well as on the education of specialists, 
 that no laws or regulations will suffice w^hen the 
 habits of the people generally do not promote their 
 application.' 
 
 In other words, mind as well as matter must be 
 considered in the subject of sanitation. 
 
 , 'I 
 
 The student of science who has learned the great 
 principle of creative Unity knows that no manifesta- 
 tion of existence can be absolutely separated from the 
 rest of creation. As we investigate phenomena it 
 is seen that the laws governing separate phenomena 
 
62 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 become more comprehensive as knowledge increases, 
 because more widely embracing separate facts ; 
 varieties are seen to be linked together by relation- 
 ships, and apparently different phenomena can be 
 transmuted into one greater force. 
 
 In the plan of an International Congress, designed 
 to gather together the advanced knowledge of many 
 nations on the whole science of health, the omission 
 of any section which should bring into prominence 
 this powerful fact in life — the influence of mind on 
 body — is a very grave defect. It is an error which 
 affects both the investigation of facts and the applica- 
 tion of results, the two indispensable factors to the 
 progress of sanitation. Their neglect in an Inter- 
 national Congress on Health was the more unfor- 
 tunate because mental influence is a fact which is 
 forcing itself upon the attention of investigators 
 with increasing urgency. 
 
 Increasing Importance of the Mental Problem. — Under 
 the modern title of hypnotism facts of the most 
 remarkable character are now acknowledged and 
 studied. The cure of disease by suggestion, care- 
 fully and humanely applied, has been proved beyond 
 the possibility of rational denial. The reality and 
 practical effects of mental epidemics is a positive 
 fact. The effect of fear in predisposing to cholera, 
 hydrophobia, and other diseases cannot be denied.' 
 
 ' Sir Walter Scott, a connoisseur in dogs, writing about 
 popular belief in 1832, remarks : ' The powers of this talisman 
 have of late been chiefly restricted to the cure of persons bitten 
 by mad dogs, and as the disease in such cases frequently 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 63 
 
 The contagion of religious enthusiasm or religious 
 fanaticism are facts ; whether the effects are seen in 
 the devotion of the Salvation Army, or in pilgrimages 
 to Lourdes or Treves with their so-called miracles of 
 faith-healing, they are equally facts requiring con- 
 sideration. Wild business speculations in the craze 
 for riches become contagious, and lure multitudes to 
 ruin. 
 
 The history of past and present medical delusions 
 is also most instructive. We need not go to the 
 Sangrados of a past generation, who treated every 
 disease by blood-letting, or the search for the elixir 
 of life in illustration ; the contagion of false hopes 
 in relation to consumption, which upset the judg- 
 ment of two hemispheres, cannot yet be forgotten. 
 Thoughtful physicians possess abundant warning 
 against being carried away by new theories which 
 violate the moral sense or the Law of Unity, even 
 when such theories are supported by distinguished 
 names. 
 
 Experience proves the potent character of mental 
 stimuli in moulding practical action. Fear or hope, 
 curiosity, vanity, cupidity, when regardless of the 
 Law of Unity, seize upon isolated phenomena 
 removed from their natural connection, and distort 
 them by creating morbid conditions, thus viewing 
 facts out of proportion. Statistics thus fcmed 
 
 arises from imagination, there can be no reason to doubt that 
 water which has been poured on the Lee penny furnishes a 
 congenial cure.' 
 
64 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONr ''ESSES FAIL 
 
 
 become fallacious, and serve as the bases of dangerous 
 theories-theories which, unless checked by popular 
 common-sense from being put into practice, would 
 cause the moral and physical degradation of the 
 race. I need only refer to the folly of injustice 
 embodied in certain medical acts lately abolished 
 and to the present theory of inoculation, as note- 
 worthy instances of dangerous mental delusion 
 desiring to shape itself into action. 
 
 Materialism, which is blind to other than sensuous 
 life, which insists upon reducing every phenomenon 
 to the limits of the senses, which refuses to be 
 enlightened by any higher reality, or sneers at the 
 term ' vitality,' neglects a great range of positive 
 facts, and has no right to the noble name of science. 
 Reflection, therefore, shows that the moulding and 
 guiding power of mental action in shaping physical 
 results being a fact of the most far-reaching character 
 and of permanent operation in sentient creation, its 
 omission in a Congress of Health was a serious 
 injury to the results of the Congress. It was a 
 sufficient reason for that sterility of result which has 
 been publicly and privately expressed. 
 
 The error of not recognising mental as well as 
 physical forces, or the Law of Unity, in relation to 
 health, and the tyranny that may result from such 
 imperfect method in the study and application of 
 sanitation and medicine, may be illustrated by an 
 interesting incident of the Congress. 
 
 An important joint meeting of two sections took 
 place in order to listen to the discourse of one of our 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 65 
 
 ablest investigators — a man in high position, and 
 one who wields a powerful influence on the rising 
 generation of medical students. This gentleman 
 early in his discourse made the following note- 
 worthy announcement : ' I claim the right of science 
 to dictate' — and as if to strengthen this claim by 
 the authority of our French brethren he added 
 ' conformement a la logique ' — ' I claim the right of 
 science to dictate in accordance with logic' 
 
 The bold demand for absolute obedience thus 
 authoritatively made by a professor at the head of 
 biological research demands careful consideration. 
 It is the announcement of a new priesthood or 
 esoteric sect of physical science. In the mind of 
 the speaker it means that his science is identical 
 with truth. If that be admitted, it is the highest 
 wisdom of the human being to obey gladly and 
 unhesitatingly, and the teacher thus inspired with 
 truth rightfully commands our grateful and profound 
 reverence. But this claim may also mean the 
 unconscious arrogance of a mind taking too narrow 
 a view of science — a mind which, whilst earnest and 
 laborious in investigating partial phenomena, is 
 intoxicated by the discovery of new facts with the 
 theories which can be built upon them, and at once 
 announces himself as one of the priests of a new 
 religion demanding absolute obedience: for the 
 temptation of all priesthoods is to form an esoteric 
 sect. 
 
 In this second case it is the bounden duty of 
 every truthful mind to refuse obedience. For until 
 VOL. II. e 
 
 VI 
 
66 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 the claim is fully examined in all its aspects, in both 
 its physical and mental relations, and sustained by 
 the deliberate and hearty assent of all intelligent 
 minds and the instinctive accord of the people 
 generally, this demand for absolute obedience to 
 the theories of so-called science must be resolutely 
 withstood as a reintroduction of mischievous and 
 degrading superstition. 
 
 The special occasion which led to this unfortunate 
 claim for dictation, or the compulsory regulation of 
 disease by specialists, was the subject of tuber- 
 culosis and the exaggerated claim of the modern 
 bacteriologist that the tubercle bacillus is the sole 
 primary cause of consumption, with the logical 
 claim that, as only the thoroughly-trained specialist 
 can detect this bacillus, consumption should be 
 scheduled as a contagious disease, and subjected to 
 the rigorous regulations of the specialist and his 
 board of advisers. 
 
 As our largest itv:m in annual mortality is death 
 from tuberculosis— about 14 per cent, with us— and as 
 food and air may introduce a bacillus into the system, 
 we can dimly imagine the extent to which the claim 
 for dictation may grow in ' accordance with logic' 
 
 Many striking instances of crude official tyranny 
 were revealed by our Canadian and other foreign 
 delegates. Thus, railway passengers from Montreal 
 to Ontario were compulsorily revaccinated on the 
 train before being allowed to enter Ontario.^ The 
 
 1 An English gentleman, Captain Fiuak Fairbanks, was de- 
 tained for a fortnight in quarantine (says a Boston telegram) 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 67 
 
 foolish and fallacious system of attempting to regulate 
 special vice was seen to prevail largely in the in- 
 experienced civilii^ations of Canada and Western 
 United States. 
 
 Scientific Inqtii^tor^. — I will here quote a late state- 
 ment of Professor Huxley's, which might well be 
 embla;^oned in all our medical schools. He says : 
 ' We are at the beginning of our knowledge instead 
 of at the end of it ; the limitation of our faculties is 
 such that we never can set bounds to the possibilities 
 of nature. The verdict may be always more or less 
 wrong, the best information being never complete, 
 and the best reasoning liable to fallacy. 
 
 ' The greatest mistake those who are interested in 
 free thought can make is to overlook these limita- 
 tions and deck themselves with the dogmatic feathers 
 which are the traditional adornments of opponents.' 
 
 This vigorous protest of our English naturalist 
 against the dictation of so-calied science is in striking 
 accord with the observations of our French visitors 
 in relation to the futility of compulsory legislation 
 now urged by scientific specialists. 
 
 What is Science ? — When the investigators in any 
 limited branch of knowledge glibly use the term 
 ' science ' to compel assent or to enforce legislation, 
 we are forced to ask, What is true science or 
 certain knowledge grounded on demonstration, as 
 distinguished from false science, which is uncertain 
 
 because lie refused to be vaccinated. A younger brother of his 
 had lost his life through vaccination. 
 
 5—2 
 
 ^'l 
 
68 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES 1 AIL 
 
 knowledge, based upon varying and imperfectly 
 observed phenomena or upon theory ? Knowledge 
 is of various kinds : Mental, Physical, Mathematical. 
 These separate departments of knowledge rest eqi lly 
 on bases of fact. Love is as much a fact as bread- 
 and-butter ; justice is as potent in its effects as 
 microbes; and from their wider range of action 
 and more permanent duration these mental farts 
 are far more real than the physical phenomena. 
 
 In determining the claim of science to obedience 
 the great Law of Unity gives the guiding principle, 
 which, however humbling to human arrogance, or 
 however affirmative of the limitations of our intellect, 
 the truly scientific mind is bound to accept. 
 
 The Law of Unity the Foundation of Science— The 
 Law of Unity teaches us that no explanation of any 
 fact is final or ' true ' if it contradicts other facts. 
 It announces that no method of examining facts is 
 reliable that destroys other facts equally patent, and 
 that any results deducible from partial phenomena, 
 however interesting or even apparently useful, can 
 only be regarded from the point of view of true 
 science as temporary expedients. The\- may possibly 
 be recommendations for useful trial, but they can 
 never be justified as subjects for dictation. 
 
 The confusion of thought which has brought the 
 unnatural practices of inoculation into fashion may 
 be usefully illustrated by dwelling on the mingling of 
 truth and error which exist.-, in relation to vaccma- 
 tion. Vaccination must not be confounded with 
 
WHY HYT.IENIC CONtiKESSKS FAIL 
 
 69 
 
 inoculation, although the word ' vaccination ' is now 
 incorrectly used by bacteriologists to cover up the 
 alarminj^ practice; 'f injecting the diluted virus of 
 any particular disease, which is inoculation. Vac- 
 cination, on the other hand, is solely the injection of 
 matter derived frt^ni a disease in the vacca, which 
 disease is neither small-pox nor ilerived from small- 
 pox, and vaccinia in a health}' cow is a mild 
 disease. 
 
 During a lifetime of medical practice I have 
 vaccinated children (sharing the widespread belief 
 that it was preventive of small-pox). The practice, 
 however, has always seemed lo be an unsatisfactory 
 method, which I hoped increast^d knenvledge of sani- 
 tation would enable us to improve. 
 
 I also recognised the powerful influence of fear in 
 predisposing to disease, and I rci^arded vaccination 
 as a sedative for the family or community. My faith 
 in the innocence of this practice was, however, 
 rudely shaken by the lamentable death, in my own 
 practice, of a scrofulous infant— a death clearly 
 caused by the phagedenic ulceration produced by the 
 vaccination. I alst) noted the at • umulating evidence 
 of very serious diseases communicated by so-called 
 vaccine lymph. 
 
 Vaccination not Scientific— V>ni Professor Crook- 
 shank, in his exhaustive work lately published on 
 vaccination, has conclusively proved the unscientific 
 character of the evidence on which this practice is 
 based, our ignorance of the sources of the virus 
 commonly used and its mode of action, and also the 
 
 I I 
 
 :8 
 
70 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONC.RESSES 1 All. 
 
 uncertainty of its prophylactic power.' Tl.at the 
 generally mild disorder (jf vaccination, althoujjh 
 arbitrarily and even tyrannically enforced on every 
 child horn in our country, does not pn)ve the preven- 
 tion of small-pox which it is claimed t" be, is shown 
 by the recurrence of epidemics of small-pox am.nsst 
 us, by the occurrence of the disease in vaccinated 
 persons, and also by the demand noNv n,ade by the 
 French Academy of Medicine (which r, co^'nises the 
 failure of our system of vaccination) 1< r legislative 
 powers '. 'ompel repeated revaccination. This 
 demand for power of indefinite revaccination is a 
 logical demand. For, proceeding ovi the assumed 
 premiss that vaccination prevents small-pox, but 
 being mei by the inexorable fact that epidemics of 
 small-pox do occur and spread amongst vaccinated 
 people, the cause of this contradiction is assumed 
 to be that the supposed preventive power of vac- 
 cination has been thrown out of the system, and 
 must therefore be again renewed. Logically, there- 
 fore, not only the infant must be subjected, bi.' the 
 child, the adolescent, and the adult. Ml must be 
 compulsorily revaccinated, as the human system 
 undergoes a change at each of those periods of 
 
 growth. 
 
 The history of the struggle against compulsion 
 in vaccination is very interesting, as a strong 
 condemnation of that arrogance of false science 
 which presumes to trample on human rights whilst 
 
 1 Sec Crooksliank's History ami I\xthology of Vaccina- 
 Hon. 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONi.RF.SSF '^ FAIL 
 
 71 
 
 ncglectinj,' hy^iienic conditions. As all intollif^ent 
 per'^^-ns sh' nld be iible to iorm a piacticai jndKmcnt 
 on the important (juestion '\t issue, I sliou^i Iikc to 
 d\v i a niomt^ni 011 the subjc-rt -f immunity, a fact 
 (thouph now misapplied) on which compulsory 
 vaccinition is based. 
 
 /»«;«»>n7)'.— (.Observation has lon^' shown us that 
 when the human system is ^'radu.illy .x posed to 
 injurious influences, a certain tolerance ot those in- 
 flu. noes may be acquired, which often enables those 
 exposed to them to escape i • e lite death, although 
 with impaired health, whilst .icalthj persons suddenly 
 exposed to the same injuri<Mis influences die. This 
 is a well -known fact, capable of abundant verification. 
 Thus, persons long resident in a badly-drained house, 
 although frequently ailing in various ways, may never 
 be laid up with typhoid fever ; a certain immunity 
 has been obtained by the slow adaptation of the 
 system to bad air, but at the sacrifice of vigorous 
 health. But if a new and healthy family move into 
 the same house a deadly outbreak of typhoid or 
 diphtheria may at once result. 
 
 In the malarious districts of the United States a 
 large scattered population of what are cail d by the 
 negroes ' mean whites ' continue to live, with clay- 
 coloured faces, enlarged spleens, and in-paired vitality, 
 yet for a stranger to sleep in those regions is deadly. 
 The strong tendency to hve, which we call vitality, 
 though ii has enabled those born and brought up 
 under injurious influences to struggle on through hfe, 
 does not prove equal to resistance in many constitu- 
 
I 
 
 72 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 tions suddenly exposed to the injurious influences. 
 The medical statistics of our army in India show that 
 the newly-arrived is far more apt to suffer from enteric 
 fever than one who has been long in the country. 
 
 ' The percentage of deaths from this cause is nearly 
 fivefold greater in the first or second year of service 
 than from the sixth to the tenth year. Medical officers 
 are unable to trace out in any given instance a definite 
 insanitary condition to which with certamty the out- 
 break can be attributed.' 
 
 There is, therefore, fact for theory to be built on — 
 viz., the possible adaptation of the human constitu- 
 tion to injurious infiucnces, an adaptation which, 
 whilst impairing general vigour, often produces 
 immunity from rapid death. 
 
 This fact, confirmed in the mind of the bacteriolo- 
 gist by the fallacious system of diseasing animals as 
 * temoins ' or ' controls," has given rise to the dan- 
 gerous theory that all contagious diseases may l:>e 
 forestalled in their most deadly form by the inocula- 
 tion of human beings with diluted virus produced by 
 those diseases. This dangi rous belief has been 
 widely fostered by the unfortunate educational influ- 
 ence of the law of compulsory vaccination. Hut it 
 must be observed that vaccination, unlike in(jcula- 
 tion, does not introduce any products of the special 
 disease — small-pox— into tne s}stem. The v;iccine 
 disease in the cow is not small-pox, nor can it ever 
 be made to pro.luce small-pox. The preservative 
 power which is claimed for it, therefore, has not the 
 dangers which are attached to inoculation, but 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 73 
 
 neither can it claim the occasional immunity which 
 may attend that dangerous practice of introducmg 
 small-pox virus into the blood. Pure air. cleanlmess, 
 and decent house-room secured to all our people, 
 form the true prophylaxis of small-pox. 
 
 Exa(r<rcratwn of Bactcriolo}^y. — \\^ observe how 
 neglect of the Law of Unity is misleading the mtel- 
 lect in relation to bacterii.logy. This subject, useful 
 if pursued without cruelty and in subordination to 
 higher facts, has become a mischievous exaggeration 
 both as to what it signifies and as to what it may 
 
 lead to. 
 
 The majority of our active and intelligent medical 
 investigators are now intensely engaged in the search 
 for a microbe as the primary cause of every disease 
 known to humanity. Cancer, leprosy, fevers, hydro- 
 phobia, diphtheria, tetanus, insanity, etc., are being 
 largely studied by this imperfect method, in lu>pe 
 of finding a characteristic microbe which can 
 be pronounced the essential cause of the chsease. 
 The great mental energy of bioK)gical investigators 
 is diverted from sanitary investigation to the search 
 for fresh bacilli. Admirable perseverance, acute 
 ingenuity, unwearied energy are devoted U) this 
 
 search. 
 
 Advantage has been taken of the helplessness of 
 
 ' Dr. Adainct^ states that one j^nunmc of C'.iiiyCiv cheese 
 contains yo,cx)o nn< robes ; afttr seventy days they liad inneased 
 to 800,000. A K«'i"i'"'' <»f another kind of chec-,c .ontaint-d 
 about two million micnbes, whilst a piece of the rind contained 
 about fuc million 1' 
 
74 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 the lower animals to carry on a system of experi- 
 mentation upon them, the extent and ruthlessness of 
 which has nevei before been attempted. Disease is 
 studiously propagated. Myriads of healthy living 
 creatures are filled with loathsom disease in order 
 to furnish ' material ' for experimentation. So many 
 kilos of dog or rabbit (used for injecting disease, or 
 noted as more or less slowly resisting the death thus 
 gradually inflicted) is a common expression now used 
 in experimentation, and supposed to give ' scientific 
 accuracy ' to experiments. It is a pitiful intellectual 
 fallacy of short-sighted materialism that supposes it 
 possible to obtain ' scientific accuracy ' by regardmg 
 so many kilos of living dog as if they could be experi- 
 mented on as so many kilos of dead matter, or as if 
 they were the materials of a steam-engine, which can 
 be taken apart, examined, cleaned, tested, and put 
 together again in complete working order. 
 
 This diversion of intellectual ability from the true 
 path of sanitation by an exaggerated search for bacilli 
 leads directly to the dangerous practice of inocula- 
 tion, which threatens the future deterioration of the 
 human race. As one of the most distinguished of 
 our hygienists, the late Dr. I5enjamin Ward Richard- 
 son, has pronounced, ' inoculation is bad sanitation.'^ 
 1 This is virtually accepted by one of the foremost advocates 
 of inoculation, who, acknowlcdKing that preventive inocuhition 
 ought to be strictly limited, adds : ' Inc culation is only a pallia- 
 tive measure, for the first object to be aimed at is the stamping 
 out of infectious disease, and I cannot help thinking that the 
 day will come when preventive inoculation will be a thing of the 
 past.' 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 75 
 
 Sanitary law teaches us that disease is produced 
 by many causes, not solely by a specific microbe. 
 
 These causes are insanitary conditions, which 
 impair or destroy the agents recjuired by our human 
 constitution for its healthy growth, and which act 
 with varying force according to individual tendency. 
 These insanitar- conditions, in the course of their 
 operation upon varying individual constitutions, pro- 
 duce various forms of disease, as chill may produce 
 rheumatism, bronchitis, or diarrhoea, according to 
 idiosyncrasy. These varying idiosyncrasies of in- 
 dividuals, both in their physical and mental aspects, 
 as well as the varying action of vital force in different 
 classes of animals, will always vitiate the theories of 
 materialistic investigators. Thus the same poison will 
 not destroy all classes of living creatures. A healthy 
 young dog has been known to resist for months 
 strenuous efforts made to disease him in a particular 
 way. The same disease germs produce quite dif- 
 ferent forms of disturbance in men and in rabbits. 
 
 ' We possess no clue to the immunity of certain 
 animals from poison. Rabbits fed on belladonna 
 show no signs of injury, although their tlesh becomes 
 poisonous to those who eat it. Pigeons and other 
 htrbivora may be safe from what will cause paralysis 
 apd asphyxia in other animals. The meat of goats 
 nny similarly become poisonous. 
 
 •Chickens, cats, birds, rodents, are variously 
 affected by poisons, some thriving on what will kill 
 other animals. The whole cat tribe is said to be 
 always proof against morphia.' 
 
76 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 Drs. Hahn and von Bergmann, in attempting to 
 justify their cancer-grafting experiments on hospital 
 patients, affirm that 'it was necessary to select 
 human beings for experiment, inasmuch as none ot 
 the loNver animals xvculd have been suitable for their 
 
 purpose.' 
 
 Sanitarv law teaches us that unhealthy conditions 
 vitiate the living micr(,-(^rganisms with which we are 
 surrounded, and which, naturally benehc.al, may 
 become, through violation of natural law, morbid 
 gcrn>s, capable of spreading their various forms of 
 disease amcngst persons predisposed to such disease'. 
 Thus, according to sanitary law, the violated health 
 conditions (vitiating naturally innocuous particles; 
 are the primary cause of disease ; the morbid germ 
 or bacillus is only the secondary cause. 
 
 The new bacteriological theory directly contradicts 
 this important law of sanitary experience, and m 
 oppoMtion to it authoritatively announces that con- 
 tagious or infectious disease can never be produced 
 without the antecedent microbe. It was in defence 
 of this untenable theory that the distinguished pro- 
 fessor claimed the 'right of science to dictate.' 
 
 The great mistake , therefore, made by the Hygienic 
 Con-rc - was the neglect of mind as an indispensable 
 and'^im.minent factor in Health, and the exaUat.on 
 of bacteriology, with the theories based upon it, into 
 the chief point of interest and importance. 
 
 The modern exaggeration of bacteriology, with its 
 theory of inoculation, must be steadilv opposed by 
 all who rerdi/e the power and growing intluence of 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES TAIL 
 
 77 
 
 spiritual life. The injurious results of this exa^-gera- 
 tion may be summarized as follows : 
 
 The r-actical Dan-er^ arisin^r from erroneous Sneu- 
 tific Method.-i. It diverts invaluable mtellectual 
 activitv into methods of comparatively futile mvcsti- 
 cration'. These investif^ations lead very widely to the 
 exercise of fraud and cruelty upon the lower aminals, 
 and tend to reckless experiment on the poor. 1 hey 
 waste much time and spread the contain,,.! of intel- 
 lectual error amongst the students of all our medical 
 schools, where the false practices of experimentation 
 are increasingly carried on. They also pervert the 
 moral sense of the great army of assistants care- 
 takers, porters, nurses, and others connected with 
 our medical institutions, who become aware of the 
 cruel practices which so larg-ely accompany this 
 
 method of research. . , , 
 
 2. This pervc.rsion of medical activity misleads 
 our' Parliamentarv representatives, who are bewil- 
 dered by pseudo-science authoritatively announcini,^ 
 itself as Truth, and permits a rapid increase of 
 officialism to crush opposition and force the dicta of 
 superticial ' science ' upon the protestin- conscience 
 of intellij^ent people. It also misleads the com- 
 munity by fallacious articles in popular ma-a/uus, 
 in which facts, theories, statistics, and assertions. 
 often incorrect, are given with an imposing air of 
 science, in relati<m to which the ordinary reader 
 is quite unable to discriminate the true fn>m the 
 
 3. The diversion of medical activity from the 
 
78 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 true path of PrcYcntiYc Medicine not only hinders 
 the progress of sanitation, but is producinj,' an 
 increasing revolt of common-sense and popular feel- 
 ing against what arc erroneously supposed to be the 
 necessary methods of medicine and the practice of 
 dispensary and hospital. This growing feeling in 
 the community increases the dread with which the 
 poor generally regard the hospital, and it also 
 seriously diminishes the pecuniary support which 
 the well-to-do would otherwise gladly extend to 
 their sick and suffering fellow-creatures. 
 
 Couclusion,— In considering the foregoing record 
 of facts it is seen to be a fundamental error, not 
 only in a Hygienic Congress, but in all medical 
 thought and practice, to look only at the body, and 
 not consider those spiritual facts which precede, 
 animate, and succeed t'.ic flesh. It is also certain 
 that in the application of hygiene to daily life we 
 may as well pour water into a sieve as hope to 
 (enforce permanently practical hygienic measures 
 without enlisting the goodwill of the people in their 
 observance. 
 
 As the solution of the two great problems of 
 hygiene — vi^., ' What are the laws and conditions of 
 healthy -growth ? ' and ' How can these conditions be 
 secured?' rests upon principles of spiritual truth, 
 those principles are of fundamental importance in 
 directing human intelligence into right line? of 
 investigation. Being compelled to use the imperfect 
 symbolism of language, we speak of mind and matter, 
 
WHY HYGIENIC CONC.KESSES FAIL 
 
 79 
 
 of spiritualism and materialism, as if they were 
 separate or contradictory entities. But this is a 
 limitation in the expression of thought to be recog- 
 nised and carefully guarded against in thought itself. 
 There can be no real contradiction between Religion 
 and Science ; they are only varying manifestations 
 in human thought of Truth, which is essentially one. 
 Our effort must be to unite these manifestations m 
 thought, and thus gain the only safe guidance 
 possible to us for practical action. 
 
 The great fundamental principle of our human 
 constitution is incarnation— J.t:., spirit shaping form— 
 the Universal manifesting itself in the phenomen d. 
 This principle is the foundation of sanitary science. 
 It forms the basis of the Moral Law which must be 
 the guide of science. 
 
 When this p. 'iciple is understood and applied, it 
 enlarges the intellect and enlightens the conscience. 
 It transftjrms the narrow, self-centred or arrogant 
 individual into the humble inquirer and sharer of 
 the larger Diviner life. 
 
 This universali/iation of the individual resides 
 essentially in the Will of man, and is the foundation 
 of conscience— conscience which, gradually enlarged 
 by the growmg intellect, is the great guide of the 
 human race in its struggle upwards. 
 
 This universalization of tiie primitive self-centred 
 life leads to the realization of Sin. When we enter 
 that Garden of Gethsemane where the woes of the 
 world, the murders and seductions, the cruelties and 
 
 1 
 
 
8o WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 hypocrisies, are revealed in all their hidoousness. we 
 reali;.e that we are partakers in this Sin; for it .s the 
 result of that self-c.>ntred arrogance, that selhshness 
 ^vith which each one has to fif^'ht. and which is the 
 essence of Sin. It is throuf,'h this tremendous con- 
 viction that all must enter into that life of the 
 Universal, where alone is true freedom, and where 
 alone the fulness of individual life is to he found. 
 Only bv this saturation with the Universal does that 
 hatred 'of Sin arise which makes sins henceforth 
 
 impossible. 
 
 Then the reco,L,Miition of Kif^'ht and Wrouf:^ in 
 human action becomes clear, and the supremacy of 
 the Moral Law inevitable. 
 
 It is indispensable t" refer to these deeper prin- 
 ciples of existence in considerin.L: their varied appli- 
 cati(.n. They i^We force to those condensed maxims 
 of practical Nvisdom which, transmitted to us from 
 the experience of <nir forefathers, are -guides for our 
 
 present dailv life. 
 
 ' Never do evil that tjood m;»y come ' is a proverb 
 so familiar to us in various forms that we fail to sec 
 the profound wisdou\ which it <'Xi>resses. 
 
 It is a ccmfession of that intellectual limitation 
 which cannot foresee complicated results: it is an 
 acceptance of that intlowinj,^ ligbt of conscience 
 (however dim) by which everyone must lione?tly 
 walk ; it is the subjection of the narrow, self-centred 
 Will to the Universal Life by which the individual 
 becomes a free co-worner v ith the Divine. 
 
 Physiology rightly s; .. icd in the light of this 
 
( 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGKFSSES FAIL 
 
 8l 
 
 fundamental principle- -incarnation—vindicates the 
 supremacy of the Moral Law, which is the Law 
 of Unity, or transtiRuration of thi> S.;if. It fiives the 
 perception of Rif^ht and Wroni;. ihe Law of the 
 Universal, reverently and intellii^nitly s* >.i: ', will 
 guide all practical action; il will she a ' lv>., to 
 build a hospital, plan a medical schoo', or^at, x> a.; 
 institute of preventive medicine, legisUu, ("•"• -: '.< tii- 
 munity, or guide the individual life. 
 
 The Law of Unity relocates bacteriology to its 
 proper place as a branch of pathology, and proves 
 that truth cannot be gained by searching into the 
 quivering organs of tortured animals. It shows us 
 also that individual health cannot be secured by 
 building a Chinese wall around one's self. We can- 
 not stop the revolution of the earth in an atmosphere 
 which may bring bacilli from ini;ndat(;d C hina, from 
 starved Russia, from leprous India, or from the slums 
 
 of the West. 
 
 We must work gradually towards th(> realization of 
 our ideal— Health— and work in many directions and 
 on many lines. Advancing sanitation wi!' place oi., 
 future iiospitals in country neighbourhoods, with 
 only temporary receiving houses and dispen-^iaries in 
 large towns. 
 
 ^ The oldest hospitals were the temples of Lscula- 
 pius, where Divine assistance was sought.' To these 
 Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard-by 
 fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the 
 sick and maimed resorted to seek the aid of the ' god 
 of Health.' To this wisdom of the ancients we must 
 
 VOL. 11. ^ 
 
82 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 certainly return when the present tendency to sub- 
 ordinate the welfare of the sick to the convenience of 
 students be checked. 
 
 The most urgent need which now exists in our 
 profession is the establishment of an Institute of 
 Preventive Medicine guided by the Moral Law. 
 Such an Institute will recognise that mind and 
 matter meet in the fact called Life, will reverently 
 study all the conditions and laws of healthy life, and 
 not be diverted from this great aim by curious investi- 
 gations into artificially propagated disease. 
 
 The study of the biological sciences, comparative 
 and human physiology, morphology, histology, 
 electro-chemical action, etc., is most important and 
 necessary for the advancement of mtdical science ; 
 but thes'^: can be studierJ without any violation of the 
 moral Law of Unity. It is necessary to study the 
 forms and functions of life which are manifested ni 
 organisms lower than man. The laws which govern 
 animal and vegetable growth form important steps 
 towards our increasing knowledge of human physio- 
 logy and sanitary law ; but these can only yield 
 true and nvo iable facts when studied through the 
 natural and lioalthy workinj of the objects of study. 
 The artificial production of menial or physical 
 disease by (l-us and suffering vitiates the natural 
 order of life, and leads to error in observation ai d 
 induction from such observation. Torture is rot 
 only unsuited to laboratory work, but is an inevitable 
 source of error in results. A laboratory or work- 
 room should never be degraded into a torture- 
 
WHY HVGIENIC CONGKKSSKS FAIL 
 
 83 
 
 
 chamber. Experiment should never degcnenite into 
 curiosity or inhumanity.* 
 
 In the future a wise Institute of Preventive Medi- 
 cine may possibly be placed in the healthy country. 
 Around such an Institute for wise research a well- 
 planned health colony could grow up, whicli would 
 be of enormous utility to the overworked brains of 
 our most valuable people. It would be a lealth 
 centre where tiie weary brain could be refreshed and 
 its vigour renewed by the restorative effects of 
 manual labour. Guided by true science, it would 
 teach our teachers and our legislators. Here they 
 might learn to reverence those laws of health which 
 are ecpially violated by overworked brains and (ner- 
 worked muscles. An Institute of Preventi\e Medicine 
 genuinely ' scientific ' would be the soul of such a 
 health centre. 
 
 Hut such a colony can only be created when 
 narrow selfhood has been transtigured b\ the 
 universal life ; for. as has been finely said : ' True 
 social integration will follow upon spiritual integra- 
 tion, and upon nothing else.' 
 
 Whilst working towards a fuller realization of our 
 ideal we must respect and aid, as far as we can, those 
 isolated efforts to deal with special transgressions of 
 the Moral Law which are really steps onward in the 
 
 ' The greatfst injury which is now being done to ntedicine 
 .uhI the advanciimnt of liyj^icne is tlie abuse of the word 
 'research' and the tle^radation of this noble exercise of human 
 intellect by methods of applicatitjn not suited to the subject of 
 investigation. 
 
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84 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 growth of humanity. Separate efforts to advance 
 temperance and purity, justice to women and 
 children, to the poor and weak, to the humbler 
 animals, our fellow-creatures, are all efforts to be 
 heartily encouraged. Each effort forms a little step 
 out of selfishness into large religious life. Although 
 those who realize the Law of Unity cannot rest in 
 any isolated work, yet it is by the honest fighting of 
 sins that we grow into that hatred of Sin which will 
 lead to its destruction ; and by the slow perception 
 of truths we gradually approach that ineffable Light 
 of Truth which will melt away the chains of self- 
 hood, and set us free in the larger liberty of the 
 Universal Life. 
 
APPENDIX (Page 56) 
 
 On the Humane Prevention of Rabies 
 
 In the course of a discussion on the subject of rabies, 
 a suggestion was made that a resolution should be 
 passed by the Section and sent to Government, 
 recommending measures for the prevention of hydro- 
 phobia. 
 
 As two opposite methods of dealing with rabies 
 had been ably supported by Professors Roux and 
 Fleming, I called attention to the fact that nothing 
 had been said in the discussion of the sufferings 
 necessarily inflicted upon animals where the Pasteur 
 method advocated by Professor Roux was adopted, 
 and I stated that in a Pasteur Institute dogs were 
 kept in a state of madness. I therefore recom- 
 mended that Municipal and County Regulations, 
 with their excellent results, as shown by Professor 
 Fleming of London, and Professor Ostertag of 
 Berlin, should be adopted rather than Pasteurian 
 methods. 
 
 In illustration of the sufferings of dogs when made 
 mad, I referred to my visit to the Rue Dutot on 
 June 2, 1889, where, after inspecting the Hail of 
 rabbits, guinea-pigs, and pigeons used in experiments 
 
 (fi 
 
 it 
 
86 
 
 WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL 
 
 for rabies, anthrax, etc., I went to the cages of three 
 dogs also used for experiments in rabies, who were in 
 various stages of madness, one dying after its ten 
 days' agony ; a second in the full fury of madness ; 
 a third in frantic terror clinging to the bars of his 
 cage, imploring to be let out. 
 
 Professor Roux's statement in opposition to my 
 recommendation of the humaner methods of dealing 
 with rabies seemed to infer that dogs were not 
 rendered mad in a Pasteur Institute or in dealing 
 with rabies. But when I stated to the Professor 
 that I had myself seen this series of three dogs 
 being made mad, he replied : ' Oh, you might have 
 seen a great many more, but they are not to inoculate 
 people.' 
 
 Now, it is well known from experience that it is 
 too dangerous to inoculate direct from the dog to the 
 human being. But the fact that dogs are constantly 
 made mad for experiment in the Pasteur Institute, 
 or in any institute that adopts Pasteurian methods, 
 should be honestly acknowledged, not evaded. The 
 fact that this frightful disease of rabies is kept up for 
 purposes of experiment, although the virus be trans- 
 mitted in changed form through other animals for 
 the inoculation of human beings, is in itself a grave 
 fact, and it bears directly on the point which I dwelt 
 on at the Congress— viz., that in choosing the 
 method of protecting humanity from a rare but 
 frightful disease, the method that does not involve 
 sufferings to animals should be adopted by 
 Christian nation. 
 
 a 
 
SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 ' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 i ! 
 
 Introduction - - . . 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Growth of Conscience . 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Conscience in Medicine 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Moral Element in Kesearch - 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Right and Wrong Method - 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Necessity of Melical Research 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Restriction of Experiment - 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Prurigo Secandi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 What is Scientific Research ? 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Axiom of Science 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Rational Experiment in Research - 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Range of Painless Research - 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Recapitulation of Principles 
 
 PACE 
 89 
 
 91 
 
 95 
 08 
 
 lOI 
 
 104 
 109 
 119 
 124 
 134 
 
 144 
 148 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A CONTROVERSY is persistently carried on between 
 an increasing body of the non-profession -.l laity and 
 an important section of the medical profession, in 
 relation to the methods pursued in investigating 
 biological phenomena. 
 
 The criticism of medicU research by non-medical 
 people is naturally resented by some who are engaged 
 in experimentation, and it is stated seriously that 
 non-scientific persons will impede progress if they 
 interfere with or succeed in restricting the efforts 
 of those who specially devote themselves to this 
 branch of research. 
 
 This controversy is still going en in ever-widening 
 circles, and it is bound to do so until the present 
 confusion of thought which exists on this subject is 
 removed, and the broad distinction between right 
 and wrong experimentation is more fully acknow- 
 ledged and more clearly defined. Our relation to 
 the lower animals has never yet been brought fully 
 into the clear light of reason and conscience. Yet 
 ia the ':'rder of Providential development it must so 
 come forward. 
 
 As advancing humanity has gradually recognised 
 natural rights as existing in the various races of 
 
 i! 
 
90 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 mankind, and is carrying on a persistent warfare 
 against human slavery, and slowly awakening to the 
 moral crime of introducing disease and vice amongst 
 native races, and the rights as well as duties of 
 women and of children are being gradually recog- 
 nised, so the time has come when the natural rights 
 of inferior living creatures must be seriously studied. 
 This study has become obligatory, not only in 
 regard to the welfare of the brute creation, but for 
 the sake of our own Human growth as rational and 
 moral beings. 
 
 The common-sense of mankind recognises our 
 right to use the lower animals for human benefit, 
 whilst our superior intelligence gives us the power 
 toso use them. But 'can' and 'ought'are different 
 aspects of our mental constitution, which require to 
 be harmonized. What we can do is not the true 
 measure of what we ought to do in any department 
 of life. 
 
 We can starve a child or lash a horse to death, 
 but we have no right to do so. 
 
 The laws of our human constitution compel us to 
 recognise that intellect and conscience, although 
 essential parts, are not identical parts of our nature. 
 Long experience shows us that social progress can 
 only become permanent when conscience guides 
 intelligence. 
 
 How far the guidance of conscience c: n extend, 
 with the practical results to medical research 
 involved in the recognition of such guidance, forms 
 the subject of present consideration. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 
 The Growth of Conscience 
 
 •rough the gradual and harmonious develop- 
 er intelligence with that element in our nature 
 that v/e n^me conscience that the human race passes 
 from lower to higher states of civilization. In 
 pursuing our ideals, conscience is our instinctive 
 monitor of right and wrong. 
 
 Our great naturalist, Darwin, laid down as a law 
 of evolution that ' the moral sense, or conscience, is 
 by far the most important of the differences between 
 man and the lower animals. Duty — " ought " — is 
 the most noble of all the attributes of man.' 
 
 Victor Hugo, with the prophetic insight of genius, 
 calls conscience ' that modicum of innate science 
 with which each one is born.' 
 
 The growth of human conscience in its perception 
 of justice and in its sympathetic relation to creation 
 is the surest measure of individual and national 
 progress. Various intellectual theories may be 
 formed as to the origin and growth of conscience. 
 It may be held to be intuitive, springmg up as 
 inevitably as the instinc*^'*'' feelings born with the 
 
ga 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 natural relations of life; or it may be looked upon as 
 gradually evolved, the 'result of countless experi- 
 ences of fear, love, utility, transmitted through 
 generations.' 
 
 But however originating, conscience is a positive 
 and potent fact. It is, indeed, the mightiest factor 
 in social life. It is the great controller of selfhood. 
 It enlarges human character and guides human 
 conduct. The deepening of this principle through 
 the growth of justice and sympathy marks an 
 advancement in the type of humanity. Increasing 
 respect for life is one of the clearest signs of grow- 
 ing conscience. Our reverence for the principle of 
 life grows with our enlarging intellectual perception 
 of its universality and its unlimited power of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 As life is marked by activity, and cannot remain 
 stationary, so conscience shares this law of life. It 
 must inevitably advance or retrograde. 
 
 The degradation as well as the development of 
 conscience may be seen amongst us in the midst of 
 our present civilization. It is contrary to the most 
 rudimentary element of conscience to feed upon 
 one's kind, and cannibal triber who devour their 
 captives represent the lowest type of humanity; 
 even the dogs of the Arctic voyager will endure the 
 slow agony of starvation for days before their 
 human taskmasters can compel them to eat the flesh 
 of their companions. The well-known naturalist, 
 'r. W. H. Hudson, states that wolves, when pressed 
 with hunger, will sometimes devour a fellow-wolf; 
 
THE GROWTH OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 93 
 
 as a rule, however, rapacious animals will starve to 
 death rather than prey upon one of their own kind. 
 Yet shipwrecked sailors, even of our own English 
 race, have been known to drink the blood and eat 
 the flesh of their own comrades when confronted by 
 starvation. 
 
 We find that intelligence may exist without con- 
 science, but tho human type changes to a destructive 
 force «"'hen this separation takes place. A lament- 
 able e mple of the social danger created by the 
 destructir i or absence of rudimentary conscience 
 amongst us is shown by the betrayal and murder of 
 the little boy Eccles in Liverpool, for the sake of 
 his clothes, by his two companions of eight and 
 nine years old. There was the deliberate plot to 
 entice him to a pond ; the throwing him three times 
 into the water h'. he scrambled out ; the final 
 holding him ua-'er water until all struggle had 
 ceased. These facts make a striking, but not 
 unique, object-lesson, s iowing how intelligence may 
 exist without conscience amongst all our appliances 
 of civilization, and the danger of such separation. 
 
 Examples of the social devastation produced by 
 official corruption and business dishonesty are too 
 numerous to be detailed ; they are seen in what are 
 called civilized countries — in London, Paris, Rouie, 
 and across the ocean. The lack of conscience in 
 public and private transactions creates social misery 
 proportioned to its extent. 
 
 Recognising, therefore, that this distinctive prin- 
 ciple of conscience is a fact of gradual develupiiie'.ii, 
 
 1 
 
94 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOn IN BIOLOGY 
 
 that it grows by the union of the moral with the 
 intellectual elements in our nature, and that the 
 far-reach. ~ consequences for good or evil of vivid 
 or dulled conscience in the individual and the nation 
 are far beyond our power of foresight, a grave re- 
 sponsibility rests upon us in this matter. We are 
 bound to realize that any custom, or method of 
 education, or proposed course of action, that seems 
 to violate the natural instincts of humanity, or is 
 contrary to the present enlightened conscience of 
 any section of our i^nglo- American race, demands 
 imperatively the most careful consideration on our 
 part. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Conscience in Me""ine 
 
 Every intelligent member of the mecical p.^fession 
 will certainly recognise the special wJ.uc of human 
 conscience in the profession 
 
 The problems which are .*->olved in the practice 
 of the beneficent art, the absolute reliance which 
 the anxious patient is compelled to place in his 
 physician, the helplessness of the poor, who form so 
 large a majority of those who need medical aid, and 
 who are without the defences of wealth and station, 
 show the need of keen moral sense, as well as intel- 
 ligence, in those who practise the art of medicine. 
 
 The veiy discoveries of medical science enforce 
 this necessity; for the possibility of abuse in the 
 employment of such beneficent agents as anaesthetics 
 and hypnotism, by incompetent or conscienceless 
 operators, is a very serious fact. 
 
 This special responsibility of the medical profession 
 to society is greatly increased by the fact that the 
 training of a very large section of ^ur intelligent 
 youth during the important years of early manhood 
 rests upon thtm. The moral as well as intellectual 
 
96 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 influence exerted by those who guide the college, 
 the hospital, the dispensary, and post - graduate 
 classes, will mould the future action of one of the 
 most influential portions of the community — those, 
 viz., on whom the health of the nation chiefly 
 rests. 
 
 Now, whilst all recognise the need of the trained 
 and skilful care of a nation's health, and perceive 
 also that rightly organized medical schools and 
 hospitals are of great value in educating our health- 
 guardians, how is it that a profound distrust of these 
 institutions has grown up in our midst, that the 
 support of hospitals becomes increasingly difficult, 
 whilst at the same time the sentiment of benevolence 
 and desire to help the poor is constantly extended ? 
 
 How is it that the beneficent and necessary art of 
 medicine no longer commands that respect and 
 confidence which its essential character as part of 
 our social institutions would seem to demand ? 
 
 The answer to these serious questions involves 
 both moral and intellectual considerations. These 
 problems have arisen from failure to perceive that 
 in education moral and intellectual activity cannot 
 be advantageously divorced, or that one portion of 
 our complex nature cannot be beneficially developed 
 whilst other portions are entirely ignored or injured. 
 
 Our medical schools, whilst sharpeninrr the intel- 
 lectual faculties of their students, must be careful 
 that their modes of teaching bring with them no 
 deterioration of that important faculty of their 
 students — the moral sense. As conscience or the 
 
CONSCIENCE IN MEDICINE 
 
 97 
 
 moral sense is unequally developed in human beings, 
 but is indispensable to the physician in his relations 
 with patients, any apathy or negligence in this 
 respect by the trainers of youth may become a 
 national danger. 
 
 H 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Moral Element in Research 
 
 Morality as a guide in biological science is based 
 upon the practical distinction between organic and 
 inorganic Nature. 
 
 If medical progress simply involved the investiga- 
 tion of inorganic Nature, the general public would 
 be only learners, gladly receiving such information 
 in geology, chemistry, astronomy, or physics, as 
 specialists in those branches of physical science were 
 good enough to impart to the unlearned. 
 
 But directly scientific research passes beyond the 
 distinctive realm of matter, moulded and transformed 
 by general energy, but not affected by individual 
 will, it has to deal with a very different principle — 
 viz., Hfe. This vital distinction has been well laid 
 down by one of our eminent medical authorities as 
 follows : * During the slow growth of medical know- 
 ledge it has become more and more plain that 
 physics, chemistry, and biology are distinct sciences, 
 with methods of their own and inductions of their 
 own, each of the latter terms in the series using the 
 results of its predecessors, and adding new results of 
 
THE MORAL ELEMENT IN RESEARCH 
 
 99 
 
 its own. Although life is a structure built up of 
 physical and chemical facts, yet to the building, to 
 the arrangement, to the ordering of those facts, 
 there goes sometning that neither physics nor 
 chemistry can explain, any more than algebra can 
 explain the behaviour of a magnet. To strive to 
 interpret the series of events which make up the life 
 of an animal in terms of chemical change (meta- 
 bolism), or of conservation or expenditure of energy, 
 is an endeavour which will fail.' 
 
 As the brute creation as well as human beings 
 share in a physical organization which expresses 
 each variety of life, there is not the same sharply- 
 dividing line between the various categories of 
 animal life as there is between organic and in- 
 organic Nature. Biogenesis, or life generated by 
 life, is the distinctive feature of organic Nature. 
 We are linked to living creatures of higher or lower 
 nature by the power of educating or subduing them, 
 and by all those varying relations involved in the 
 mystery of life. 
 
 The distinctive position of man, as an animal 
 placed at the head of the animal world, necessarily 
 creates serious responsibility on the part of the 
 higher towards the lower creature. 
 
 This basis of moral responsibility extends in kind, 
 if not in degree, to all life. It necessitates a 
 directing conscience which shall guide all our intel- 
 lectual and practical relations with every category of 
 life. 
 
 This moral element enters unavoidably into our 
 
 7—2 
 
 \i I 
 
lOO 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 treatment of animal life from its lowest to its 
 highest form. Our treatment of a monkey or a 
 prince contains an element of moral attitude which 
 does not exist in our relation to inorganic Nature. 
 
 It is a difference of kind as well as of degree, 
 which it is blindness to ignore. 
 
 The divergence which now exists between some 
 biological investigators and their critics rests upon 
 the failure to recognise that moral error may en- 
 gender intellectual error. 
 
 The special subject which has produced this con- 
 troversy is the present method of using the lower 
 animals in biological research, which has so enor- 
 mously extended of late years. The essence of the 
 controversy is the ethical question — viz., Have we a 
 right to torture ? 
 
 It must be distinctly understood that there is here 
 no question of our right under certain circumstances 
 to put to death. Neither is there a doubt of the 
 utility of rational experiment and of research. But 
 the right to put to death in the most humane 
 manner known to us, and the right to torture to 
 death, are two widely different questions. 
 
 We have no right, for any purpose whatever, to 
 torture a living creature to death, either by the 
 mutilation of the organs, the slow deprivation of the 
 necessary conditions of life, or the still slower process 
 of destroying by the inoculation of dis^ .se. 
 
 3 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Right and Wrong Method 
 
 It must bt carefully noted that the wrong involved 
 in inflicting torture upon a living creature is the 
 violation of a rational principle. The employment 
 of torture or of pamful experiment in biological 
 research is not a qu^^stion of the right to gain 
 knowledge ; it is a question of how we seek to gain 
 knowledge. It applies directly to method. 
 
 Thus, the fact observed by Paget, that in a 
 patient who vomited all fat, the pancreas alone was 
 found on post mortem examination to be diseased, 
 is worth more than a series of experiments on lower 
 animals of different constitution from our own. 
 
 In the slow approach towards truth, Vv^hich is the 
 great object of science, no single method is indis- 
 pensable. The human mind is ; o full of activities. 
 Nature presents r^uch an infinite variety of re- 
 sources, that progress in research can never be 
 hindered by the choice of right instead of wrong 
 method. 
 
 This is w I stated by one of our most experienced 
 investigators when he says : ' Methods run with 
 
 J. 
 
102 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 the manners and customs of the ages. In science 
 there is no oxie method that can be considered 
 indispensable. Attributes are indispensable ; ob- 
 servation, industry, accuracy, are indispensable ; 
 methods are not. They may be convenient, they 
 may be useful, they may be expedient, but nothing 
 more.'^ 
 
 This admirable statement throws a flood of light 
 upon the confusion and perplexity of the present 
 controversy. It shows the error of both the so- 
 called unscientific and scientific parties. It shows 
 the error (not unnatural), in the former, of confound- 
 ing together experiment, research, laboratory, and 
 scientific investigation, and classing them under one 
 indiscriminate ban Ox" cruelty; it also shows the 
 narrow vision and false reasoning of those who 
 claim that right and wrong have no meaning when 
 applied to the investigation of phenomena supposed 
 to be revealed by the senses, or state that the 
 collecting of so-called facts, named knowledge, is an 
 end in itself, to be unrestrained and justified in 
 itself. 
 
 That interesting book, The Naturalist in La 
 Plata, m narrating the author's observation of the 
 natural fearlessness of all wild animals towards 
 man, the careful research into life- habits that can 
 be carried on where this fearlessness is not betrayed, 
 and the susceptibility to kindness which exists 
 amongst all the lower animals to their sovereign, 
 
 > Sir B. W. Richardson, Biological Experimentation: its 
 Functions and Limits, P- i5- 
 
RIGHT AND WRONG METHOD 
 
 103 
 
 h 
 
 man, furnishes a striking and delightful suggestion 
 as to the method which future research should take.^ 
 
 It is the distinctive moral relation existing in the 
 plane of animal life that makes our connection with 
 the organic world a different and more comprehen- 
 sive relation than that which exists with inorganic 
 Nature. It places research in the biologica' sciences 
 on a different plane from study of the physical 
 sciences. 
 
 Therefore, whilst it would be folly for ordinary 
 people to criticise the methods of experts in physical 
 science, it would be dastardly dereliction of duty 
 not to consider the methods employed in biological 
 science. 
 
 The subject of experimentation upon the lower 
 animals having two aspects— an ethical and an 
 intellectual one — the medical profession will be 
 wise to welcome all honest and kindly criticism 
 and suggestion in the most difficult of all studies — 
 viz., the study of life. It must be recognised that 
 the people are absolutely in their right in refusing 
 to submit to dictation in what concerns their rela- 
 tion to animal life, of which they are the responsible 
 head. 
 
 1 This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of 
 the French naturalist, Le Roy. 
 
 : 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Necessity of Medical Research 
 
 Whilst fully recognising the right of the laity to 
 criticise scientific method when it deals with sentient 
 animals, fashioned on the same general plan as 
 ourselves, and capable of fear, pain, affection and 
 gratitude, there is another aspect of the subject 
 which we are bound to consider. 
 
 The present condition of medicine is that of an 
 art, not of a science. It is erroneous to speak of 
 the science of medicine. There exists uncertainty 
 in diagnosis, uncertainty in the action of remedies, 
 ignorance of individual idiosyncrasy, and terrible 
 inability to meet such devastating diseases as cancer, 
 consumption, leprosy, etc. 
 
 No one outside the profession can fully realize the 
 grave responsibility, even desperate anxiety, felt by 
 the conscientious physician when life or death seems 
 to depend upon his action and he knows that 
 medical resources are not equal to the occasion. 
 It is a noble desire for the advancement of the 
 beneficent art of medicine which makes the great 
 body of busy doctors eagerly listen to those who 
 
 ii 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MEDICAL RESEARCH I05 
 
 are supposed to speak with authority, and hiiil 
 with hope every announcement of supposed dis- 
 covery which seems to promise improved practical 
 results. 
 
 This is really a sound humane attitude of mind 
 in that vast body of the profession who are 
 unable, from the pressure of practical life, to 
 devote themselves to investigation — a profession 
 which hasi always had its heroes and martyrs, 
 who have not shrunk from risking their lives in 
 the service and for the advancement of their noble 
 
 art. 
 
 Those also who are in the profession can most 
 fully estimate the real and beneficial results, both 
 in surgery and medicine, derived from careful and 
 persistent research, notwithstanding the severe dis- 
 appointment often caused by the theoretical error 
 and unjustifiable practice resulting from rivalry in 
 erroneous methods of investigation. The conquest 
 of pain and diminution of nervous shock in neces- 
 sary surgical operations,^ the disappearance of 
 blood-poisoning, hospital gangrene, and erysipelas, 
 which were the scourges of our public institutions 
 in a former generation, are immense gains, due to 
 the discovery of anaesthetics, antiseptics, and to 
 advancing sanitation. These blessings are the 
 direct outcome of persevering and skilful clinical 
 observation, of careful work in the laboratory, of 
 
 1 The former horrors of the hospital operating-room are 
 graphically described from personal observation in Sir H. W . 
 Richardson's treatise, The Masterv of Pain. 
 
 1' 
 
io6 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 humane experiment, and of happy accident ; they 
 are not derived from cruel experimentation. 
 
 The successful control of that terrible disease- 
 puerperal fever — which formerly destroyed such a 
 multitude of women, is a striking conquest of 
 humane method in modern medicine. When I was 
 a student in La Maternite of Paris in 1849, this 
 destructive malady of lying-in women produced a 
 mortality varying from 10 to 15 per cent. But 
 when I visited La Maternite in 1889 the mortality 
 was reduced to a little over i per cent. This was 
 due to rigorous cleanliness, sanitation, and the use 
 of antiseptics, directed by the si<ilful sage femme en 
 chef, Madame Henri, in spite of the old and unsuit- 
 able buildings and the depressing status of many of 
 the patients. 
 
 A still more satisfactory result is shown in the 
 Clapham Maternity Hospital, in London, where not 
 a single death occurred amongst the 760 cases first 
 received into the institution. 
 
 This excellent result still continues under the 
 same administration. Of the 4,000 lying-in cases 
 received in the hospital during the thirteen years it 
 has existed, there has been no death from puerperal 
 fever. This excellent record has been attained by 
 scrupulous cleanliness, absolute isolation on the 
 occurrence of suspicious symptoms, by excellent 
 nursing, and constant oversight by the doctors in 
 charge. Even in the out-patient department, where 
 the conditions of living are not under such strict 
 medical control, the deaths from this frightful malady 
 
THE NECESSITY OF MEDICAL RESEARCH IO7 
 
 have only amounted to 5 in 12,500 cases under the 
 same enlightened direction. 
 
 This great and beneficent reform in the first and 
 world-wide branch of medicine, by means of which 
 the lives of innumerable women in all our large 
 centres of civilization have been saved, is the res'^lt 
 of scientific research. It was initiated and success- 
 fully carried out by Semmelweis, of Vienna, and is 
 a striking instance of the value of research carried 
 on by the use of the comparative method, with 
 absolutely no resort to experiment. The history of 
 this reform, the methods by which it was accom- 
 plished, the opposition it encountered in the pro- 
 fession ii ^If, and its triumphant vindication, are 
 well worth serious study. An account of this 
 valuable investigation and other important dis- 
 coveries by justifiable methods of inquiry are given 
 to English readers by the admirable translation 
 published by the New Sydenham Society.^ 
 
 Medical research, therefore, is not only justifiable, 
 but obligatory in a profession that is specially 
 charged with the care and advancement of individual 
 and national health, and, as - seen later, 
 
 observation, induction, and ratioi. experiment form 
 the essential methods of scientific inquiry. 
 
 These two facts — viz., the necessity of advance in 
 medical knowledge and the methods of investiga- 
 
 1 See the standard work of Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical 
 and Historical Pathology (New Sydenham Society), vol. ii., 
 pp. 416-466. The value of this translation is greatly increased 
 by its excellent index. 
 
zo8 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 f 
 
 tion necessary for such advance — must be distinctly 
 recognised by sincere reformers, and should shield 
 the profession from that indiscriminate reproach 
 which is often nade against it as a whole ; for such 
 hostility tends to strengthen that undue esprit de 
 corps which often hinders sound medical progress 
 in the profession. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Restriction of Experiment 
 
 When we investigate the popular or ethical aspect 
 of so-called scientific research made upon living 
 animals, we are at once met by facts which impera- 
 tively demand both serious thought and determined 
 action if we would not be participators in the 
 degradation of human conscience. We are con- 
 fronted with the enormous increase in such experi- 
 ments which has taken place within the last thirty 
 years, as well as in the severi*^}' of the sufferings 
 inflicted. This increase is going on in England 
 as well as in foreign countries.^ It is growing in 
 many cases, not only without any benefit to the 
 human race, but also without reference to any 
 supposed beneficial result as its attempted justifica- 
 tion. 
 
 The volume of facts and evidence collected by 
 Mr. Colam (the able Secretary of the Royal Society 
 
 * Thus, the authorities of Paris ordered twenty friendless 
 dogs to be tied to the branches of trees in a wood, and a sliell 
 made in the municipal laboratory exploded amongst them, 
 riddling and mangling them fearfully. 
 
no 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 for the Protection of Animals), and published by 
 that society in 1876, is a permanent record of great 
 value. It enables us to measure the growth of 
 experimentation in England, not only from 1862 
 to 1876, when the present Cruelty to Animals Bill 
 was enacted, but it also forms a point of comparison 
 for testing the increase of vivisectional methods 
 since 1876 to the present day, when these easy but 
 often fallacious methods of research have become 
 universal in medical investigation and medical 
 instruction. 
 
 In i86g there were very few places where the 
 experimentation on animals could be carried on, 
 such investigations being made by men of rare 
 abilit)', and for a definite object. There were no 
 class demonstrations and no students encouraged to 
 experiment. But in 1892 there were 180 persons 
 licensed in this country, and over 3,960 experiments 
 performed, numbers which increase with each year. 
 
 The Effect on Students and Subordinates. — A point 
 for serious consideration is the effect produced 
 upon the unformed minds of students of medicine 
 by the introduction of experimentation upon living 
 animals into our medical schools and hospitals. 
 
 The employment of destructive experimentation 
 on livi'^ creatures is now introduced as a part of 
 the ordmary instruction of medical students in the 
 fundamental study — physiology. This is a novelty 
 of the present generation. During the whole course 
 of my medical studies, fifty years ago, I never saw 
 a living creature vivisected for the instruction of 
 
RESTRICTION OF EXPERIMENT 
 
 III 
 
 students. The same is true of the experience of 
 most of the able physicians of an older generation. 
 
 Now, however, nearly every medical school has 
 its store of imprisoned living creatures awaiting 
 their fate, from the large frogs imported from 
 Germany, the mice, rabbits, cats, and dogs of home 
 production, to the cargoes of monkeys brought to 
 our foggy climate from tropical Africa. They form 
 an enormous mass of living creatures, kept for the 
 attempted demonstration of vital action in the 
 lecture-room, or for the study of diseased processes 
 in the physiological laboratory. 
 
 It is a fallacy (although proclaimed in high places) 
 that the ordinary student of medicine must be 
 prepared for his practical work as a physician for 
 men by watching the opening of chest, abdomen, 
 brain, or cutting into the delicate vital organs of 
 lower animals. Such demonstration is a thrilling 
 spectacle to inexperienced students. It appeals to 
 that love of excitement which makes them rush to a 
 surgical operation, or to an extraordinary medical 
 case, whilst the commonplace but all-important 
 bedside observation seems dull in comparison. Yet 
 patient work in the anatomical and microscopic 
 rooms, and in the chemical laboratory for general 
 and animal chemistry and close clinical study, all of 
 which involve no form of suffering, are of primary 
 importance. The genius of a Professor as an 
 instructor is shown by his ability to make his pupils 
 realize this. 
 
 Destructive experimentation on helpless animals. 
 
112 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD TN BIOLOGY 
 
 not for their own benefit, is a demoralizing practice. 
 The student becomes familieir with the use of gags, 
 straps, screws, and all the paraphernalia of ingenious 
 instruments invented for overpowering the resistance 
 of the living creature, or for guarding the operator 
 from injury in case the anaes ' etic, when used, 
 should give out too soon. He learns also how easy 
 it is to experiment in secret. 
 
 By advanced instruction and post-graduate classes 
 the student is led on to take active part under 
 licensed authority in this fascinating, but morally 
 dangerous, method of study. Mc cover, the large 
 body of subordinates who are necessary to take 
 charge of and prepare the animals, are trained in 
 indifference to suffering, without any excuse of 
 intellectual gain, and the same injurious influence 
 extends in ever-widening circles — to the traders who 
 invent and sell instruments of torture, and to those 
 who supply the living material. 
 
 Now, the natural instinct to be cherished in 
 human beings is protection and kindliness to infancy 
 and all helpless creatures, not indifference to suffer- 
 ing or wilful infliction of it. As human conscience 
 is a thing of growth or degradation, the natural 
 shrinking from needless pain can soon be hardened 
 into callousness. Conversing with medical students 
 in relation to the effect made upon them by witness- 
 ing vivisections even under chloroform, I have 
 found that their experience is always the same — 
 viz., first, the shock of repulsion, then tolerance, 
 and then, if often repeated, indifference. 
 
RESTRICTION OF EXPERIMENT 
 
 113 
 
 The moral deterioration necessarily induced in 
 those :o whom suffering becomes a frequent spectacle 
 is noted by the Etif^dishman in Paris, from personal 
 experience. After speaking of the inhumanity 
 produced by the daily sight of blood in the origi- 
 nally honest bourgeois, who became the ' Conven- 
 tionnels' of the French Revolution in 1793, he 
 writes as follows : ' I have witnessed three execu- 
 tions. After Pommeraye's execution I was ill for 
 a week ; after Troppmann's the effect soon wore off 
 in three days; after Campa's I ceased to think 
 about it in twenty-four hours. Then I m.ide a vow 
 that no power on earth should draw me to the Place 
 de la Roquette again. But men generally regard 
 their growing imperviousness as a sign of mental 
 force, and pride themselves upon it.' 
 
 In Marie Bashkertseff's Journal is a striking 
 passage which describes the effect of a Spanish 
 bull-fight. She says : ' I was able to maintain a 
 tranquil air in full view of the butchery, carried on 
 with the utmost refinement of cruelty. One leaves 
 the scene slightly intoxicated with blood, and feeling 
 desirous to thrust a lance into the neck of every 
 person one meets. I stuck my knife into the melon 
 I was cutting at table as if it were a banderilla I 
 were planting in the hide of a bull, and the pulp 
 jemed hke the palpitating flesh of the wounded 
 animal. The sight is one that makes the knees 
 tremble and the head throb. It is a lesson in 
 murder.' 
 
 The moral distinction between heroism shown 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
114 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 when suffering is witnessed for the purpose of 
 aiding the sufferer and that evinced for the selfish 
 desire of individual gain or excitement, was strikingly 
 exhibited by a German nurse whom we sent on to 
 the army during the Civil War in America. This 
 frail-looking woman drifted on to the front, and, 
 after the Battle of Gettysburg, donning a pair of 
 mpn's boots, wading in pools of blood and mud, 
 spent two days and nights on the field of slaughter, 
 drawing out still breathing bodies from the heaps of 
 slain, binding up wounds, giving a draught of water, 
 placing a rough pillow under the head, in an unselfish 
 enthusiasm that knew neither hunger nor fatigue. 
 The ghastly wounds, the blood, the shrieks and 
 groans of that horrid scene served but as fuel to the 
 fire of humanity that consumed her. 
 
 The Effect on Teachers or Practitioners of Medicine, 
 — In considering the subject of experimentation, 
 reason requires that we realize the necessary dis- 
 tinction between the methods employed in training 
 students for a practical profession and the exceptional 
 position of the few geniuses who possess the rare 
 combination of qualities essential to scientific in- 
 vestigation. In calling attention to this distinction 
 we do not condone torture, for this can be proved 
 to be unscientific. But it emphasizes a growing 
 and mischievous evil of the present day when 
 numbers of ordinary teachers of physiology, whose 
 gifts are limited and whose erpecial business is to 
 instruct students in the knowledge which has been 
 attained, consider themselves capable of original 
 
 U. 
 
RESTRICTION OF EXPERIMENT 
 
 "5 
 
 scientific research, or attempt to repeat before either 
 students or popular audiences so-called demonstra- 
 tions on living creatures. 
 
 The showy plan of experimenting on animals is 
 undoubtedly a great temptation to teachers. Such 
 practice readily gains the gratifying applause of 
 inexperienced learners, who are misled by an 
 appearance of conclusiveness in the lectures, which 
 they are quite incompetent to gauge. But the 
 influence thus exercised is a harmful one, diverting 
 the mind from right methods of study. 
 
 The temptation to make a display before im- 
 perfectly informed persons is U great. If the 
 profession is to advance in pop esteem, it will 
 
 recognise that the unfeeHng des. uction of living 
 creatures, even the pithing of a frog or the dissection 
 of the salivary glands of a living mouse, is a fal'-e 
 method of forming the minds of students, which 
 should be entirely abandoned. 
 
 We must here note the demand lately made by 
 some leading members of the profession for increased 
 facilities ^'^r experimentation on animals. Now, 
 anyone i studies the Cruelty to Animals liill 
 (30 and . . V^ict.), whi>..i in 1876 licensed vivisection 
 in Great Britain,^ will see how easy it now is to 
 obtain a license, and how carefully the provisions of 
 the Bill are arranged to give freedom to experimenta- 
 tion — in fact, to protect experimenters rather than 
 
 * The humane and carefully-gu.irdcd Hill drawn up Ijy tlie 
 Rnyal Society for the Protection of Animals, and introduced 
 by the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Carnarvon, was rejected. 
 
 8—2 
 
 '! 
 
 n 
 
! 
 
 ii6 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 their helpless victims. Thus, whilst in Section 2 
 a penalty of £100 or three months' imprisonment 
 is imposed for acts of cruelty, the Bill proceeds in 
 Section 3 to give absolute freedom to every licensed 
 person to torture, to mutilate, to disease to any 
 extent if he considers it advisable to do so. In 
 Section 11 it gives exceedingly wide scope for 
 procuring licenses. By Suctions 7 to 10 it makes the 
 efficient oversight of licensed persons almost im- 
 possible, and by the provisions of Sections 13 to 15 it 
 virtually excludes the influence of growing humani- 
 tary conscience in the community from being exerted 
 on the persons and places licensed. In short, the 
 Bill would rather seem to be skilfully devised to give 
 a free hand to persons who may call themselves 
 * scientific ' than to protect living creatures who 
 cannot protect themselves. 
 
 The plea put forward by the gentlemen referred 
 to — viz., that medical progress is now hindered in 
 England by restrictions — is practically a ju. Jfication 
 by them of the inhuman practices which prevail in 
 France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, 
 and in all countries where the conscience of the 
 people has not been aroused to the moral and intel- 
 lectual dangers involved in the torture of animals.^ 
 
 ^ The judicious remarks of Lord Farrer in relation to muni- 
 cipal affairs apply equally to the subject under consideration. 
 He says : ' My immediate object, however, is not to preach 
 upon the general question, Ijut to make a practical suyyestion. 
 What we want to know is, Which of the two ways of doing any 
 particular work is the cheaper and better.? Much experience 
 
RESTRICTION OF EXPERIMENT 
 
 117 
 
 Surely these English physicians who demand 
 entire freedom for vivisection do not realize what 
 the result of foreign methods is. They cannot have 
 noted the innumerable examples of atrocious cruelty 
 which are occurring in the records of medical 
 research as practised on the Continent and in 
 America. 
 
 They cannot have taken note of such typical 
 examples as the utterly useless barbarity of Senn 
 of Philadelphia, setting fire to a dog that he had 
 pumped full of hydrogen gas, before the Medical 
 Congress of Berlin in i8go. Nor the experiments 
 in massage on a series of large di jointed dogs per- 
 formed in Professor Charles Richet's Paris laboratory, 
 not only with the permission, but with the consulta- 
 tive advice of that gentleman. A set of more 
 unjustifiable experiments were never devised. 
 
 Certainly, no body of honourable English physi- 
 cians who are in the habit of reading Les Archives 
 Gcncralcs de Mcdecinc would fail to condemn such 
 fallacious experiments, where the pretence of anaes- 
 thesia served to diminish the resistance of the 
 victims — not to annihilate pain. 
 
 Factors in Human Nature. — It must never be 
 
 of public departments leads me to doubt their own reports upon 
 their own doings ; not, of course, from any dishonesty on tiie 
 part of the officials, but from a natural tendency in every man 
 to make the best of what he does. It is for this reason, as well 
 as from want of sufficient experience, that I cannot feel absolute 
 confidence in the reports made to the London County Council 
 on the results of their own experiments.' 
 
ii8 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 forgotten that gambling excitement or the spirit 
 of undue emulation exists in all classes of men— in 
 biological investigators as well as others— and it 
 needs guidance or restraint. 
 
 The German officer Keizenstein felt keen remorse 
 for the murder of his beautiful Irish mare Lippe- 
 springe, yet he and his companions tortured thirty 
 horses to death under the temporary insanity of 
 intense rivalry. But it was possible to bring public 
 conscience to bear on this barbarity, and thus check 
 the recurrence of any similar future aberration. 
 
 So in biological research we see the disastrous 
 effects of individual and national rivalry. They are 
 shown in the contradictory results of false methods 
 of observation, in the endless repetition of similar 
 painful experiments, in the strife of conflicting 
 theories, and in the practical failure of results 
 obtained from the lower animals when applied to 
 the human race. 
 
 The moral sense of a noble profession may well 
 be appealed to to create a conscience which shall 
 check the present grave abuses of so-called research. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Prurigo Secandi 
 
 Another serious ethical danger connected with 
 unrestraiiied experiment on the lower animals is the 
 enormous increase of audacious human surgery, 
 which tends to overpower the slower but more 
 natural methods of medical art and to divert atten- 
 tion from hygiene. 
 
 This modern increase of surgery, entailing per- 
 manent mutilation, has received a special name, 
 prurigo secandi, or cacoethes secandi. It prevails 
 in France and in every country where no restraint is 
 placed on animal experimentation,^ or where the 
 
 ' ' I'lufcssor Leon le Fort, Professor V'erncull, Professor 
 Duplay, .•liul Professor Tillaux, have been asked Ijy a public 
 journal for their opinions on the operative mania {fiirie opcru- 
 toirc) said to be prevalent at present. Professor le l-'ort says 
 it is much more widespread in France than in other countries, 
 and in a long letter he protests a^ain^. the custom amonj^st the 
 young French surgeons, in order to bring their names before the 
 public, "to seek out some operation unknown in France, then 
 seek out a victim on whom they can perform it, in order to 
 report it before a medical society, and perhaps also show the 
 patient." Then, says M. le Fort, they take up the operation as 
 
 li! 
 
I20 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN IJIOLOGV 
 
 importance of not injuring,' the moral sense of 
 students has not been reco^'nised. 
 
 The f;;reat increase in ovariotomy, and its exten- 
 sion to the insane is a notable result of this prurigo 
 secandi. 
 
 Dr. Chanu, in his carefully-prepared thesis of 
 1896, in exposing the grave abuse of this branch of 
 surgery, estimates that there were 500,000 castrated 
 women in France, and one in every 250 women 
 throughout Europe. He finds the decrease of the 
 birth-rate to coincide with the abuse of ovariotomy. 
 ' Dr. Chanu affirmed, before a jury unable to refute 
 his assertion, that the abuse of ovariotomy has done 
 more harm to France in ten years than the Prussian 
 bullets did in 1870, and that the causes of the 
 depopulation of France are closely allied to the 
 practice of the castration of women.' 
 
 The prevention of disease in the organs cf genera- 
 tion must be sought for persistently in improved 
 education of the young — the male as well as the 
 female — and in just relations of the sexes. 
 
 Of the same nature as the prurigo secandi of 
 medical practice is the motive or source of much of 
 the laboratory experimentation. 
 
 a speciality, perform it on 100 or 200 patients, and thus gain a 
 reputation. Professor \'erneuil protests against the abuse of 
 operations in general, and especially of gynecological operations. 
 He deplores the prurigo secandi with wliich so many of the 
 French surgeons are attacked. Professor Dupla\- and Professor 
 Tillaux cxjiress the same opinions.' .See Medical Reprints, 
 May, 1893. 
 
 Uii 
 
PRURIGO SECANDI 
 
 121 
 
 The various ethical dangers resultinj; from con- 
 scienceless or irrational experiments on animals 
 demand mucli more serious consideration by the 
 profession than has hitherto been jjiven to them. 
 In the opinion of an increasinjj number of intellij^ent 
 physicians, a vast amount of what is now pre- 
 sumptuously called research — experiments disj:juised 
 under learned names, but which are really the 
 irrational mutilatinj^ and diseasing; of sentient livinj; 
 creatures — are no more scientific research than is the 
 gratification of a child's curiosity when it sticks a pin 
 with a thread throuj^h a cockchafer, to see how lonjij 
 it will fly and how loud it will hu/.z. The child, 
 when punished for its thoughtless cruelty, might 
 remonstrate in learned terms that it should not be 
 restrained, for it was investigating the vital endur- 
 ance v"tf the Melolontha vulgaris and the acoustic 
 propel ties of its wing-covers, under interesting and 
 abnormal conditions. 
 
 A large proportion of what is simply conscience- 
 less curiosity, often starting from more or less 
 frivolous tentative diversions of the laboratory, 
 though now by courtesy named research, is no more 
 valu 'ble th"o the child's spinning of the cockchafer, 
 and shouiu be as sharply checked. 
 
 The genesis of discovery in biology, with its 
 necessary relations to therapeutics, has yet to be 
 written. Extending experience is more and more 
 clearly showing us, as a practical fact, that whilst 
 observation and rational — i.e., humanely limited — 
 experiment are legitimate and noble efforts for the 
 
 i 
 
 j I! 
 
122 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN lUOI.OGY 
 
 i if 
 ■ 11 
 
 attainment of improved medicine, cruel and merely 
 curious experiment, condemned by our moral facul- 
 ties, are misleading and mischievous. 
 
 Men like Professor Henschel, of Upsala, and 
 Professor Pcttenkofer, of Munich, warn our eager 
 young investigators against drawing conclusions 
 as to human beings from experiments made on 
 animals. 
 
 We find, as a matter of fact, that all the / '/;; / -cut 
 advances of medicine have been gained whilst pur- 
 suing rational and righteous methods, whilst all the 
 fiascoes of supposed discovery have resulted through 
 departing' from them. 
 
 Anr •. antiseptics, and sanitation are not 
 
 the resu. -1 experimentation. 
 
 Danger uj .nlation. — The most serious fallacy 
 
 arising from erroneous methods of biological re- 
 search is the practice of vitiating human blood by 
 the introduction of the diseased products of animals. 
 This dangerous method, which threatens to under- 
 mine national health, is the necessary outcome of 
 diseasing animals on the plea of seeking remedies 
 for human disease. 
 
 The intellectual fallacy involved in this practice 
 will be considered later ; but its ethical character as 
 affecting conscience must here be noted, as it is this 
 line of research which is productive of the most 
 extended form of cruelty to the lower animals — vi2., 
 ■dow torture. 
 
 The following extract from records f the Belgian 
 Academy of Medicine illustrates this subject : 
 
PKUKKIO SECANDI 
 
 I2J 
 
 * Researches on the inoculability of cancer ouf,'ht to 
 be encouraged. The numerous experiments made 
 on animals are still contradictory in results. Drs. 
 l-'rancotte and De Rector have in the years 1891-9^ 
 inoculated mice under the skin of the shoulder. 
 The inoculations were carried on from June, iNiji, to 
 May, 1892, when the foUowinj,' appearances were 
 presenteti: The whole region of the shoulder was 
 inflamed ; there was necrosis of the corresponding 
 upper extremity, which dropped off from dry 
 gangrene ; the stump left was indurated, hard, and 
 painful, whilst the lymphatic glands in connection 
 with the part were enlarged. The examination of 
 the tumour disclosed nothing very particular. The 
 bones were the seat of osteoporosis, and the arteries 
 showed arteritis. The investigators believe the 
 tumours were cancerous, but this statement must be 
 received with caution.' 
 
 Such long-continued torture, even of a mouse, is 
 morally degrading, and, as if in retribution, is 
 doomed to be useless. 
 
 A Chinese medical author, Tuan Mei, writing in 
 the last century, 1716 to 1797, lays down a true 
 medical axiom when he marks the difference be- 
 tween death and torture as follows : ' Living 
 creatures are for our use, and we may put them 
 to death. But we may not make death a boon, and 
 then withhold it Trom them.' 
 
 n 
 
 ' V- 
 
 4 ':i\ 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1 ■> 
 
 What is Scientific Research? 
 
 The apparent opposition between popular and 
 medical judgment in relation to certain methods of 
 biological research which claim to be scientific, 
 necessitates a clearer knowledge of what science is, 
 and a recognition of the methods of research which 
 can alone be called scientific. 
 
 It is certain that knowledge of truth must recon- 
 cile varying but honest opinions, and furnish plans 
 of investigation that neither shock the humane 
 development of our nature nor hinder our intel- 
 lectual progress towards truth. 
 
 The terms ' science ' and ' scientific ' are con- 
 stantly used and abused. They are often applied to 
 the accumulating of facts or of phenomena; but 
 such accumulation is not necessarily science, and 
 may even hinder science. For although the collect- 
 ing of facts may bring together valuable materials 
 essential for future use, it may also bring together 
 rotten or sham materials, which will interfere with 
 sound work. A faulty method of endeavouring to 
 
WHAT IS SClEN'llUC RESEARCH? 
 
 125 
 
 obtain facts may seriously destroy the value of the 
 phenomena thus observed. 
 
 The gratification simply of intellectual activity or 
 curiosity must not be confounded with genuine 
 research. Curiosity is the outcome of ignorance. 
 Now, our ignorance of much in Nature is no re- 
 proach to anyone, but the way in which curiosity is 
 gratified marks the difference between the simple 
 child and the rational adult. In the childish 
 development curiosity, though useful, is superficial 
 and short-sighted ; it is necessarily a shallow impulse, 
 which cannot realize the wide relations of existence, 
 .'ind its satisfaction has no necessary connection with 
 the acquisition of valuable knowledge. But the 
 adult rises into a higher plane of thought. Curiosity 
 is no longer unduly exercised, but has grown into a 
 love of truth. It has become that reverential use of 
 reason which is the basis of truth, and which forms 
 the true guide to the attainment of scientific know- 
 ledge ; for rational method does not isolate a fact 
 from all its connections, but sees it in its relations 
 and in due proportion. Thus only can valuable 
 knowledge be acquired. 
 
 Neither is analysis science. It is only when the 
 observations of analysis are corrected and proved 
 by synthesis that the truth of science can be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 A clear recognition of the different use of analysis 
 and of synthesis is essential in any claim of research 
 to be called scientific. 'Although by analysis we 
 separate and by synthesis we combine, yet in the 
 
126 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 synthesis there is more than in all the parts taken 
 analytically. The mere synthesis introduces some- 
 thing entirely new.' 
 
 Kant, in speaking of the use of analysis and 
 synthesis in logic, lays down the test of all scientific 
 inquiry. He says : * Analysis is the first and chief 
 requirement in making our knowledge distinct. 
 For the more dist i ct our knowledge of a thing is, 
 the stronger and rv -e effective it can be ; only the 
 analysis must not gu so far that at last the object 
 itself disappears.' 
 
 Truth being a unity, the science which demon- 
 strates it must correlate all knowledge. 
 
 Science is not, therefore, an accumulation of 
 isolated facts, or of facts torn from their natural 
 relations. To know a thing scientifically is to know 
 it in just relation to all other things. For science 
 unites and demands the exercise of our various 
 faculties as well as of our senses. 
 
 Science is proved knowledge. It is the study of 
 causes and their relations applied to facts ; but such 
 proof can only be obtained by search which is in 
 accordance with the laws of Nature — laws which are 
 gradually discovered by our race. 
 
 Natural law is deduced from all the facts of 
 human experience, in searching for and collecting 
 which we must recognise the conditions under 
 which we are placed, the limitations of the present 
 phase of our intellectual powers, the gradual growth 
 of conscience. 
 
 Science being proved truth, scientific method 
 
WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ? 
 
 127 
 
 requires that all the factors which concern the sub- 
 ject of research shall l^e duly considered, in order to 
 arrive at correct thought respecting the special sub- 
 ject of inquiry. 
 
 The application of scientitic method necessarily 
 varies, therefore, according to the subject under 
 investigation. 
 
 Thus, the construction of a bridge and the calcula- 
 lation of an eclipse equally involve the bases of 
 scientific meth 'nz., observation, deduction, and 
 experiment ; b ch subject requires a special 
 
 application of scientific method, suited to the vary- 
 ing nature of the subject of study. 
 
 Consequently, biological research, in order to be 
 scientific, requires a special modification of method, 
 because the new factors of sensation and conscious- 
 ness come into play in biology — factors which do 
 not exist in astronomy, or geology, in mechanics, 
 physics, or chemistry. 
 
 In order to attain truth respecting biology, there- 
 fore, the facts concerning sensation and conscious- 
 ness and their relation with, or the way in which 
 these new factors modify the facts of, physics and 
 chemistry must be carefully considered in this 
 higher state which we call life, or the investigation 
 is not scientific, no matter how interesting as an 
 intellectual exercise. 
 
 When first endeavourmg to find a recognised 
 definition of the term * science,' I consulted the 
 latest Encyclopudia Britannica of our public library, 
 thinking that from such an acknowleged authority a 
 
 lit 
 ill 
 
 ! *l 
 III 
 
 'II 
 
128 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 f I 
 
 correct statement could there be obtained. To my 
 surprise, I found that the word 'science' was not 
 included in the list of subjects. Searching further 
 in this record of nineteenth-century thought, under 
 the he of * Biology ' — that department which is 
 ordinarily supposed to be the science of life as 
 distinguished from the consideration of non-living 
 things — the following principle was found to be laid 
 (^own—\iz., that there was no essential difference 
 between organized and unorganized Nature, for life 
 was simply a property of matter. 
 
 It is well to weigh the argument for this doctrine, 
 which necessarily destroys the essential idea of 
 right and wrong, and removes the foundation of 
 good and evil. It is set forth in the following manner: 
 
 ' The abstract-concrete sciences are mechanics, 
 physics, chemistry. . . . Whilst their subject-matter 
 is found in a consideration of varied concrete 
 phenomena, they do not aim at a determination 
 of certain "abstract" quantitative relations and 
 sequences known as " laws," which never are mani- 
 fested in a pure form, but always are inferred 
 by observation and experiment upon complex 
 phenomena, in which the abstract laws are disguised 
 by their simultaneous interaction. . . . These 
 sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry have 
 for their object to explain concrete phenomena by 
 reference to the properties of matter set forth in 
 their generalizations.' 
 
 The following important dictum in regard to 
 biology is thus laid down : 
 
WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ? 
 
 I2g 
 
 ' It is the business of those occupied with that 
 branch to assign living things in all their variety 
 to the one set of forces recognised by the physicist 
 and chemist ... and its evolution ' (that is, the 
 evolution of life) 'as the necessary outcome of those 
 forces — the automatic product of those same forces. 
 . . . The discovery of the mechanical principle of 
 evolution completed the doctrine ' (of the material 
 origin of life). ' . . . It may be said to comprise 
 the history of man, sociology, and psychology — vi^., 
 the survival of the fittest in the struggle for 
 existence.' 
 
 This Ignoring by the Encyclopcedia Britannica of 
 any definition of the word * science,* and also the 
 attempted reduction of life to a property of matter, 
 is, however, too limited a view of Nature to be 
 accepted by many thoughtful students of the present 
 day. Turning, therefore, to Chambers' Cyclopcedia, 
 which is the latest expression cf the views of the 
 able thinkers of North Britain, an explanation of 
 the term * science ' was found, which is far truer 
 to advancing thought. The comprehensive defini- 
 tion is there given that science 'is the correlation 
 of all knowledge.' 
 
 As science searches for causes with their relations, 
 and is proved knowledge, so no branch of know- 
 ledge or method of acquiring knowledge can be 
 considered scientific which contradicts any facts of 
 Nature, or which bases its methods on the destruc- 
 tion of those facts. 
 
 Truth can only be arrived at by considering 
 
 ill 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 O 
 
130 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 various or apparently opposite aspects of human 
 problems; so biological facts, or the problems of 
 organized or living creatures must be considered, 
 not simply from the side of ' mechanics, physics, 
 and chemistry, or the automatic action of the forces 
 of matter,' but also from the equally positive facts 
 of life, and the forces which careful observation 
 is gradually showing to be enfolded in the fact of 
 mind as developed through protoplasm onward. 
 The facts of affection, companionship, sympathy, 
 justice, are positive forces. They exercise a powerful 
 influence over the physical organization of all livmg 
 
 creatures. 
 
 These mental forces can change the action of the 
 bodily functions in the most surprising manner, 
 arresting the heart's action, interfering with secre- 
 tion, or changing natural secretion into poison, and 
 destroying the normal and beneficial controlling 
 action of the nervous system. They are proved 
 by experience to be so striking that they cannot 
 be overlooked in any unprejudiced investigation of 
 
 natural forces. 
 
 A fit of passion in a nursing mother has destroyed 
 her infant; the industrious cultivator seeing his 
 field of strawberries, the products of his toil, carried 
 off by thieves, has fallen dead in his vain efforts 
 to stop the cruel depredation. But such instances 
 are world-wide, and corroborated by everyone's 
 experience. They prove that, although the forces 
 of mechanics, physics, and chemistry are employed 
 in the animal economy, there are also powers far 
 
WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ? 
 
 131 
 
 beyond these linriited forces, which must be studied 
 also in biological research, if we are to learn how 
 these physical may be overridden by mental forces. 
 Without such correlation of knowledge we fail to 
 realize the unity of Nature, and cannot attain to 
 true science or proved knowledge. 
 
 It is thus seen that, as already stated, in useful 
 scientific investigation the object to be attained, 
 the method to be employed, and the application 
 to be made of the knowledge searched for, must 
 all be considered in determining the distinction 
 between genuine science and simple unguided intel- 
 lectual activity or curiosity. 
 
 It is necessary to emphasize the fact, because this 
 vital distinction is often overlooked in the claim 
 now made for the grand term * science.' 
 
 In defining the meaning and scope of science 
 as pursued by rational beings, it must be recognised 
 as a fundamental principle, which cannot be too 
 often dwelt upon, that what we can do, is not a 
 measure of what we ought to do. Thus, when 
 Stanley attempted to excuse the infamous action of 
 his naturalist, Jameson,^ by saying that he was a 
 real good fellow, but ' his science misled him,' he 
 degraded the term * science ' by applying it to an 
 act of morbid curiosity. 
 
 Again, when the Russian nobleman purchased a 
 child and condemned it to be brought up with a 
 
 ^ This naturalist, when amongst cannibals in the Emin 
 Pasha Expedition, bribed the cannibal tribe to eat a young 
 negro girl. 
 
 9—2 
 
132 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 deaf and dumb nurse, under the unnatural eondi- 
 tkm of deprivation of all social relations h.sact.on 
 ,^s not scientific, but a gratification of inhuman 
 
 '"itli* within our power apparently to drown an 
 animal, human or brute, and recover it to life ag=un 
 and again, but we gain no scientific knowledge by 
 so doing. We torture the creature and violate our 
 natural instincts, but we acquire no practical benefi 
 to human welfare ; on the contrary, we endanger 
 the mental integrity of the experimenter. 
 
 It is a short-sighted and hopeless attempt o do 
 violence to Nature in a search for =<='«''"«^ """■. 
 Distinction must be made between the possible and 
 ^possible in the conditions under hich we are 
 pTaced in life. Thus, we cannot destroy the family 
 relation, but we can make it happy and conducive 
 to the Welfare of the race. We cannot change the 
 method of human generation, but we can ^P'"t»f ^^ 
 its exercise. We cannot destroy the ins met of 
 private property, but we can guide ^nd 1"""^. . ^^ 
 cannot change structure, but we can educate it nor 
 abolish curiosity, but we can restrain and direct it, 
 nor heck invention, but it need not be applied o ev, 
 purposes. Neith-r can we make races equal, but 
 we can establish justice and mercy in the relations 
 of the stronger to the weaker. 
 
 This study of the natural laws which necessarily 
 limit rational human action applies with especial 
 force to biological research, and explains the reason 
 for limiting scientific method. 
 
WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH? 
 
 133 
 
 Thus, the study of living creatures under un- 
 natural or destructive conditions, although it may 
 be a well-meaning attempt to acquire knowledge, 
 is, nevertheless, a dangerous one. It is intellectually 
 a false method which may lead to practical error, 
 and produce a labyrinth of confusion and contra- 
 dictory experience which hinders the attainment 
 of exact knowledge. It is morally a false method, 
 because it injures those elementary instincts of 
 justice and mercy by whose evolution civilization 
 advances. Thus the progress of the race is retarded. 
 
 The present astounding multiplication of drugs, 
 of inoculations, ot mutilations in the practice of 
 medicine, with tho eager attempt to prove each 
 new invention by a formidable array of imperfect 
 statistics, is a striking object lesson in the present 
 day of the error into which false methods of 
 research ha^e led many members of a noble and 
 humane profession. It is a fallacy necessarily pro- 
 ceeding from a wrong view of what science really is. 
 
 Although this erroneousness is by no means solely 
 connected with vivisectional methods, yet if the 
 high claim which the noble art of medicine makes 
 to advance our social well-being be justly founded, a 
 stringent obligation rests upon it not to injure the 
 moral sense of its members by the methods employed 
 in education or in practice. 
 
 ! 
 
 1 M 
 
 ! ■ 
 
 W' 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Axiom of Science 
 
 The fundamental law, without whose observance 
 ieliable biological investigation is impossible, is 
 
 stated as follows : • , r 
 
 'In studying the laws alike of organic and ot 
 inorganic Nature, the experimenter must be careful 
 not to destroy the phenomenon that is being investi- 
 gated.' 
 
 Intellectual error, as well as practical danger, 
 arises from the attempt to transfer to man results 
 supposed to be gained by fallacious experimentation 
 on the lower animals. The fallacy consists in noting 
 general resemblance of structure, but not the far 
 more remarkable differences of function. If, for 
 instance, the life habits of two dogs of good breed 
 are closely studied, it will be seen that, although 
 certain individual differences are observed between 
 the dogs, yet they are as nothing when compared 
 with the enormous variation of function between 
 the dog and the human being. The bones and 
 garbage swallowed without injury, and the licking 
 of its body, show the different type of digestion and 
 
THE AXIOM OF SCIENCE 
 
 135 
 
 assimilation, the action of the kidneys, of the 
 various senses, and the possession of senses which 
 we are unable to appreciate ; in short, its distinctive 
 type of existence proves the impossibility of drawing 
 safe inferences for man from the digestive oi other 
 canine functions. Again, observation and rational 
 experiment, solely for the beneiit of one species 
 of animal, may incidentally lead to the benefit of 
 other races of animals, but direct experiment on 
 one iype for the supposed benefit of another kind 
 is unscientific. 
 
 It is this error that vitiates the famous postu- 
 lates of Professor Koch, through the system of 
 ' controls,' the latest exemplification of this fallacy 
 being the attempt to prove the existence of cholera 
 in man by cultivating the bacilli in animals. The 
 same error also produces the failure of M. Pasteur 
 to prevent hydror/l.obia in man. 
 
 It is well known how the influence of what we 
 term ' mind ' governs the action of the bodily 
 functions, either promoting or disturbing their 
 normal condition. This is a fact of growing import- 
 ance in practical medicine. Similar influence is 
 exerted in varying degrees on all living creatures. 
 Destructive or non-natural experimentation on living 
 animals is always subject to the fallacy of morbid 
 condition. 
 
 The established law of research stated above 
 exposes the error of pursuing biological investigation 
 <or the study of vital action) by the process of 
 mutilating or diseasing living animals. 
 
 i!f 
 
 H 
 
 it 
 
136 
 
 SCIENTinC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 In research the radical difference between in- 
 organic and organic Nature cannot be too clearly 
 insisted on. Whilst in the former we can resolve 
 compounds into their elements and recombine them, 
 such process is impossible in organic Nature. We 
 can take a steam-engine or a watch to pieces, 
 examine their parts, repair them, and put them 
 together again, thus proving our knowledge iti this 
 realm of Nature. But a living thing cannot be 
 treated in the same way. Not only the difference 
 of animal type forbids destructive method of investi- 
 gation, but as the type rises in the scale of creation 
 the growing fact of individual idiosyncrasy increases 
 the uncertainty of erroneous method. 
 
 Therefore the law of scientific research, which 
 forbids the destruction of phenomena to be studied, 
 is profoundly true. 
 
 If this law be not observed, intellectual activity 
 may be gratified, self-conceit or love of novelty and 
 excitement may be pandered to, the panic of fear 
 in human beings may be worked upon, but the 
 attainment of scientific truth in biology will be 
 impossible. 
 
 It is thus seen that methods of biological research 
 which involve cruel or destructive experimentation 
 are both ethically unjustifiable and intellectually 
 fallacious. They are unscientific methods which 
 will inevitably be abandoned as we attain to clearer 
 views of that unity of truth in which the reconcilia- 
 tion of human conscience with intellectual activity 
 becomes alone recognised as science. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Rational Experiment in Racarch 
 
 As an illustration of legitimate and even heroic 
 experiment, the trial made with cholera bacilli by 
 Dr. Von Pettenkofer of Munich on himself during 
 the cholera epidemic of 1891 deserves permanent 
 record.^ It is of importance as showing the fallacy 
 that may be involved in the exaggerated search 
 for bacilli, as the chief cause of disease, which is 
 the favourite theory and practice of the present 
 day. 
 
 Dr. Von Pettenkofer (in opposition to the common 
 medical belief) asserts that the diffusion of the 
 cholera germ or cholera bacillus is not the chief 
 cause of cholera. He states that there are two 
 
 , 
 
 in 
 
 i 
 
 1 The entirely negative results of nil experiments made upon 
 the lower animals to determine if cholera is communicable, or 
 where the poison resides, is demonstrated by an endless series 
 of experiments on the lower animals made in many countries. 
 The extent and severity of these experiments, as well a^ tlicir 
 inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of 
 Hirsch, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology^ 
 vol. i., pp. 476-480. 
 
 n 1 
 
T' 
 
 138 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 Other absolutely necessary conditions, without which 
 no outbreak of cholera is possible, and if these 
 conditions are not present, the cholera germ may 
 be breathed with no production of cholera. 
 
 The first condition is the unhealthy state of the 
 soil or locality. But even this does not produce 
 an outbreak if the second condition does not exist — 
 viz., individual predisposition ; and he shows that 
 neither the cholera germ nor the insanitary locaHty, 
 nor both combined, will produce cholera if this 
 individual predisposition does not exist. He further 
 states that no experiments upon the lower animals 
 can be relied on ; the only proof in relation to 
 cholera must be from the experience of human 
 beings. 
 
 Dr. Von Pettenkofer proceeded to experiment on , 
 himself, choosing Munich, in daily communion with 
 Hamburg (where the epidemic was raging), as the 
 place of operations, and sent to Hamburg for the 
 cholera germs. On October 7 he swallowed a cen- 
 timetre of fresh cholera culture, in the presence of 
 witnesses — i.e., infinitely more than could be taken 
 in by touching the lips with contaminated fingers, a 
 cubic centimetre of culture being calculated as con- 
 taining a thousand million microbes. He in no way 
 changed his manner of living, eating accustomed 
 food, including fruit, cucumbers, and other for- 
 bidden articles of diet. During the following week 
 his physiological condition, pulse, temperature, etc., 
 were carefully noted. Nothing unusual occurred 
 but a little internal rumbling and slight diarrhoea, 
 
RATIONAL EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH 
 
 139 
 
 which passed away of itself. Two skilled bacterio- 
 logists, MM. Peiffer and Emerich, carefully examined 
 the secretions during this experiment. 
 
 M. Von Pettenkofer himself thus states the 
 results : 
 
 * The comma bacilli not only prospered in my 
 digestive tube, but had so multiplied in it that it 
 was evident they found a congenial soil. They were 
 found there in quantities, and in a state of pure 
 culture. But on October 14 all the secretions were 
 normal, only containing a few isolated microbes, 
 which had entirely disappeared on the i8th. 
 
 ' Now, most bacteriologists assert that the cholera 
 bacilli remaining in the intestines secrete there a 
 poison, which, being absorbed, produces the cholera. 
 But what a quantity of poison must have been 
 secreted by these miUiards of bacilli during the 
 eight days' sojourn in my intestines ! Yet I felt 
 perfectly well, had an excellent appetite, felt neither 
 indigestion noi fever, etc., and I attended every day 
 to my usual occupations. Whence I conclude that 
 the comma bacillus, though it may cause a little 
 diarrhoea, produces neither European nor Asiatic 
 cholera. 
 
 * Now, it must not be imagined that I am the 
 adversary of the cholera bacillus ; but it is erroneous 
 to suppose that when a specific microbe has been 
 discovered in the secretions of an infectious disease 
 that the means of fighting it has also been dis- 
 covered. The discovery of the bacillus of consump- 
 tion was just as interesting as the discovery of the 
 
 l! 
 
140 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 1 i 
 
 • 
 
 cholera bacillus, but since its discovery phthisis has 
 destroyed neither one man less nor one man 
 
 more. 
 
 •These (bacteriological) methods for protection 
 against cholera rest purely upon theory, and it 
 seems to be thought that henceforth cholera, etc., 
 ought to behave accor.^.ing to the prevalent theory, 
 instead of theory being modified according to the 
 cholera. Instead of trying to catch the comma 
 bacillus and draw a cordon around it, the essential 
 thing is to make all the dwelling-places of man 
 
 healthy.' 
 
 Such is the vigorous and genuinely scientific ex- 
 periment of a distinguished medical investigator. 
 
 Other experimenters have confirmed Dr. Von 
 Pettenkofer's observations. On October 17 Dr. 
 Emerich made a similar experiment on himself, 
 with like results. 
 
 Since then, experiments have been made in the 
 Vienna Pathological Institute, with the following 
 results : Six persons partook of the comma bacillus 
 in no mean quantity, and not one of them has had 
 the disease. The six are two doctors, the servant of 
 the Institute, two medical students, and a private 
 gentleman. Professor Strieker treated them all. 
 Two did no^ feel their health impaired at all ; one 
 had headache, was slightly feverish, and could not 
 sleep ; two had slight attacks of diarrhoea ; and only 
 one was really ill, but recovered at the end of a 
 week. These experiments inspire medical men 
 with serious misgivings as to the theory which 
 
nl 
 
 RATIONAL EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH I4I 
 
 considers the comma bacillus as the cause of all 
 cholera. 
 
 The supremacy of sanitation is the iesson which 
 is being gradually taught by such humane scientific 
 experiments. Dirt in its largest sense, as matter 
 in the wrong place, whether in air, water, food, 
 clothing, habitation, soil, or contact, is undoubtedly 
 a main physical cause of disease. 
 
 But in all epidemic disease the emotion of fear 
 must be recognised as a most potent predisposing 
 cause. The great fact of mind or emotion is a 
 powerful influence in producing, in preventing, or m 
 curing disease. 
 
 This psychological side of medicine is only be- 
 . , -ning to receive due attention. As the fallacies 
 . .ich arise in animal experimentation from the 
 oduction of fear, pain, and coma have not yet 
 been fully recognised, so the inevitable influence 
 of mind in modifying physical conditions has never 
 yet been studied scientifically in human medicine. 
 Yet facts exist in unsuspected abundance which 
 need to be collected, verified, tabulated, and their 
 laws of action diligently studied. 
 
 It is known that even that strong muscle the 
 heart may be ruptured by the agony of intense 
 emotion. At Blackburn the daughter of a woman 
 charged with theft became dumb with horror at 
 her mother's sudden arrest. Hydrophooia, cholera, 
 and even small-pox, appear to have been caused by 
 
 fear. 
 
 The extent to which even the so-called microbes 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 fi I 
 
T?" 
 
 142 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 11 
 
 of infectious diseases may be produced by fear 
 acting on idiosyncrasy demands very serious investi- 
 gation ; for as it is now generally conceded that 
 morbid micro-organisms do not exist ab cstemo, it is 
 essential to know by what unhealthy conditions the 
 micro-organisms, or living particles that always 
 surround us, become disease germs. 
 
 One of our most distinguished London physicians 
 has full records of the following noteworthy case, 
 which is given, not as scientifically proved, but as 
 indicating a line of research which it is folly to 
 ignore or refuse to investigate. 
 
 This gentleman attended a patient some years 
 ago in an attack of confluent small-pox under these 
 remarkable circumstances : This patient had always 
 exhibited a morbid horror of u\e disease, refusing to 
 hear anything about it or to allow it to be referred 
 to in his presence. A friend on one occasion 
 brought a very fine collection of anatomical plates 
 to show him, sent over from France. Amongst 
 them was a representation of confluent small-pox in 
 a woman. No sooner had this gentleman beheld it 
 than he cried, ' Take it away ! I cannot look at it ; 
 it makes me ill !' The next day his son sent for the 
 doctor to see his father, who had felt unwell ever 
 since the shock of seeing the pathological plate. 
 He was found suffering from the first symptoms of 
 an illness which proved to be an attack of confluent 
 small-pox. The most searching inquiry failed to 
 discover any traces of the disease, either in the 
 neighbourhood or in any connection whatever with 
 
RATIONAL EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH I43 
 
 the patient. The cause of this illness, one of the 
 most severe cases the doctor had ever met with, 
 remained a mystery. 
 
 It ha:^ become of vital importance to investigate 
 ' how far the mental attitude determines or permits 
 the onset of infectious disease.' 
 
 1 
 
 III 
 
 f! 
 
 
 1 1 
 
> 
 * 1 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Range of Painless Research 
 
 ' I AM content to let Nature do all the torturing and 
 man all the relieving ... the grandest physiology 
 and physiological discovery could exist outside every 
 shade of painful experiment.'^ 
 
 These are the words of one of our wisest 
 physicians, deliberately written in the full maturity 
 of a life devoted to original research and its practical 
 application to medicine. His experience led him to 
 the recognition of this great truth : that the supreme 
 aim of the medical profession must become more 
 and more the advancement of sanitation. In any 
 comprehensive view of medical art as a science the 
 cure of disease is rationally secondary to its pre- 
 vention. , . • r 
 
 This, notwithstanding the trade exigencies ot 
 competitive living, is recognised by the established 
 rule of the profession— that the physician's first 
 duty is not to injure his patient. 
 
 Sanitation necessarily takes into consideration all 
 
 1 Sir B. W. Richardson, Biological Experimentation: its 
 Function and Limits, pp. 92, 93. 
 
THE RANGE OF PAINLESS RESEARCH 
 
 145 
 
 the elements, both mental and physical, )ur com- 
 plex nature. 
 
 It is by the investigation of the laws of healthy 
 created life and their practical application that pro- 
 gress in medicine must be looked for. By observing 
 ' scientifically ' the method and variations of these 
 laws we shall approach nearer to the understanding 
 of ' vital force.' 
 
 An immense range of biological inquiry urgently 
 invites the genius of those who are gifted with the 
 rare power of original research. 
 
 This range is practically unlimited. The col- 
 lection of all useful or suggestive facts gathered by 
 genuinely scientific methods from the enormous 
 accumulations to be found in our Government 
 reports, in the records of our medical periodic 
 literature, in the observations of hospitals, societies, 
 cliniques, and private practice, would, if properly 
 arranged and tabulated, form a most useful branch 
 of such a centre. If such collection and examination 
 were extended to the records of other countries, the 
 value as well as labour of the work would be greatly 
 increased. 
 
 The observation of the dietetic and hygienic as 
 well as medical treatment of disease, including 
 climate, soil, atmospheric conditions, the distribu- 
 tion of disease, the effect of occupations, prenatal 
 influences, and later training, are essential. 
 
 The action of mineral waters, of compressed and 
 medicated air, the hydration of tissues, the conver- 
 sion of vegetable into animal tissue, the action of 
 
 VOL. II. ^0 
 
 til 
 
 1,1' 
 ■ i :• 
 
 ri 
 
 ■i = 
 
 ii 
 
 1 1 
 
 I 
 
146 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIOLOGY 
 
 I! 
 
 the various constituents of the human body as cura- 
 tive of disease, present necessary subjects of investi- 
 gation. 
 
 A careful judicial inquiry into the claims of specific 
 cures, where a sufficient case for investigation is pre- 
 sented (as Echinacea angustifolia in snake-bite, also 
 the Russian bath as preventive of hydrophobia), 
 would form another valuable department. 
 
 In fact, it is impossible to specifv the full range of 
 important subjects which demana the devotion of 
 able and painstaking research, working upon the 
 careful study of each type of life for the benefit and 
 improvement of that type. 
 
 In no branch of this wide range of inquiry is 
 painful experiment necessary. 
 
 Our homes, our industrial occupations, our legis- 
 lative enactments, should all be guided by hygienic 
 knowledge, and its diffusion should be actively 
 encouraged by the community. Our hospitals and 
 dispensaries need to promote practical hygiene. 
 Our medical schools should turn the force of their 
 learning, ability, and great influence to the conver- 
 sion of their students into a vast body of sanitary 
 missionaries. If our thousands of medical graduates 
 turned out every year into practice could go forth 
 inspired with enthusiasm for health, convinced that 
 the preservation of health was their especial work, 
 and that all disease must be regarded as a violation 
 of the laws of health, a violation which it was their 
 special duty to fight against, a mighty step in the 
 advancement of medicine would be taken. The 
 
11 
 
 THE RANGE OF PAINLESS RESEARCH 
 
 147 
 
 impulse to such progress should come from im- 
 proved instruction in our medical schools, and in 
 the management of our hospitals. 
 
 We much need also an unprejudiced and ex- 
 haustive history of the progress of biological inquiry 
 since the Middle Ages, with its present result in 
 therapeutics. Such a history may be expected to 
 confirm the not unfounded opinion that the most 
 important advances in practical medicine have been 
 made by methods which are not in any way at 
 variance with our natural instincts of justice and 
 mercy. 
 
 i ! 
 
 10 — 2 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Recapitulation of Principles 
 
 I. The attainment of truth, not the gratificati- of 
 curiosity or of personal ends, is the sole an dis- 
 tinctive aim of genuine scientific research. 
 
 II. It is a radical intellectual error to apply the 
 same methods of investigation, suitable to inorganic 
 facts, to the study of organic facts. Natural law 
 being mind ruling matter, every method employed 
 in research into )rganic Nature must respect and 
 take into account the inseparable mental factor in 
 each type of sentient life, or it becomes unscientific, 
 and may promote fallacy, not truth. Destructive 
 experiment on living creatures, even under the 
 partial suspension of consciousness produced by 
 aneesthetics, is an erroneous method, producing 
 confused or contradictory results. 
 
 III. Scientific research in biology must be based 
 upon close and extensive observation of the varying 
 forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with 
 post-mortem examination of the records left by 
 health and disease. Experiments, whether for the 
 
RECAPITULATION OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 149 
 
 repair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only 
 become scientific when made upon the type of life 
 to be benefited by the experiment. 
 
 IV. Any experimentation which creates in- 
 voluntary suffering in living creatures vitiates the 
 necessary conditions of scientific research, and 
 tends to degrade human conscience by producing 
 indifference to suffering. 
 
 V. In training our future practitioners of the 
 healing art, the cultivation of respect for life and 
 the strengthening of enlightened sympathetic con- 
 science in dealing with all poor or helpless creatures 
 are of paramount importance. The present system 
 of medical education requires revision in order to 
 make health, not disease, the central subject of 
 
 study. 
 
 Finally, full and generous encouragement to 
 those who are engaged in important painless re- 
 search is urgently needed. Such research should 
 be carried on, if possible, in connection with the 
 great body of serious scientific investigations, by 
 persons of proved ability and clear moral sense, 
 and the work should be cordially open to the obser- 
 vation of all earnest friends. 
 
 Such research, reconciling by right methods of 
 investigation intellectual activity with human con- 
 science, would increase our knowledge and advance 
 our well-being in accordance with the higher reason 
 of the race. Only when thus guided by intelligence 
 and conscience can biological research deserve the 
 noble name of science. 
 
 
 i . , 
 
 1; 
 
 1 II 
 
fi 
 
 150 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METIKP 
 
 B.OLOGY 
 
 It is by the reco;n!tirn oi this true method of 
 biological research ..nd b> tiie generous support of 
 physiologists who honestiy seek for truth, even 
 when opposed by temporary fashions of medical 
 opinion, that medicine will become a science. 
 
 i 
 
 ri i 
 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 THOUGHTS SUGGt.TED .lY THE F.ASTr.R ...iSOS 
 
 1S82 
 
 ill 
 
 •1! 1 
 
 I! 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 About thirty years ago a little band of ardent and 
 earnest men joined themselves together as Christian 
 Socialists, under the guidance of the Rev. F. Maurice, 
 Rev. Chas. Kingsley, and other able and hopeful 
 leaders. They shared in a higli degree that ardent 
 desire after 'Practical Christianity '—that embodi- 
 ment in every act of daily life of the spirit of our 
 Master's teachings— which has always existed in the 
 Christian Church, and which can only cease with the 
 disappearance of the Christian faith. 
 
 The grand idea of human brotherhood is a vital 
 principle of our Lord's teaching. It is the founda- 
 tion on which He builds His Church. But practical 
 Christianity cannot exist unless political and social 
 economy are founded upon this principle of brother- 
 hood. Trade and manufactures, agriculture and 
 education, national government and the individual 
 home, are not Christian unless they are inspired by 
 this central principle, laid down by our Divine 
 Master, and reiterated in every page of His wonder- 
 ful life— viz., that we must live as brethren under 
 the inspiration of a wise and loving Father. 
 
154 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 ' i! 
 
 ![ 
 
 r i 
 
 ! i: 
 
 h 
 
 Attempts to realize more fully this fundamental 
 portion of the Christian faith, by special associated 
 efforts, have always been observed in every age. 
 From those early times when the disciples laid their 
 offerings at the Apostles' feet, and strove to ' have 
 all things in common,' to the present day, the 
 attempt to secure higher ends by the power of 
 combination — a combination inspired by the highest 
 idea of right — is always going on. 
 
 Christian Sc sialism, therefore, is no new idea. 
 It is as old as our faith. It is the shaping of actual 
 daily life on the principle of Christian brotherhood. 
 It enters in some degree into every association — 
 church, chapel, or society of any kind whatsoever 
 — which seeks to embody an unselfish or a higher 
 spiritual idea; but the Christian Socialist believes 
 that the structure of society in every part should be 
 moulded by the idea of united interests. 
 
 The very gradual acquisition of wisdom by our 
 race, iiowever (a slowness which seems to be the 
 necessary condition for securing both freedom and 
 strength), leads to the frequent exercise of zeal 
 without knowledge. Direct attempts to join people 
 together under better conditions than the haphazard 
 methods by which villages swell into towns have 
 frequently ended in fr.ilure. 
 
 But each successive generation enters upon active 
 life with increased intellectual development and 
 with increased command over material forces. It 
 equal enlargement of the moral nature accompanies 
 the growth of intelligence, then the generation has 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 155 
 
 made a solid advance in wisdom, and the practical 
 Christianity of true brotherhood is nearer at hand. 
 The Christian Socialist believes that many principles 
 on which a better society must be founded have 
 come into clearer light during the past thirty years, 
 and have been, and are being, tested by varied and 
 valuable experiment. 
 
 The term Christian is here used in a legitimate 
 practical sense. Reverently and heartily a Christian 
 musL accept the rule and guide of life so emphati- 
 cally laid down by our Master— viz., that in eating 
 and drinking, in buying and selling, at home and 
 abroad, we are to act for our brethren, not for ourselves 
 alone. We are to seek, first of all, righteousness. 
 
 The problem we have to face is the ever-increasing 
 amount and variety of evils which we see around 
 us, and to ascertain how far this is caused by the 
 present selfish structure of society, by the false 
 individualism which hypocritically asks, ' Am I my 
 brother's keeper?' Evils now increase upon us 
 more rapidly than we can remove them. Pauperism 
 and vice, drunkenness and crime, mammon worship 
 and frivolity, dishonesty and c< rruption, are all bred 
 by ourselves. They are largely produced by the 
 conditions of the society into which children are 
 born, and by which they are moulded. Ten years 
 of squalor or degrading conditions may deteriorate 
 or ruin the nature of the child. My attention was 
 once called to a bright and charming little girl, 
 brought to a public institution by a poor mother 
 fallen into sickness and poverty. One year was 
 
 H 
 
 « i 
 
156 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 si !■ 
 
 given to the mother to reclaim her child. On a 
 subsequent visit, after eighteen months' interval, I 
 failed to recognise that child; her brightness was 
 gone, her movements had grown listless and awk- 
 ward, her intelligence was dulled, her expression 
 vacant, she was sinking with frightful rapidity into 
 the hopeless pauper. 
 
 How pitiful are the results of our penitentiaries 
 and reformatories, of our workhouses, orphan 
 asylums, anii industrial schools, of all the various 
 charities by which we painfully and vainly try to 
 mop up evil and misery, or to sweep it out of our 
 sight. The recipients of punishment or care, when 
 released, in the large majority of cases, fall back 
 again into the crime, temptation, and evil from 
 which they had been taken, and the flood of 
 ruffianism and vice rises ever higher. 
 
 In the hard and crushing strife for decent living 
 in which the great mass of our population are 
 entangled, health is injured, hope dies out, and 
 the gas-lighted gin-shop is the solace, as the dreary 
 workhouse is the refuge of those who have ceased 
 to hope. Yet the great mass of these persons have 
 tried to do honest work. They have once hoped to 
 support wife and children as an honest man should 
 do. How is it that capital and labour have failed 
 to come together in such a way that every willing 
 worker can secure a comfortable livelihood, that 
 every honest man can bring up his family in health 
 and virtue ? The relation of capital to labour is 
 a vital question of practical Christianity. 
 
 LiL 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 157 
 
 Consider also the great agrarian fight always 
 going on to some extent and periodically breaking 
 out in revolution and outrage. Why is it that the 
 great bulk of English men and women are divorced 
 from the soil ? Why are they always crowding into 
 towns, whilst the precious natural heritage of land 
 is so often wasted and going out of cultivation? 
 Health and happiness should be found in country 
 life. Such a life should not be one of dreariness 
 and ennui, or of hopeless drudgery. There is no 
 Hf? so suitable for the healthy development of child- 
 hood as a country life, with natural home influences. 
 The care of animals, the cultivation and observation 
 of natural objects, the pure air and abundant 
 exercise which can be enjoyed, mark the country 
 as the natural home of childnood. Again, the 
 production in perfection and abundance of all the 
 articles which naturally belong to various soils is 
 a primary need of healthy national growth. The 
 conditions under which such cultivation can be best 
 carried on, with the kind and proportion of manufac- 
 tures which might advantageously spring up in 
 connection with it, affect the very structure of 
 society. They provide tb - necessary material and 
 social conditions which furnish the possibility and 
 favouring of a religious life, or which create serious 
 obstacles to such a life. 
 
 The relation of the people to the soil of their 
 native land is a very serious question of practical 
 
 Christianity. 
 
 Again, in what manner is the education of the 
 
 
 » ': 
 
 ■f 
 I 
 
 ■i 
 
 111 
 
 hi 
 
158 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 r 
 
 various classes of our children carried on ? Consider 
 the education given to the boys of the aristocracy 
 and upper classes. What chance have these lads 
 of growing into a sense of Christian brotherhood ? 
 They are fawned upon from babyhood ; initiated at 
 school into the most heathen vices ; corrupted by 
 luxury, taught that money can do everything, that 
 rank will be servilely worshipped. How can these 
 poor lads become the large-hearted leaders of a 
 society founded on the Great Master's teaching 
 of brotherhood ? The character of education does 
 not depend only on the more or less wise oversight 
 and arrangements of the schoolmaster, but still 
 more on the constant influences of the life in which 
 the child grows up. Trace the various stages of 
 education downwards, through all classes of the 
 community, to the enormous mass of little boys and 
 girls trained from babyhood into vice and ruffianism, 
 and we see that education is a vital subject of 
 practical Christianity. 
 
 Consider next the relations of the sexes. This 
 subject is the fundamental question of society, for 
 the element of society is the man, woman, and 
 child, not the individual. How do our laws and 
 customs inculcate manly honour, womanly dignity — 
 in short, Christian life ? Carefully studying this 
 subject in its widespread ramifications, it is seen 
 to be the deepest question of human brotherhood — 
 i.e., of practical Christianity. 
 
 When, proceeding from more private to public 
 affairs, we examine the modifications or arrange- 
 
 Jk ^ 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 159 
 
 '{" 
 
 ments of municipal institutions which have arisen 
 in our towns, the examination is not encouraging. 
 It is the heathen, not the Christian, principle which 
 is chiefly exemplified. It is self intensified. The 
 new power created throws off a sense of responsi- 
 bility to those who create it. No enlarged sense 
 of duty springs from the trust that is thus given 
 to individuals; but petty cabals and bickerings arise, 
 narrow party views are fostered, selfish interests 
 advanced, or a foolish air of authority is assumed. 
 The more high-minded inhabitants shrink from 
 entering into corrupt political contest ; centraliza- 
 tion increases as municipal control is degraded. 
 Local and general government is too often only a 
 parody of representative institutions. The impor- 
 tant question arises, In what way can we who 
 believe that public as well as private life should be 
 guided by a religious spirit attain the end ? How 
 can we form associations and delegate necessary 
 authority in such a way as to advance Christian, 
 not heathen, life? In observing the effect of Law 
 upon the education of a nation, we find that its 
 embodiment in government forms a very important 
 branch of practical Christianity. 
 
 When we ponder all these vital questions, and 
 earnestly strive to put into practice the principles 
 of action which we believe to be profoundly true, 
 we find our Christian sense of right shocked at 
 every turn by fixed conditions, which are the 
 result of selfishness, not of brotherhood. The 
 spirit of sel.'- interest, only useful as a servant, has 
 
 ■u 
 
i6o 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 'il 
 f 
 
 usurped the false position of master. Like all our 
 faculties, self-interest needs a higher guidance, or 
 it degenerates into the narrowest selfishness. We 
 have not yet learned the one grand lesson of 
 Christianity— viz., that the largest view of self- 
 interest can only be found in brotherhood. 
 
 The inquiry now to be made is whether any new 
 principles of association, co-operation, combination 
 —or by whatever name we choose to express united 
 interests— have so grown and been proved within 
 the last generation, that we may make successful 
 advance on the path dimly seen by the noble men I 
 have referred to. 
 
 There have been many failures in attempts at the 
 realization of associated or organized life ; but there 
 are also many and striking examples of successful, 
 though imperfect, organization, founded either upon 
 a religious idea or on business enterprise, or on 
 the enthusiasm of some clever and benevolef - 
 individual. Roman Catholic, Moravian, and Shaker 
 communities will illustrate the first series of suc- 
 cessful organization; joint-stock enterprises and 
 co-operative stores the second; Leclaire's house 
 decorators' guild and the FamiUstere of Guise the 
 third. It is through union of the forces exemplified 
 in these three classes of association that we 
 may attain to a nineteenth-century realization of 
 practical Christianity in the future growth of towns 
 
 or colonies. 
 
 The following are some of the chief applications 
 of the principle of Christian brotherhood, which 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 l6l 
 
 we believe will remould the structure of future 
 
 society : 
 
 I. The repurchase of land by Christian joint- 
 stock companies, in order that its control and 
 management may henceforth belong to those who 
 live upon it and use it. 
 
 The absolute irresponsible individual possession 
 of land becomes, as society advances, contrary to 
 the best interests of a nation. The soil, which is 
 Hmited in quantity, but indispensable to the main- 
 tenance and welfare of the people, should not be 
 treated as an individual selfish speculation, regard- 
 less of its most advantageous use, and of the needs 
 of those who may live upon it. 
 
 It is the slow but sure result of the irresponsible 
 monopoly of the soil by individuals which is at the 
 root of a great evil— viz., the unnatural and diseased 
 growth of great unorgani.Ted or selfishly organized 
 towns. Our towns, formerly the haphazard growth 
 of accident, are becoming more and more the growth 
 of selfish speculation— I.e., the false organization of 
 self-aggrandizement. The hereditary or other holder 
 of land leases it to speculators, whose one object is 
 to make as much pecuniary profit as possible out of 
 the lease. This is the one point held steadily in 
 view, often through a series of underletting, in 
 which each fresh speculator seeks to make a new 
 profit. Health, convenience, human welfare in its 
 necessities and interlinkings, are never thought of, 
 or are entirely secondary to gain. A showy neigh- 
 bourhood for the rich, yielding the highest rents that 
 
 VOL. II. II 
 
l62 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 can be screwed out, and a crowded neighbourhood 
 for the poor, with still hi^'her proportionate rents, 
 are created. Gardens disappear in the dreary mass 
 of showy, badly-constructed brick-and-mortar quar- 
 ters in which the young generation grows up— dreary 
 quarters, but where rents and rates are constantly 
 rising. This is the result of irresponsible individual 
 ownership and perverted organization in all our 
 rapidly-growing towns. It is a potent cause of 
 growing immorality. 
 
 The control of land by a society or colony living 
 upon it and using it, does not forbid the leasing of 
 land, under wise conditions, to persons who are 
 members of the society. It is the irresponsible indi- 
 vidual possession of land, with the speculation which 
 such a method of holding gives rise to, which is the 
 principle always ultimately injurious to society.* 
 
 2. Economy in distribution and management. A 
 rational economy in the retail distribution of pro- 
 ducts, in the domestic arrangements of our homes, 
 in the official management of local and general 
 government, will set free an immense number of 
 persons whose time is now needlessly occupied. 
 The talent and energy of this wasted multitude 
 bhould be turned to increase of production and 
 other necessary and valuable employment, under 
 the wise freedom of united interests. 
 
 ^ The works referring to the economic principles laid down 
 in this paper, with the statistics and experiments which support 
 and illustrate them, are too numerous to mention here ; but 
 they are of the utmost value to the Christian Socialist. 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 163 
 
 3. A fair share of profits to all workers. This is 
 a most important principle, which can only be 
 solved under the guidance of Christian brotherhood. 
 In the increas*^ i production which will result from 
 wise economy in distribution, management, and 
 government, an equitable division of profits between 
 capital, ability, and labour must be arranged. In- 
 terests must be united, industry stimulated, and 
 hope held out to the humblest worker in a Christian 
 colony. When a young man commences life in the 
 honourable estate of Christian marriage, it is the 
 first duty of Christian society to support his hope 
 and energy. The future of this family is a matter of 
 national concern. Steady industry deserves a fair 
 and increasing share in the profits it helps to create. 
 Counsel, if needed, encouragement to the mother in 
 the healthy and virtuous education of her children, 
 and opportunity for hopeful occupation, are all posi- 
 tive duties owed to every member of a Christian 
 society. The fulfilment of this duty depends in a 
 great measure upon the righteous relation of capital 
 
 to labour. 
 
 4. The formation of insurance funds which will 
 secure aid to every worker in sickness or old age. 
 Thrift, self-control, and an honourable sense of in- 
 dependence are the results of such provision, which 
 would be the greatest possible aid io the noble 
 temperance movement. 
 
 5. An arrangement of dwellings which will facili- 
 tate communication, domestic service and supply, 
 sanitary arrangement, the education of children, 
 
 II — 2 
 
 
164 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 and municipal government. These objects must be 
 secured if the rapid degradation of our poorer 
 English homes is to be checked. Parental influence 
 and responsibility are equally disappearing in the 
 homes from which all sanctity has departed. 
 
 6. The entire abolition of all trade in the human 
 
 body. 
 
 The waste of virile force and the degradation of 
 womanly character which result from the barbarous 
 remnant of slavery existing in our midst under the 
 form of prostitution is incalculable. No community 
 which aspires to Christian life can pe; ;.:.!. this 
 hideous trade to exist. The buying and scHing the 
 human body is a natural wrong. The fearful evils, 
 moral and physical, which result from such trade 
 prove its inherent iniquity. Love, with the duties 
 and responsibilities which accompany its expression, 
 is the only Christian warrant for the intimate union 
 of the sexes, and the growth and welfare of society 
 absolutely depends upon the wise guidance of these 
 relations by Christian principle. The wonderful 
 advance of intelligence and moral perception on 
 this vital subject during the present generation is 
 the most hopeful sign of the nearer approach of 
 organized Christian society. As a striking contrast 
 to growing immorality, the possibility and incalcu- 
 lable benefit of equal purity for boys and girls, for 
 men and women, is the great truth which is spring- 
 ing into vigorous life in this Nineteenth Century. 
 A new world of hope and freedom opens to women, 
 a new realm of energy to men, from the consecration 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIA'.ISM 
 
 165 
 
 of this mighty power of sex, which i.s dcr^cending 
 upon our a^e as a preat Ruide for the future This 
 God-created force has hiilicrto been squandered in 
 these earlier cent iries of ' >ir world's Iff* iKtioranfc 
 of woman's true dignity and pr -vidciuial position 
 has ueen the t^reatest obstacle hit! -rto in the Chris- 
 tian organisation of society. Tl:.3 ij^imiance now 
 slowl but surely vanishing, opens to us a great 
 and glorious promise of unlimited tuture pro- 
 gress. 
 
 The principles thus expressed in very condensed 
 form appear, from their present maturer develop- 
 ment, to be the especial gain of this age. They are 
 the legitimate results of Christ! m thought, growing 
 in comprehensiveness, and conscientioush applying 
 itself to a solution of the problems of social life. 
 
 Every proposition now set forth requires, how- 
 ever, long and careful consideration. Some persons 
 may not realize the dangerous and growing evils 
 v^hich ihe prevalence of opposite methods of action 
 is inflicting on society. Young coi.ntries possess- 
 ing abundance of unoccupied land may not appre- 
 ciate evils from which older countries suffer from 
 individual monopoly of land. Other persons may 
 fail to see the full bearing of these principles of 
 Christian Socialism on our daily relations. Others, 
 again, may be entirely unable to foresee the methods 
 by which a Christian organization of society can 
 ever become a practical fact. For these reasons 
 union in prepcvation is indispensable. Tne wisest 
 ways of realizing these principles in all their 
 
 
i66 
 
 CHhISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 practical details require the varied knowledge of 
 different classes of persons. They require the 
 careful consideration of many minds, possessing 
 both varied experience and a profound sense of the 
 necessity of Christian organization. If, however, 
 the principles laid down are true, then their realiza- 
 tion must be only a question of time. In our towns 
 much may be done to place both business relations 
 and domestic life on a sounder basis. The gradual 
 introduction of methods leading in the right direc- 
 tion is possible, by both men and women, in the two 
 spheres of business and home life, when the end to 
 be obtained is thoroughly understood. A still more 
 rapid advance may be made by those who wish to 
 establish country life on a more Christian plan by 
 uniting religious principle, joint-stock enterprise, 
 and wise guidance in the organization of an indus- 
 trial colony— a colony which would be the most 
 potent Christian Missionary Society. 
 
 Religious principle must be recognised as the 
 essential basis of permanent future growth. Only a 
 large comprehension of the Christian teaching of 
 human brotherhood creates the highest conscien- 
 tiousness, with a sense of responsibility to an unseen 
 but parental Creator. No accumulation of material 
 wealth, no appeal to the lower faculties of our nature 
 alone or chiefly, will ever hold human beings to- 
 gether in permanent and harmonious organization 
 of daily life. 
 
 Christian conscientiousness is the only power we 
 know of, capable of controlling and guiding selfhood. 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 167 
 
 This controlling force is indispensable in any wise 
 effort to unite human beings together in the varied 
 interests of everyday life. Without religious prin- 
 ciple we possess no efficient check either upon the 
 selfish scramble for wealth, or on the soulless pur- 
 suit of science, or on the enthralment of physical 
 pleasure. 
 
 Consider some of our popular social maxims — 
 * Charity begins at home,' 'Take care of No. i,' 
 ' Competition is the life of trade,' ' Demand must 
 govern supply,' ' Buy cheap and sell dear,' etc. No 
 one will deny that there is an element of truth in all 
 these maxims; but their direct logical results, pushed 
 to an extreme under the sole guidance of selfish 
 interest, become diaboHcal. This is clearly illus- 
 trated by a remark once made to my own father 'oy 
 a Southern sugar-planter. He stated that he could 
 raise slaves so cheaply that it was the most profitable 
 plan to use them up in five or six years, and supply 
 their place with fresh ones ! 
 
 The same necessity for the guiding infiuence of 
 Christian conscientiousness is seen in the pursuit of 
 science. The modern dicta, * Modicine has nothing 
 to do with morality,' ' Knowledge is its own end and 
 justification,' are the maxims of heathen, not Chris- 
 tian philosophers. Indeed, many of those who now 
 pursue scientific investigation willingly assent to 
 this statement, having lost all knowledge of the 
 value of true Christianity as the highest spiritual 
 guide of ou race. 
 
 Accepting, then, the principle of Cnristian 
 
 '! >l 
 
i68 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 brotherhood as the necessary religious foundation 
 and constant guide of any true organization, it is 
 evident that all these weighty problems, now briefly 
 indicated must be considered and solved by the 
 ♦Church.' 
 
 A Church, in the true sense of the word, is a 
 society of men and women who, accepting the 
 Divine Mission of Christ, strive honestly to embody 
 His teaching in daily life. As each age grows out 
 of the life of the preceding age, so the practical 
 incarnation of our Lord's teaching varies in form 
 from age to age. In 1882 the forin which Christian 
 life takes must necessarily vary from its form in 
 1800. Three generations of men have gained im- 
 mensely in intellectual, scientific, and moral develop- 
 ment. All the conditions under which human 
 beings grow up have changed. What we now 
 especially and urgently need from the ' Church ' is 
 aid in adapting the never -changing principle of 
 Christian brotherhood to the ever-changing con- 
 ditions of Nineteenth - Century life. We need 
 sermons and conferences and earnest life in the 
 Church ; but the sermons must take up the Christian 
 view of the relation of capital to labour, the Christian 
 view of the relation of the sexes, the Christian pro- 
 tection and sound education of the young — in short, 
 the whole conduct of life, from the cradle to the 
 grave, in private and public. A certain inevitable 
 hypocrisy is engendered by listening week after 
 week to lofty theories which are never put into 
 practice, or to impracticalie suggestions. The soul 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 169 
 
 grows callous when teaching demands one course of 
 action and daily life enforces a quite opposite course. 
 We need to learn in what way our actual life, public 
 and private, can be guided by our Lord's injunction 
 of brotherhood instead of selfhood. Our Church 
 'conferences should be the honest and eager effort of 
 every man and woman to consider together how 
 these true principles can be carried out by them. 
 A Christian Church Conference must ponder the 
 life of that army of little drudges in our underground 
 kitchens, of the blasphemous boys and girls who 
 gather at night in our public places, of the vicious 
 rou^s who crowd on us from London, of the struggles 
 of the poor householder who knows not how to pay 
 the heavy rent, of the tendencies of the trader 
 oppressed by taxes, who sinks all scruples in the 
 desire to get money, and of the speculator whose 
 one desire is to make ' wealth accumulate, though 
 men decay.' These are the problems for Church 
 Conferences which the practical Christianity of the 
 Nineteenth Century urgently requires should be 
 
 solved. 
 
 It is only on these humble but indispensable 
 foundations that a Church which meets the needs 
 of the age can be foundcil. It is only in a Church 
 so founded that prayer and praise aid the worship 
 of the Great Father can become a glorious reality, 
 and never sink into formalism. 
 
 A true Church, then, suited to the needs of this 
 age, must be a self-governing, industrial community, 
 guided by Christian principle, holdin;^' and managing 
 
170 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 h 
 
 Si 
 
 its own lands, varied industries, and colleges. It 
 should send off out-3hoots from time to time, new 
 self-governinfj colonies at home and abroad. These 
 colonies necessarily possessing varied individual 
 colouring, according to occupation and composition, 
 should all agree in the one great uniting principle — 
 organization on the principles of Christian brother- 
 hood. The Christian idea of united interest, instead 
 of the narrow antagonism of individual selfishness, 
 will be the distinguishing mark of true Church 
 colonies — the practical Christianity of the future. 
 
 There are large numbers of sincere followers of 
 our Spiritual Guide who clearly perceive the radical 
 evils above referred to : persons who long to devote 
 thought, time, and means to the labour of forming 
 a Christian society ; persons who would rejoice to 
 leave their possessions to the noblest Missionary 
 work of the age. But these earnest seers are scat- 
 tered far and wide ; they require the indispensable 
 strength of union. A grand work is before all the 
 Churches to join their members together under the 
 noble banner of Christian Socialism. By careful 
 study of the various practical examples which now 
 exist of successful although imperfect organization, 
 preparation can be made for union together in the 
 formation of a true Church Colony. A band of 
 Christian Socialists thus uniting in earnest prepara- 
 tion (whilst neglecting no immediate duty) will be 
 suengthened and guided in the course of a few 
 years to initiate the most important and urgent 
 work that our age now calls for. 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM 
 
 171 
 
 The meaning of the Easter season is the arising 
 of Christianity from the grave— that grave where it 
 lies bound in darkness, corrupting in worldliness, 
 dying through selfishness ; but, thank God ! not yet 
 dead. May our reUgious people awake from their 
 fatal lethargy and roll away the stone from the 
 sepulchre, by the establishment of a true Christian 
 Society ! 
 
 •' 'I 
 
 i i 
 
ili 
 
 ON THE DECAY 
 
 MUNICIPAL REPRESENTATIVE 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 .J CHAPTER 01- PEiiSOSAL EXl'ElilESCE, 1885 
 
 
 I 
 
ON THE DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 RErRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 It is only in the belief that a simple narrative of 
 
 facts, 
 
 id. will sho\ 
 
 )re 
 
 VIVK 
 
 icactly as they occurre 
 than an abstract statement can do, the 
 dangers which threaten our free institutions, that I 
 venture to offer this personal narrative to municipal 
 voters, and particularly to women householders. 
 
 When, in 1879, 1 became a householder in I tastings 
 I did not at all realize that I thereby acquired the 
 right to vote in municipal affairs, and that this 
 right necessarily involved a corresponding duty and 
 responsibility— the duty, viz., of voting intelligently, 
 and necessarily a certain responsibility for the 
 way in which ihe government of the town was 
 carried on. 
 
 I soon observed, however, that in the autumn, 
 although I was neither a Conservative nor a Liberal, 
 I was called on by the Conservative and the 
 Liberal candidates for election to the Town Council 
 to ask for my vote, and although these visits often 
 led to interesting conversation, and my opinions 
 
176 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 were assented to with the most flattering courtesy 
 before the elections took place, I soon perceived that 
 all influence ceased with the election ; the matters 
 went on in the same way without me as with me. 
 and my supposed privilege of votin?; seemed really 
 to be very much of a mockery. Being, moreover, a 
 peaceable person, and much occupied with subjects 
 of interest, it appeared to be rather a waste of time to 
 concern myself with an election which was managed 
 by cliques on strictly party issues, with no regard 
 to questions of social well-being, nor necessarily o 
 the selection of the wisest and best man, but only 
 of the person who could in any way secure the 
 
 largest party vote. 
 
 Being compelled, also, as far as my limited powers 
 of observation admitted, to criticise the two great 
 parties of the State, as both committing much 
 injustice, and as rather guided by class selhshness 
 than by high morality. I could not feel any enthu- 
 siasm for elections carried on by party strite. 
 
 I thus be^an to fall into that easy state of .ndiffer- 
 ence which seems rapidly becoming the general 
 condition of the mass of people who are sup, d by 
 their votes to control municipal affairs ; 1 ruained. 
 however, an uneasy consciousness that in sorne way 
 I was failing to meet a duty that was laid upon 
 me I was roused from this fatal moral lethargy 
 by witnessing what seemed to me an act of gross 
 injustice-viz.. a robbery of the poor of their inheu- 
 tance. This was the diversion of the funds of the 
 Magdalen Charity (a bequest from the piety and 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 ^n 
 
 beneficence of past apes, now f»rown to an income 
 of some thousands annually) to the foundation 
 of a middle-class pran.mar school. The injustice 
 was committed under the sanction of the Charity 
 Commissioners, notwithstanding a brave fight by 
 some of our conscientious inhabitants, carried on 
 for more than two years. Hut class interests and 
 short-sighted officialism proved stronger than justice 
 in this case. 
 
 So painful an experience effectually opened my 
 eyes to the irreligion of not attending to the duties 
 which lie nearest to us, and I saw that the condition 
 of the poor is very near to us. I fully realized, 
 alJ^o, for the first time, the constant duty which rests 
 upoi all those to whom special municipal rights 
 arc given, to concern themselves with the manage- 
 ment of the town in which they live, this responsi- 
 bility especially resting upon every one on whom 
 is laid the duty of voting. Beginning, then, to 
 attend my parish meetings, my sympathy was soon 
 aroused by seeing the bitter struggle of the indus- 
 trious poor going on all around me, to avoid sinking 
 into pauperism. Cases of inability to pay the rates 
 were constantly coming before us^ from weary 
 struggling men and women, who, if they sometimes 
 ' drink and forget their poverty,' demand pity more 
 than blame. 
 
 Every year the pinch of poverty grew sharper. 
 My own respectable young servant could not marry 
 
 ' lict\vci.n four ;incl five liundrctl summonses fur laie^ this 
 c|u;irter in our little town. 
 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
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 (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 
 
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178 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 her decent lover because rent was so dear. As 
 roomy lodging-houses and hotels spread along the 
 sea-front, speculation grew, and the mass of the 
 people were huddled together in smoky cram or 
 squeezed out into dreary suburbs, far away from 
 their work or from opportunities for honest industry. 
 I soon also learned the horror with which the 
 poor regard the workhouse ; how they would willingly 
 die in peace in the forlornest home rather than 
 be forced into what they regard as a hopeless, cruel 
 prison. My indignation deepened as I thought of 
 the deed still in our archives, in which, 'I, Petronilla 
 de Cham, of Hastings, in the pure and lawful 
 power of my widowhood,' grant a tract of land for 
 maintaining the poor old men and women of 
 Hastings in decent maintenance and godly service ; 
 the brothers and sisters of the Magdalen Hospital. 
 ' And I, Lady Petronilla and my heirs will warrant 
 and defend the aforesaid five acres of land with 
 precincts, to be held by the brothers and sisters 
 freely, quietly, well, and peacefully for ever,' they 
 praying for the souls of their benefactors. 
 
 As descendants of humane and pious ancestors, 
 it seems to be as clearly a religious duty to consider 
 the condition of the poor in 1885 as it was in 1292, 
 when Lady Petronilla de Cham made her foundation 
 gift to the Magdalen Charity. 
 
 The more I considered this important problem of 
 how to aid the struggling poor in their herioc efforts 
 to live decently, the more important to my mind 
 became the subject of taxation; how the rates of 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 179 
 
 a town are raised, and how they are expended. 
 Unhappily, we see all over the country that, in the 
 same way, ancient endowments for doles, retreats, 
 pensions, and portions are swept away because the 
 workhouse system is said to provide for the poor; 
 ancient endowments for training, clothing, and 
 apprenticing poor children are also swept away, 
 because the ' Board of Edur .tion provides for the 
 poor.' Thus the various necessities of social life, 
 education, benevolence, etc., are being committed 
 to the hands of officials— ?.t'., everything is rapidly 
 being thrown upon the rates, until the rates crush 
 the poor into pauperism. 
 
 Now, the question of rates is not at first sight 
 an attractive one, particularly to a person who 
 has unusually little talent for arithmetic. But in 
 the present day they take the place of ancient 
 beneficence, and are administered by Town Councils 
 instead of Church organisations. I therefore deter- 
 mined to attend a meeting which was being called 
 to meet the Local Government official, in order 
 to obtain sanction for a new loan. This was my 
 first appearance at a ' Statutory ' meeting. To my 
 surprise, when I took a seat at the Council Board, I 
 found that I was the only non-official ratepayer 
 present, although the sum to be borrowed was a large 
 one. It was stated that this proposal had received 
 the unanimous assent of the ratepayers. To this 
 statement I was compelled to make a short protest, 
 as I had learned from inquiries that many rate- 
 payers knew nothing about the proposed loan. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
 i I 
 
i8o 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 I was informed that the time for objections had not 
 arrived ; and the London official proceeded to 
 inquire into various details of the way in which 
 the loan of six thousand guineas was to be spent, 
 extent of grading, kind of concrete, etc. When 
 all was completely settled I was then requested to 
 state any objection I had to make. I spoke of the 
 burdens of taxation on the poor, and I begged to 
 know what was the present debt of the town. I 
 found that with this new loan our municipal debt 
 would be nearly a quarter of a million. This seemed 
 a very large debt for a small town, where the people 
 found a difficulty in paying their rates, and as a 
 prudent housekeeper I objected to go into debt 
 for our municipal housekeeping. I was informed 
 by the Local Government Board Inspector that 
 'that was a question to be settled at the polls' 
 So, of course, my single protest was of no practical 
 use. This occurred in August. I then thought 
 that, as the November elections were approaching, 
 it might be useful to try and get municipal questions 
 discussed with the candidates who were to be 
 elected for three years to the Town Council. 
 
 The proposed councillor in my parish cordially 
 assented to the proposal I ventured to make to him — 
 viz., that he should meet the ratepayers before the time 
 of the elections, and discuss with them various im- 
 portant questions which would come before the de- 
 cision of the Town Council. This gentleman willingly 
 promised to attend such a meeting if it were called. 
 Unfortunately, I could not find any householder 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 l8l 
 
 ; 
 
 willing to aid in such an effort. The following is a 
 type of the responses received from householders : 
 
 * I do not think my presence at a conference 
 would be of any service. I have so little knowledge 
 of municipal affairs, never having attended a meet- 
 ing since I resided in Hastings.' The same sort of 
 answer came from busy tradesmen and leisured 
 gentry. It therefore seemed that a more decided 
 educational effort was needed, an effort to show our 
 voters how a Town Council really represented in 
 modern days much of the practical action of the 
 Church in past ages, and that it ought really to 
 present the Theocratic idea — i.e., government by the 
 Highest Good. But here, too, unhappily, I could find 
 no one who did not seem to think that the function 
 of a Town Council was to save them all trouble and 
 responsibility, and that it must be elected on party 
 grounds. 
 
 Thus, more and more I recognised the profound 
 character of the disease of indifference, which has 
 become endemic in our municipalities, and the 
 urgent need of remedial measures. I therefore 
 entered into correspondence with the Social and 
 Pohtical Education League, which has borne in 
 succession the honoured names of Professor Seeley 
 and Mr. Froude as Presidents. I received a cordial 
 letter from the honorary secretary, who forwarded a 
 list of 107 names of lecturers, with numerous ad- 
 dresses that they would be willing to deliver. Un- 
 fortunately, in this printed list of several hundred 
 lectures 1 could find nothing that met our special 
 
l82 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 II 
 
 need— viz., short, simple, progressive instruction, 
 . iviting questions, ' on the use of a Town Council 
 and the meaning of a vote.' I was meditating on 
 what to do when I became most unexpectedly 
 involved in municipal work, where I was compelled 
 to take a prominent part, for which I was not fitted 
 either by knowledge or experience. 
 
 At the town meeting in August already referred 
 to, when the addition to the public debt was made, 
 a Corporation Bill was spoken of, which appeared 
 to be of very great importance, and which was to 
 come before the town later. I therefore watched 
 the notices by the church doors, and marked down 
 the date of the Statutory Meeting, which must be 
 called in order to sanction this Bill. I was much 
 surprised not to see attention strongly called to this 
 important measure by the local press and others ; 
 but the local politicians were all in such a state of 
 excitement because Hastings was to lose one of its 
 Parliamentary representatives that the way in which 
 municiprl affairs were carried on seemed to excite 
 no interest. I called at the Town Clerk's Office a 
 few days before the meeting to sanction the Bill 
 was to take place, and asked for a copy of the Bill, 
 but was told that there were ' no copies ' for rate- 
 payers ; neither could the Bill be seen. I spoke to 
 about ten persons in the course of the day, but no 
 one knew anything about the Bill. I then wrote 
 to several ratepayers to beg them to attend the 
 Statutory Meeting. One replied that there must be 
 A mista. e as to date, naming a meeting three days 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 183 
 
 
 later, which, being a ' Party ' meeting on Redistribu- 
 tion, entirely drew attention from the municipal 
 meeting. Another householder consulted a gentle- 
 man friend, who told her that the proposed Hill was 
 one to lessen taxation, so there was no need of 
 attending the meeting. I was unable to iind a 
 single ratepayer who knew anything about the Bill, 
 or had even heard of it. The time came, a very 
 stormy evening ; about seventy persons attended out 
 of over 8,000 ratepayers. No one had seen the ^MA, 
 which, from the short abstract given by a Councillor, 
 was evidently of the utmost importance to every 
 class of the inhabitants, and particularly to the 
 industrious classes. It was urged by the Town 
 Council Committee in charge of the Bill that no 
 opposition to it should be made, for two reasons. 
 In the first place, the next day was the last chance 
 of registering the Bill for the present Session of Par- 
 liament, and a year would be lost if the Bill were 
 not accepted that night ; in the next place, it was 
 stated tiiat any opposition would be very expensive 
 to the town, for, as they had already paid ^Tsoo for 
 the expenses of the Bill, and would pay about as 
 much more to complete it, if any opposition were 
 raised it would cost the town some thousands of 
 pounds. 
 
 As no other ratepayer seemed to discover any 
 flaw in these statements, I ventured to suggest that, 
 as no one amongst us hac' seen the Bill, we ought 
 not to sanction it without any opportunity of exam- 
 ination, and that it would be better to lose a Session 
 

 184 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 than do so. I therefore begged to move an adjourn- 
 ment ; this was seconded by a ratepayer, but not put 
 to the meeting. The Bill was accepted in the name 
 of the ratepayers by a vote of 47, the Parliamentary 
 agent who directed the proceedings most courteously 
 assuring me that 'there would be ample time to 
 object to the Bill in London.' Of course, I knew, 
 and many of the prorer ratepayers present knew, 
 that it would be too late to consider the Bill after it 
 was accepted in our names ; but I was struck with 
 the inability of those present to formulate their 
 objections, although much dissatisfaction manifested 
 itself in the meeting. Entire ignorance (in which I 
 fully shared) also existed as to what steps to take in 
 such a case. Had I insisted, as I ought to have 
 done, upon the motion for adjournment being put, 
 it would probably have been rejected by a small 
 majority. But I was utterly ignorant of what was 
 right to do in such a strange position, and it seemed 
 almost unladylike for me alone to oppose the Mayor 
 and Town Council, with their Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee and legal advisers, particularly as it was 
 insisted that opposition meant distrust of the 
 Council, whereas I thought simply of my duty as a 
 ratepayer. I did not know then, and no one present 
 seemed to know, that any ratepayer has a right to 
 demand a poll; and, if insisted on, it must have 
 been allowed. In this case the few pounds it would 
 have cost the town would have been well expended, 
 in delaying what proved to be an exceedingly b. \ 
 and retrograde Bill. But nothing has struck me 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVEKNMENT 
 
 185 
 
 more in this singular experience than the utter 
 ignorance of all our otherwise intelligent burgesses 
 as to the steps by which their municipal rights may 
 be guarded, either in the borough or in London. 
 This ignorance seems to arise from the inattention 
 and habit of indifference to municipal duties pro- 
 duced, not only by the pressure of private affairs, 
 but by exclusive absorption in party politics. 
 
 As soon as the Corporation Bill w;is thus nomi- 
 nally accepted by the burgesses, copies of the Bill 
 were allow i to circulate. I saw at once, on scan- 
 ning thi; ous Bill of 243 folio pages, thus 
 sprung I - > town, that it was a very retrograde 
 Bill, ana jld p ove especially tyrannical to the 
 poor. Being fully convinced that a fundamental 
 duty of any community is to guard the industrious 
 poor from being crushed into paupers, I looked at 
 the Bill from that point of view, and was shocked 
 by it. It was drawn up to favour the growth of that 
 modern mistake, a fashionable lodging-house town, 
 by endeavouring to attract rich temporary visitors, 
 instead of promoting permanent productive industry. 
 By its provisions it largely increased the debt of the 
 town ; it withdrew expenditure from control of the 
 ratepayers; it provided for a largely-increasing 
 bureaucracy, by placing all the new institutions 
 under officials of the Town Council; it confirmed 
 and established a virtual octroi on coal and the 
 necessaries of life; it introduced the most minute 
 and arbitrary regUxdtions in relation to building, 
 sanitary inspection, police arrests ; it re-enacted the 
 
i86 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 obsolete regulation which regards vice as female ; 
 and in many other ways it sought to convert the 
 Town Council into masters instead of servants of 
 the people. 
 
 I immediately commenced asking individual rate- 
 payers if they had seen this Bill, which interfered 
 with every class of inhabitant. No one had seen it, 
 and later inquiry seemed to prove that not one 
 member even of the Town Council itself had read 
 the Bill carefully through, outside the little Parlia- 
 mentary Committee who followed the guidance of 
 the London official agent. 
 
 I am glad to say that the first note of serious 
 public alarm was sounded by the Medical Profession, 
 who, finding they were to be turned into family 
 spies by this Bill, refused to submit, and, having an 
 organized medical society unanimous in opinion, 
 they commenced an opposition to those objection- 
 able clauses which affected their position. But 
 weeks of precious time were lost before attention 
 was aroused to the generally tyrannical character 
 of the Bill. At last the growing discontent found a 
 voice in an active, enlightened burgess. A crowded 
 public meeting was held, attended largely by the 
 poorer ratepayers, and a committee w^s formed to 
 see what amendments could be introduced. But 
 there was then not time to examine thoroughly this 
 enormous Bill before it was read in Parliament. 
 Here, again, two circumstances were noteworthy. 
 First of all, the complete indifference of the richer 
 mhab. .^nts to the Bill and to all that involved 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 187 
 
 trouble on their part, with the dread of the poorer 
 inhabitants of the frightful law expenses which 
 opp)osition would entail. 
 
 The second noteworthy point was the utter 
 ignorance of all parties as to the best and exact 
 method of procedure in the various steps necessary 
 to be taken in seeking to amend or oppose the Hill- 
 as, for instance, the times allowed for the various 
 stages, the parties to ad^'ress, the ways of addressing 
 them, the righ*'^! of the burgesses to appear, etc. 
 No one, either .yman or lawyer, possessed exact 
 detailed knowledge 
 
 For my part, I sought information at headquarters 
 in London. Here, once for all, I beg to state that 
 nothing can exceed the courtesy and often kindness 
 with which my crude inquiries have always been 
 met by those highest in authority. Indeed, all my 
 life long, though painful'' c :)mpelled to woik against 
 rather than with social r >nditions, I have always 
 found men eager to help an honest, unsellish 
 
 worker. 
 
 In London I learned some rather surprising facts. 
 These facts may be thus briefly summarized : First, 
 that it is the effect of the action of the Central 
 Government to weaken the Municipalities by en- 
 couraging them to run heavily into debt ; secondly, 
 that, taking advantage of their weakness, they ap- 
 parently intend to assume themselves the authority 
 that has hitherto resided in the Municipalities as 
 self-governing communities. 
 
 These are very serious facts, not at all due, I 
 
i88 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 think, to any influence exerted by the enlightened 
 heads of Departments, who change with every 
 administration, '>ut to the enormous growing system 
 of permanent c. ciahsm, which acts like a tre- 
 mendous machine, crushing individual freedom, 
 because it naturally seeks to work without friction. 
 The term ' vortex,' familiarly applied to the system 
 when any individual interest is drawn into its 
 current, well expresses the terrible power of these 
 official forces. 
 
 My first amazement was awakened by the reply 
 to my objection concerning the increased power of 
 borrowing given by our Hastings Bill to a little 
 town of 40,000 inhabitants, that already had a debt 
 of nearly a quarter of a million. * What is the 
 rateable value of your town ?' was asked. ' 3^300,000.' 
 
 * And do you consider a quarter a million a large 
 debt ? Why, let me tell you, your town is most 
 fortunate in having such a small debt ! Do you not 
 know that Government allows you to borrow to the 
 extent of two years' annual rating?' 
 
 Such was the astounding view taken by a political 
 economist of the duty of Government. I thought 
 ol our hundreds of poor ratepayers unable to pay 
 their taxes. I thought of the statistical report that 
 
 * In Great Britain the municipal and other local 
 debts rose in the period of ten years from 84 to 
 140 millions,' and I was simply dumb with fear for 
 the future. For I have already seen that power to 
 borrow means encouragement to borrow, and that 
 the municipal purse i .iOt regarded as a Trust, to 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 ;H9 
 
 be more scrupulously guarded than the private 
 
 purse. 
 
 My next discovery related i j sanitary and police 
 clauses, and particularly to those which pressed 
 especially upon v.omen. I maintained that there 
 were no such things as good brnthels; that they 
 were illegal institutions, to be gradually and steadily 
 suppressed by the growing morality of the people, 
 who should be encouraged by increased facilities to 
 set the law i i motion ; and that any legal distinction 
 as to bad houses that were * a nuisance to .he neigh- 
 bourhood ' was a mischievous distinction. T also 
 pointed out that the term 'prostitute' Gho-ill be 
 entirely struck out of all legislative mactine i- as 
 an obsolete injustice, and that any nf ,sary chocks 
 to growing vice should apply to ' all persons habitu- 
 ally or persistently ' offending. 
 
 These honest suggestions were considered quite 
 impracticable in official circles ; but I learned that 
 the Central Government would be quite ready to 
 strike out any unusual local provision in order to take 
 all sanitary and police measures into its own hands. 
 This appeared lj me a most alarming indention. 
 Surely a deadly blow would be struck at individual 
 liberty if all sanitary and police regulations were to 
 be drawn into the ' vortex.' The mistakes of muni- 
 cipalities rouse individual conscience, una may be 
 turned to the education of the community ; but take 
 away this natural power of growth, and we become 
 a feeble, self-seeking mass, swayed by demag gues, 
 and the slaves of official Bastilles. 
 
igo 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 
 I began to understand the wide bearing of a fact 
 that had excited my surprise a short time previously. 
 Scandals occurring in one of our new parks, permis- 
 sion had been obtained from the Local Government 
 Board to place an additional policeman there. 
 Noticing this fact, I asked our Councilman : * Why 
 on earth did you consult the Local Government 
 Board about our own policemen ? Does not our 
 Watch Committee attend to our police matters?' 
 He replied : ' Oh, don't you know that the Local 
 Government Board pay part of our police expenses ?' 
 Looking over the Borough Accounts for 1884, there, 
 sure enough, I find this police item : Treasury con- 
 tribution, ^1,881 i6s. id. 
 
 Our poor tax-payers cannot pay their rent, so we 
 rob Peter to pay Paul ; we get money from the 
 General Government, which ail have to contribute 
 to supply, with the idea of lessening local rates, and 
 in return allow the central authorities to interfere 
 with our police. Surely this is selling our birthright 
 for a very deceptive mess of pottage ! 
 
 As our Town Council became aware of the legiti- 
 mate discontent which existed respecting the Bill 
 they had sent up to London, with really imperfect 
 knowledge of its contents, they endeavoured with 
 willing courtesy to meet the Ratepayers' Committee, 
 and at the last moment for legal opposition, certain 
 important amendments were accepted by the Council, 
 which removed the power of arbitrary arrest by the 
 police, and softened some of the other harsh inter- 
 ference with individual rights. 
 
REPRESENTATIVi: GOVERNMENT 
 
 191 
 
 The People's Committee were compelled to accept 
 these imperfect concessions. The limit of time for 
 opposing the Bill had arrived. No rich or leisured 
 resident showed the slightest concern in this measure. 
 The remark had been made to me by a high London 
 authority: * If your townspeople really consider this 
 such a bad Bill, then they have nothing to do but 
 to put their hands in their pockets and raise the 
 money to oppose it.' This remark shows how little 
 rich people, high in authority, know of the conditions 
 of life in a fashionable lodging-house town. The 
 work of revising this Bill — work necessarily incom- 
 plete — had been done by burgesses of moderate 
 means and overwhelmed by private cares, and the 
 time needed for this public work had been stolen 
 from sleep. There was neither possibility of with- 
 drawing a Bill on which much public money had 
 been already expended, nor of raising the heavy 
 sums of money necessary to carry on legal opposition 
 to it. 
 
 Thus, a new Corporation Bill of most retrograde 
 character has been forced upon the town — a Bill 
 which greatly strengthens the official or bureaucratic 
 organization, removes much of the control of rate- 
 payers over expenditure, plays into the hands of 
 a centralizing Government, establishes protective 
 duties on the necessaries of life, and vexatiously 
 interferes in various ways with the legitimate 
 personal liberty of the inhabitants. 
 
 The latest ' Battle of Hastings,' in 1885, has ended 
 in defeat. 
 
 i-i 
 
 A 
 
ig2 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 This familiar narrative of late experience in one 
 of our little towns is now given for a practical 
 
 purpose. 
 
 A similar course of things appears to be takmg 
 place in all our towns, large and small. Unchecked, 
 this neglect of social duty and thoughtless submis- 
 sion to official formalism must steadily deteriorate 
 our national character. It can only be checked 
 by the voluntary organization of individuals who 
 will resolutely battle for the Theocratic principle 
 of human rights against the selfish demagogueism 
 of party strife. The plainest fact in history is 
 the Divine Moral Government of the world. A 
 nation given up to selfishness and lust always 
 degenerates and perishes, and is replaced by new 
 races. This is the great lesson of the ages. We 
 only fail to read it because the method of action 
 of the Creative Power is so much grander and 
 surer than the methods of our individual action. 
 But all that is strongest and noblest in our human 
 nature can be but a faint reflection of what is 
 immeasurably stronger and nobler in the Almighty 
 Creative force. The careful study of our own 
 human needs measured and limited by the needs 
 of all other human beings is the foundation of all 
 growth. This mutual limitation and government 
 of human rights by human duties is Theocracy. It 
 alone can be a permanent form of Government, 
 for a righteous democratic rule must inevitably be 
 
 Theocratic rule. 
 
 If the Churches cannot yet see that the education 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 193 
 
 of the people in their municipal life is the ur{j;ent 
 need of the age, if political parties are too corrupt 
 or self-seeking to learn the same lesson, then help 
 must come from other sources. Perhaps women 
 ratepayers not yet entangled in party politics, and 
 men who have risen above them may hear the 
 Divine voice which speaks to them, and may kindle 
 a little sacred fire which will grow into a beacon- 
 light to the nation. 
 
 It is now urgently necessary to consider the way 
 in which organizations of householders may be 
 gradually formed in all our municipalities, for the 
 purpose of mutual education and legitimate criti- 
 cism. 
 
 An unofficial organization, sufficiently suited to 
 respond promptly to any sudden municipal call, 
 has really become of vital importance. The ani- 
 mating centre of such organizations must be three 
 or four earnest, unselfish persons (a true Theocratic 
 brotherhood) who will carefully study municipal 
 or social questions, and plan and initiate a work of 
 gradual education, particularly addressed to women 
 voters and our poorer ratepayers. I especially 
 mention women because nothing has been done for 
 their enlightenment as to the new duties laid upon 
 them in 1867. It is a noteworthy fact that when 
 2,000,000 more men were lately placed on the 
 register, the most active efforts of the Cobden Club 
 and others were at once given to instruct these 
 new voters after party fashion, but no effort what- 
 ever has been made directly to instruct the hundreds 
 
 VOL. II. ^3 
 
194 
 
 DECAY OF MUNICIPAL 
 
 of thousands of women to whom the municipal 
 vote, the corner-stcr.i of our political system, was 
 given in 1867. 
 
 There are questions of policy having a large and 
 important national bearing which need to be studied 
 by united householders. Few persons know clearly 
 what should be the direct action and indirect 
 influence of a Town Council— its duty to resist 
 encroachment by the central government ; its duty 
 to encourage the interest and action of burgesses 
 in their own institutions, and to diminish the 
 number of irresponsible officials ; its duty to con- 
 sider the public purse as a solemn trust, and to 
 invite careful study of municipal accounts. 
 
 The abolition of obsolete practices, the considera- 
 tion of changes or adaptation to modern needs of 
 municipal regulations, need consideration by house- 
 holders. 
 
 Few burgesses seem to know that ten ratepayers 
 in a parish possess the right to nominate any one of 
 their fellow ratepayers to represent them for three 
 years on the Town Council. The nominations are 
 now made in secret by party cliques, a practice 
 never intended by our Constitution. This mis- 
 chievous practice can be directly checked by the 
 liberty of independent action thus provided for. 
 I have already referred to the right to demand a 
 poll at any statutory meeting where serious objection 
 is taken to any proposed measure, a mos^ impor- 
 tant guarantee of municipal liberty, quite unknown, 
 apparently, to the majority of ratepayers. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 195 
 
 I need not enter upon the important questions 
 of the selection of Poor-law guaruians, of members 
 of School Boards, and o jr officers sup^ ised 
 to be elected by ratepayers, because the same 
 criticism applies to all. At present, indifference to 
 all these important elections prevails unless a sharp 
 contest springs up on party politics. Yet questions 
 really vital to our national welfare are involved in 
 these apparently minor points in our municipal 
 housekeeping, and I believe that the indifference 
 now felt towards our borough elections, when not 
 stimulated by party strife, proceeds from ignorance 
 of these larger relations. 
 
 It is in the hope of seeing this great municipal 
 education begun on a large plan, quite above party 
 strife, that I have ventured to refer to this episode 
 of personal experience. 
 
 Those who profoundly believe in the moral govern- 
 ment of this world, and who would help in estab- 
 lishing a true Theocracy, must seek truth from all 
 sources. Our modern prophets, Herbert Spencer, 
 John Ruskin, and many anocher seeker for truth, 
 must be earnestly listened to ; not as gods, but 
 as men who with human limitations, nevertheless 
 through evil and good report, never swerve from the 
 steadfast unselfish search for truth — men who are 
 enabled to see clearly great aspects of Divine truth, 
 and who can refresh and guide ug in our humbler, 
 but piovidential task. Such men are often the 
 truest followers of our Lord in this nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 13—2 
 
ig6 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 To all women voters, to all our poorer ratepayers, 
 I earnestly recommend the formation of a union 
 for the study of municipal rights and duties, '.id 
 I hope that my humble but earnest effort in this 
 direction will enlist the sympathy and guidance 
 of all those truth-seers most able to help us. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE OPENING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WOMEN'S MEDICAL COLLEGE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 New York Infirmary, 126, Second Avenue 
 
 November 2, 1868 
 
i: 
 
 I ! 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 Our Faculty has kmdly insisted upon my saying the 
 iirst words which our new College addresses to its 
 friends, and I am bound to comply with their 
 dc'^ire, although I could have wished that some abler 
 person might have shown the broad significance of 
 those principles which are involved in our work. 
 
 True growth is slow (as we measure time) and 
 silent. The tiny sapling shoots up with invisible 
 and noiseless force ; so have we worked on — silently. 
 Yet the truest growth has its striking phases of 
 development. We watch with glad anticipation the 
 first tender green of budding foliage ; later still we 
 luxuriate in the delicious flowering of the apple- 
 blossoms in May. 
 
 It was in 1853, in a parlour in University Place 
 (as some two or three of those now present will 
 remember), that the little slip of a Medical Institu- 
 tion for Women was planted, which slowly grew till 
 it budded into a small hospital in 1857. Many who 
 are here to-night will recall the opening of the hos- 
 pital wards in Bleecker Street and the cordial words 
 of encouragement then given. They will remember 
 
 i - I 
 
 i: 
 
20O 
 
 women's MtJnCAL COLLEGE 
 
 that noble young minister, cut down in his promising 
 youth, who hurried in from his pressing duties in a 
 distant city, carpet-bag in hand, resolved to give us 
 a hearty God-speed, because the good cause was un- 
 popular. 
 
 Now the tree has blossomed into a college, and 
 once more the friends gather round to rejoice in its 
 promise of larger usefulness. 
 
 It has required fifteen years of patient work — 
 work by faith, for the way has been very dark — to 
 lay the foundation of a college. This has seemed 
 strange to most persons, for many women's colleges 
 he .e sprung up meanwhile ; hundreds of women have 
 received the physician's diploma ; some have become 
 highly-respected practitioners, and some have gained 
 large sums of money. Of the early friends of the 
 Infirmary, many have died, and some have been dis- 
 couraged by its slow growth. 
 
 It is an easy thing to found a poor college. Our 
 liberal Legislature grants a charter to anyone who 
 asks for it, and an audience can always be gathered 
 together by speeches and music to witness the pre- 
 sentation of learned-looking parchment rolls to a 
 class of well-dressed students; but charter and 
 diploma do not necessarily guarantee the fitting 
 education of a physician. To found a really good 
 college is a work of great difficulty, and up to the 
 present time has been impossible for want of pro- 
 fessional assistance — of skilful teachers, and ample 
 clinical provision. To this difficulty has been added 
 another — the want of funds. 
 
women's medical COLF.Kr.E 
 
 201 
 
 We have been facing these two perpendicular 
 cliffs— money and skill — for fifteen years, and 
 striving in every possible way to climb them. 
 Everyone will sympathize with us in relation to the 
 first difficulty, but, at the same time, the promoters 
 of ordinary benevolent enterprises can hardly realize 
 the added difficulty of begging for a principle. People 
 will give to a charity or popular enthusiasm, but very 
 seldom to a principle, more seldom still to such an 
 unpopular idea as the education of women in medi- 
 cine. 
 
 Little by little, however, we have laid one stone 
 upon another, until we have gained a foundation 
 sufficient to stand on. It is small, certainly, but 
 solid, and v/e all f<^el great hope of surmounting the 
 first grand difficulty. 
 
 In relation to the second obstacle— the want of 
 professional support— I need only refer to the pros- 
 pectus of our College to show how happily we have 
 at last been able to surmount this second difficulty. 
 How this has been accomplished I really do not 
 know. We are so accustomed to be ' despised and 
 rejected' that encouragement, welcome, success, 
 seem unaccountable. It is like brei.Lb" new 
 
 and delightful atmosphere, which is, n i .leless, 
 strange and dream-like; and one almost fears to 
 wake up with a shock and find again the cold, the 
 gloom, and struggle all around. 
 
 But, from whatever cause proceeding, the support 
 now given to the formation of the College is warm 
 and cordial. Should we fulfil the expectations of 
 
;1 
 
 202 
 
 WOMEN S MEDICAL COLLEGE 
 
 the wise and experienced physicians who have sanc- 
 tioned and counselled the formation of this school, 
 professional assistance will be increased to the 
 utmost extent the student may require. 
 
 We enter, then, upor this work under the most 
 favourable auspices, and we are encouraged to 
 undertake it by the earnest request of medical 
 wcmen from every part of the country. From the 
 e^st and tht west, from California to Maine, have 
 come the same heartfelt expressions of interest in 
 the establishment of a sound plan of education, the 
 sgme hope that other women may not enter upon 
 their work under the disadvantages of imperfect 
 preparation that they have had to contend with. 
 The list of excellent women physicians who have 
 enrolled themselves as fellows of the College shows 
 the trust which is felt in this undertaking by our 
 respected co-workers. 
 
 We have endeavoured to follow out the sug- 
 gestions of our most experienced medical teachers, 
 and incorporate the following features into our plan 
 of instruction : 
 
 1. A three years' college course. 
 
 2. A larger proportion ' ''. time devoted to teaching 
 and practical instruction than to lecturing. 
 
 3. A progressive succession of studies. 
 
 T shall only refer at this time to one of these— viz., 
 the three years' college course. I would remark, for 
 the information of those who are not familiar with 
 medical tuition, that the Legislature, in granting to 
 a school the right to confer the degree of Doctor in 
 
women's m :dical college 
 
 203 
 
 Medicine, requires that such decree shall only be 
 given to those who have been studying medicine for 
 three years. Three years, then, is the oblij^atory 
 time of study, and no degree is legal which is 
 granted on a less term of study, l^ut in the ordi- 
 np*"" course of instruction the greater p;irt of that 
 time is spent in private reading, the College being 
 only responsible for the instruction of two w'-.ter 
 sessions of tive months each ; in other words, for ten 
 months out of the thirty-six required by law. The 
 remaining twenty-six months may or may not be 
 well spent ; it depends upon the intelligence, resolu- 
 tion, and opportunities possessed by each individual 
 student. It is the great wish of the profession to 
 increase the collegiate part of instruction, and 
 require attendance at college during a portion of 
 each of the three years of study. Many colleges 
 have added spnng and autumn courses, but the 
 attendance of students is not obligatory, and it 
 seems impossible to lengthen the college course 
 without united action. 
 
 For women there exist so very few opportunities 
 for profitable study that these precious twenty-six 
 months are, to a great extent, wasted. At the same 
 time a weighty responsibility rests upon all those 
 who introduce women into medicine to see that 
 they are fitted to fulfil the trust worthily. Medicine 
 is a learned and confidential profession, and should 
 draw into its ranks the most highly educated, the 
 most irreproachable in character. This most noble 
 profession, like all high things, is susceptible of the 
 
 '■ 1 1 
 
204 
 
 women's medical college 
 
 worst abuse. The good which women may accom- 
 plish in medical practice is also the measure of the 
 evil that they may do. Education, long and careful, 
 should be the safeguard of society in this matter. 
 From many causes women are peculiarly exposed 
 to a great temptation — that of practising ignorantly 
 and superficially. The College should foresee this 
 danger, and provide the long and careful training 
 which can alone discriminate between the worthy 
 and unworthy candidate. This education, while it 
 sifts out the incompetent, will give to the earnest 
 student those advantages of drill, of substantial 
 knowledge, of professional support, without which 
 women enter upon the practical work of medicine 
 under the most cruel disadvantages. 
 
 We propose, therefore, to adopt the most advanced 
 plan of instruction, and have arranged a progressive 
 course of study which will require for its completion 
 attendance at college during three winter sessions 
 of five months each, which we hope eventually to 
 be able to extend to eight months. We , hall thus 
 be able not only to give to each student an additional 
 term of systematic instruction, with all those advan- 
 tages of hospital practice which belong only to a 
 large city, but we shall be able to keep her under 
 college influence during the remainder of each year, 
 directing the ' termediate studies, and forming 
 much more accurate acquaintance than were other- 
 wise possible, with the qualifications of each candi- 
 date for graduation. 
 
 We are compelled to face many difficulties by 
 
WOMEN S MEDICAL COLLEG 
 
 205 
 
 this plan. We must anticipate a smaller class at 
 first in consequence of the additional expense Lid 
 upon the student, for however low the price of 
 tuition ma}' be made, the added expense of boarding 
 has to be met. The student also, at the outset of her 
 career, is unable to appreciate the great advantages 
 of this enlarged instruction, and is naturally tempted 
 o go where a diploma may most easily be gained. 
 We are quite sure, however, that in a few years the 
 thorough education given by our College, and the 
 distinction conferred by its diploma, will draw to it 
 the best students from every part of our country. 
 
 There is one other feature of our College that I 
 must allude to, as I feel in it a profound and special 
 interest : it is the introduction of hygiene into our 
 course as a prominent and obligatory study. 
 
 It seems strange that the prevention of disease 
 should not always have engaged the thought and 
 instruction of the guardians of the public health at 
 least as fully as the cure of disease, and yet I believe 
 that this is the first college in America to found a 
 chair of hygiene. Consider the subjects involved 
 in the development of a healthy human organisation 
 —a healthy race. Physical and moral training ; the 
 inheritance and transmission of qualities ; the pecu- 
 liarities of individual constitution; the nature and 
 influences of climate, soil, food and customs ; the 
 prevention of epidemics ; the municipal regulations 
 of our cities, etc.— all these subjects come directly 
 and unavoidably into the department of hygiene. 
 Surely every student who receives the degree of 
 
206 
 
 women's medical college 
 
 Doctor should be thoroughly acquainted with all that 
 Science at present knows on these subjects. How 
 else can he fulfil his noblest trust — tlie guardianship 
 of individual and public health ? For a specialist 
 with a narrowed range of duties such knowledge 
 may, perhaps, be of less importance ; but for the 
 family physician, the trusted friend an'^ counsellor 
 year after year — for the public-spirited physician 
 who would give to his wisdom and experience the 
 largest usefulness, these studies are indispensable, 
 and his initiation, his first impulse and interest in 
 this knowledge, should surely be given by his college. 
 There is one branch of this subject which I think 
 must weigh heavily on the hearts of women physi- 
 cians, and which will, I hope, through them, engage 
 the attention of every thoughtful woman in our 
 land — I refer to the frightful mortality of young 
 children. Children are born to live, not die. There 
 is a wonderful force of tenacious vitality in all 
 growing organizations — far more proportionate 
 vitality than in the old or even the adult ; yet, 
 notwithstanding this beneficent provision of nature, 
 we destroy our young children nearly five times as 
 fast as the other members of our social body. If 
 every woman in our city could hear the daily moan 
 of these dying infants, could feel that every day 
 multitudes of bereaved mothers were weeping over 
 untimely graves, and that her own skirts were not 
 clear of this shedding of innocent blood, we should 
 see an army of earnest co-workers eager to save this 
 multitude of helpless children. 
 
WOMEN S MEDICAL COLLEGE 
 
 207 
 
 Infancy and early childhood are the especial 
 charge of women, and how do they fulfil this trust ? 
 It does not do to look around upon a well-furnished 
 home, bright with the smiling faces of happy 
 children, and say, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' 
 Each one is his brother's keeper to the direct extent 
 that knowing an evil can be cured, he refrains from 
 doing his part to cure it. Did the women of our 
 city resolve to save these children they might be 
 saved. Year by year the mortality might be lessened 
 by the sanitary knowledge diffused by women, and 
 the sanitary regulations their influence nnght estab- 
 lish, until from their own little circle they cou.l 
 look with joy to a bright cloud of witnesses beyond 
 — thousands of useful lives saved to their homes 
 and their country through their aid ! 
 
 This suggestion of important practical usefulness 
 will give force to the great principle involved in our 
 College — scientific training for women. 
 
 Interest in natural objeccs, careful, comprehen- 
 sive observation of them, enthusiasm for unselfish 
 and impersonal ends, are the main principles of 
 scientific study — principles that would enter with 
 invigorating force into the mental development of 
 every girl, that would regenerate the life of women. 
 Science is no hard dry thing as some imagine; 
 it is the earnest study of this wonderful world 
 around .s. It will take the form of each individual 
 mind. In a narrow unimaginative nature it will 
 seem hard and dry; in a warm and loving nature 
 it will flow into every form of benevolent action. 
 
208 
 
 women's medical college 
 
 It might work a most beneficent change in the 
 relation that we all consider most sacred— the 
 relation of a mother to her children. 
 
 The immense force of habit, second only to the 
 original type of constitution, and often overpowering 
 even the original tendencies, is, nevertheless, formed 
 by the silent working of influences, hour by hour 
 and day by day, that are invisible and cannot be 
 measure-^ , that seem absolutely valueless, taken 
 item by item, in the long account, and yet in the 
 aggregate thay will save or ruin the body and soul. 
 A mother may instil the love of reading or the 
 love of dress ; she may form the habit of out-door 
 exercise or the habit of gossip not by the set precept 
 or even formal regulations, but by her own tastes 
 unavoidably r..oulding the tastes of her children, 
 and flowing out naturally into these external arrange- 
 ments that inevitably reflect the ruling spirit or 
 affections of the individual. Did the mother possess 
 a hearty interest in the wonders of field and forest, 
 of sea and sky, what a treasury of delightful inter- 
 course might be found in the varied environs of 
 our city ! A mother's love joined to the broad tastes 
 and knowledge would never weary of the ceaseless 
 questioning of childhood ; the older the child, the 
 closer and more influential would be the companion- 
 ship. The holiday by the sea-side or amongst the 
 mountains, su wasted now in idleness and frivolity, 
 might be a rich harvest-time of delightful know- 
 ledge drawn from the treasures of lana and water. 
 
 It is, then, because of the great value that 
 
women's medical college 
 
 209 
 
 enthusiasm for natural science would be to woman, 
 value to the individual life, to the home life, and 
 to society, that I think this College will owe its 
 greatest interest. From the fact that it is a Medical 
 ^ allege it will derive its practical efficiency in 
 cultivating a taste for science. 
 
 A lady, now world-famous, once said to me before 
 she began her noble career : ' We Englishwomen 
 can study anything under the sun that we desire 
 to acquire. Not the slightest obstacle is placed 
 in the way of our becoming learned to any extent ; 
 but ar attempt to turn the knowledge to account, 
 to work with it, is met with the bitterest opposition, 
 is ridiculed, sneered at, frowned down. Yet the 
 greatest impetus to study, the natura' ues of 
 study, lie in some noble career.' 
 
 It is from this tendency of human mind to pour 
 its knowledge into some definite form that our 
 Medical College, with its broad practical uses, may 
 prove so valuable as a centre for scientific study. 
 As it becomes older and stronger it will spread 
 into those collateral branches as botany, zoology, 
 comparative anatomy, which will form so many 
 points of union the professional and non-profes- 
 sional. Classes jld nature' form in connection 
 with it for nursmg, spnitary visiting, for botanical 
 and other excursions. There is no limit to its 
 practical usefulness if the spirit that animates it 
 be earnest, truthful, and intelligent. 
 
 We enter, then, upon our college work with a 
 bright hope that stretches beyond the college walls 
 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
210 
 
 women's medical college 
 
 into the homes and cities around; into the higher 
 civilization of the future as well as the present. 
 
 Our excellent Faculty, in entire accordance with 
 these views, commence their patient and laborious 
 work with a sustained enthusiasm which recognises 
 the difficulties in our way, but is resolved to 
 conquer them. They share the large and liberal 
 views of modern medicine. They belong to no 
 ' pathy,' to no narrow and bigoted sect. They 
 are members of that great catholic community of 
 science which, from the * Father of Medicine ' 
 onwards, in every age and country, under the most 
 diverse practical forms, has sought for truth through 
 observation, experiment and calm deduction ; has 
 proved all things, and held fast to that which is good. 
 We invite the co-operation of all in this noble 
 work. Especially do we invite the co-operation of 
 women. United action is of immense importance 
 in so arduous an undertaking as this. We will 
 do everything in our power to conciliate diverse 
 interests. Principle only must not be sacrifi'""'!. 
 The College must be an honest and earnest attempt 
 to give to women the very highest education that 
 modern science will afford. It is on this ground 
 that union must take place. This school is the 
 only one that the profession has confidence in, the 
 only one it has sanctioned. It has laid its broad 
 foundation by fifteen years of patient work, and it 
 will quickly rise into an edifice of noble proportions 
 if all friendly helpers will unite in its construction. 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 A Lecture delivered in 187 1 
 
 1 • 
 
 1 I 
 
 14—2 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 The words 'the Religion of Health' convey a 
 profound meaning to the physician who has spent 
 a Ufetime in relieving physical suffering. I will try 
 and state what those words seem to me to imply. 
 
 Obedience to Divine law is the highest wisdom of 
 the human race. 
 
 Wherever God's laws are clearly visible, stamped 
 in immutable characters so plain that every human 
 being who is willing to read them can do so, then 
 the wisdom, the happiness— nay, the simple common- 
 sense of the race — lies in obeying them. The first 
 lesson every one of us has to learn profoundly is his 
 subjection to law. There is no escaping this inexor- 
 able destiny. Although each one is born with free- 
 will, his type— the plan and pattern of his being— is 
 born with him also. This type is a limitation to 
 the nature, but it is also a guide ; it is the finger of 
 Providence showing him the road to follow in the 
 great wilderness of creation ; it is the Divine order, 
 according to which each one can freely grow and 
 expand in body and soul to the finest proportions. 
 True freedom consists in the voluntary choice of 
 
214 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 this type, in the full acceptance of all its conditions, 
 and in tl.e endeavour to unfold its capacities. The 
 will may refuse this type, may deny the laws that 
 govern it, may seek for license in a lawless rejection 
 of Divine order, but it is soon arrested by endless 
 obstacles, and persistence in the unequal struggle 
 will only end in degradation and self-destruction. 
 
 We recognise a Divine law when we see it existing 
 age after age unchangeably, carrying order and 
 beauty in its fulfilment ; penalties, discord, desola- 
 tion, with infringement. These laws are grand in 
 design, beneficient in their effects— equally so, 
 whether we observe the marvel of parental love, or 
 explore the wonders of the skies ; whether we clothe 
 them in warm, human garments, indispensable to 
 the simple, loving heart, or frame them in the clear 
 precision of scientific formulae, indispensable to the 
 truthful mind. 
 
 If there be one law that all can clearly recognise 
 in the existence of the material world around us, 
 it is the unvarying method of human development 
 from infancy to old age. A certain plan exists, 
 according to which the infant expands through 
 childhood and youth into manhood, and thence 
 changes through elderly life into o;d age. 
 
 This plan never varies in any epoch, or race, or 
 country. It is the same for the lowest savage tribe 
 as for the most cultivated race. No effort of ours 
 can change this unvarying sequence in human life. 
 
 This is a wonderful fact. It is so common that 
 we hardly notice it. Yet it is wonderful, because it 
 
 mmm 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 215 
 
 is SO common — so common as to be universal. It 
 rises, as we r^^ard it, into the dignity of Law. 
 
 Reverence for this unity of life increases the more 
 carefully this strange fact, called the human body, 
 is studied, the more fully we understand what it is 
 that thus remains unchanged age after age. We 
 speak of the body as if it were a single, simple 
 thing, to be used as a tool and then laid aside ; but 
 its complicated structure is a little world in itself. 
 Ari a machine, it is such a model of compactness 
 and ingenuity that no human skill can approach its 
 perfection. It possesses a twofold life — a life for 
 itself as well as a life for our use. In its own proper 
 life it carries on a thousand curious operations 
 necessary for its growth and maintenance, quite 
 independent of our volition or consciousness. It 
 contains extensive manufactories full of complicated 
 and delicate u^achinery for the production of sugar, 
 milk, acids, alkalies, salts ; it has storehouses of 
 iron, lime, and other chemical substances ; there 
 are magazines where it lays up supplies against a 
 time of scarcity ; it has its retiners and scavengers ; 
 apparatus for warming and ventilating ; it has 
 pumps and propellers constantly at W( rk, and a 
 more perfect ei- irical apparatus than has ever 
 been invented. All these remarkable operations 
 are directed by intelligence, working according to a 
 plan, and combining these manifold energies for one 
 
 purpose — VIZ. 
 
 the 
 
 maintenance, during a certain 
 human body. Besides this in- 
 dependent existence of its own, the body possesses 
 
 period, of a healthy 
 
2l6 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 1' > 
 
 'i 
 
 a life of relation, by means of which it is fitted to 
 the uses of individual and social existence. Its 
 powers of locomotion, its active sense's, its faculty 
 of feeling, its wonderful human hand, and its still 
 more wonderful human brain, all belong to this 
 other use of the body as an instrument lor the 
 expression of intelligence and emotion. 
 
 Equally remarkable is the system of general un- 
 varying laws by which this living structure is 
 governed. The first law we notice in human 
 growth is the precedence of physical over mental 
 growth. We observe that physical development, 
 though never separate from mental development, is 
 always in advan '^^ it. This is shown by the 
 wonder and deii^ which the parent receives 
 
 the first sign of awa. intelligence in the young 
 
 infant, the first smile, the first indication of obser- 
 vation. It is the awakening mind. But every 
 physical function essential to life has been perfectly 
 performed from the first moment of birth as per- 
 fectly, according to its wants, as it will ever be 
 performed throughout life. This precedence of 
 physical life continues throughout the whole period 
 of growth, though it strikes us less as the years roll 
 on, and the mind gradually assumes that mastery 
 over the body which should be the condition of 
 adult life. The brain is the last part of the body to 
 cease growth. Every other organ is perfectly 
 formed, every bone consolidated, the physical 
 organization complete, while the mind, with its 
 necessary organ of expression, is still growing. I 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 217 
 
 place this important fact first amongst the rules 
 which govern the human economy because it 
 strikes the key-note of education ; and it is only 
 through a thorough appreciation of this principle 
 that we shall beneficially change our present systems 
 of education. 
 
 Each age has its own special method of existence; 
 thus there are laws for growth, for maturity, for 
 decay. There are the great facts of growth by 
 exercise or use; the necessity of nunntaining a just 
 distribution of force amongst the various parts, lest 
 one grow at the expense of another; the alternations 
 of action and rest required in every part of the 
 economy ; the varied life of different iunctions 
 which give to each its individuality and special 
 rule ; the varieties of race, of temperament, of indi- 
 vidual peculiarities — these will slightly indicate the 
 extent and variety of these unchanging laws by 
 which our human nature is moulded. Their im- 
 portance may be realized more fully by dwelling for 
 a moment on one or two of them. 
 
 What may be termed the balance of power or 
 just distribution of force in the various parts of our 
 physical and mental nature — according to each 
 individual type — is essential to the perfection of 
 the organization — it is, indeed, the measure of 
 health. It is attained anJ preserved by the due 
 exercise of all the functions of our nature. In 
 ascertaining what is this due exercise, we observe 
 that the different functions of the human being are 
 subject to varying laws of constant or occasional 
 
 i 
 
2l8 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 !♦* 
 
 \l 
 
 action. The higher the object of a function, the 
 wider is its scope, the longer are the intervals of rest 
 required, and the more direct is its subjection to 
 reason ; it is taken from under the control of the 
 automatic vegetative life of the body and placed 
 under the direction of the central authority — Reason 
 — Conscience. Thus, we see the lungs, whose sole 
 object is the physical life of the individual, breathing 
 day and night unceasingly, with alternate rest and 
 action every moment. The digestive apparatus, 
 with longer intervals of rest and a wider range of 
 objects, connected with the preparation and enjoy- 
 ment of food. The senses, with their great use 
 both to the individual and to society, locked in 
 slumber every night. Thus, step by step, the plan 
 rises to the highest functions of human nature — 
 those which concern the race — which, above all 
 others, are under the dominion of reason, and not 
 subject to that law of constant action which controls 
 the lower functions. 
 
 Equally interesting is that law of our nature 
 which determines growth by exercise. It is a fact 
 clearly demonstrated by modern science that the 
 governing organ of the human body, the brain, 
 has distinct portions of its structure devoted to the 
 service of distinct faculties of the mind. Thus the 
 intellectual, the emotional, and the locomotive 
 powers work through corresponding portions of the 
 highly organized brain. Each faculty grows by 
 exercise. Not only does the mental faculty become 
 stronger by use, but its physical organ of expression 
 
THE RELIGION 
 
 XLTH 
 
 219 
 
 in the brain, with its dependencies in the rest of the 
 body, become larger and stronger with a richer 
 supply of blood and greater aptitude for instan- 
 taneous action. This condition of the physical 
 organ reacts upon the mind, which takes greater 
 pleasure in acting in a certain direction when it 
 finds the brain so keenly responsive to its impulses. 
 If the proper distribution of force is disturbed in 
 any individual by the neglect to exercise important 
 portions of our nature, an antagonism of faculties 
 springs up, one part growing at the expense of 
 another part. Thus the emotional may destroy the 
 intellectual life in an individual who is subjected 
 to undue excitement of the passions, particularly 
 if the type of the nature is not largely emotional. 
 The other faculties will rapidly lose their power. 
 The intellect suffers, judgment is lost, and mental 
 confusion produced, which is really a species of 
 insanity. Those organs of the body, also, which 
 are most intimately connected with the excited 
 portion of the brain become involved, and th^ir 
 functions may be entirely deranged. The automatic 
 power of the human body may also assume undue 
 control in those who yield to fancies and caprice, 
 and lead an unnatural and sedentary life. There 
 is an antagonism between this automatic force and 
 the life of relation or brain-life of the individual. 
 The more the balance of powers is lost in the human 
 brain— reason being no longer the controlling force 
 
 the greater becomes the power of this instinctive 
 
 life of the body, the greater its capability of answer- 
 
 M 
 
220 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 ing every fanciful suggestion, and even of exciting 
 those suggestions. The individual may thus become 
 the sport of his own unbalanced faculties, and a 
 prey to every species of morbid hallucination. 
 
 An organization so complicated (as this human 
 body), designed for such manifold uses, and at the 
 same time drawing the elements of its existence from 
 the external world, must 1-' powerfully influenced 
 by all the circumstances whcl surround it. Certain 
 physical and mental conu.. ons are essential to 
 human growth, to health. Hence the question of 
 food and clothing, of drainage and ventilation, of 
 human habitations, of exercise and occupations, 
 attain equal importance and dignity, as essential to 
 the fulfilment of the great changeless plan of life. 
 
 Thus we are brought face to face with a great 
 fixed fact, a fact which concerns every human being 
 during every moment of life — viz., God's unchang- 
 ing law of human growth. This law we are called 
 on to study, to obey, and obedience to it is placed 
 first in the order of human duties. Obedience 
 can only be rendered by study of the objects of 
 physical life, of its structure, its conditions, its 
 rules. Its learning, thus regarded, becomes sacred 
 learning, and ignorance is criminal. 
 
 The folly and wickedness of our practical con- 
 tempt for the great laws of human growth may 
 be measured by the penalties of suffering, illness, 
 and premature death attached to this neglect. This 
 is rendered more striking by observing, first of 
 all, the great force of the principle of vitality, 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 221 
 
 the Strong tendency to live and resist injurious 
 influences, which we all possess. Nothing is more 
 remarkable in the history of the human race than 
 its great power of adaptability. Scattered all over 
 the surface of the globe, under the most varying 
 conditions, men still live and thrive. The cities 
 of Cuenga and Quito, at a height of 9,600 feet 
 above the level of the sea, possess large and flourish- 
 ing populations; so also do the cities of Holland 
 and New Orleans, which He below its level. Multi- 
 tudes of workmen live ir galleries of the deepest 
 mines, many hundred fee .ow the surface of the 
 earth, deprived of light, breathing air much more 
 condensed, living under a much stronger pressure 
 than that of the ordinary atmosphere. And, on the 
 other hand, scientific observers have taken up their 
 residence for a long period on the crest of Pichincha, 
 at an elevation of 14,826 feet. Agassiz spent some 
 weeks in investigations on the Jung-Frau. Gay 
 Lussac attained the highest elevation ever reached 
 by man in his balloon, 28,000 feet. All can recall 
 the thrilling narratives of Arctic voyagers, where the 
 thermometer has been known to measure 91° below 
 zero. Contrast this with the burning sun of India, 
 where 120° Fahrenheit is observed; where glass 
 is cracked by the heat. A vMe range of more than 
 200° of temperature, and yet the heat of the human 
 body maintains its steady and necessary amount, 
 never materially varying under the two extremes. 
 Similiar illustrations of the power of human nature 
 to adapt itself to unnatural conditions might be 
 
 [ 
 
I 
 
 222 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 drawn from ail the other elements necessary to 
 
 life. 
 
 Notwithstanding this remarkable power of vitality, 
 which can brave such extreme variations in physical 
 conditions and endure enormous privations, care- 
 ful observation J.' over our country presents a fearful 
 lecord of death, sickness, and physical degeneration 
 produced by our own social arrangements— arrange- 
 ments and habits so destructive to the human 
 organization that they overpower even this great 
 capability of adaptation. 
 
 This is seen in the statistics of our towns, in the 
 condition of our peasant population, in our social 
 and domestic experience. 
 
 The statistics of all our large towns demonstrate 
 the great and unnatural destruction of life that 
 takes place in these centres of civilization, where 
 the highest medical skill is found, and placed 
 freely at the call of poor as veil as rich. The 
 natural death-rate at present is 17 per thou- 
 sand— z.c, that under the most favourable condi- 
 tions as amongst the upper classes in our healthiest 
 cities, in the healthiest country districts, 17 out 
 of every thousand persons die each year all the 
 world over, a lower mortality being exceptional; 
 but the following was the death-rate of our chief 
 cities (1868) instead of the natural rate of 17 per 
 thousand : Bristol, 23 ; London and Birmingham, 
 24; Dublin, 25; Edinburgh, 27; Liverpool, 29; 
 Glasgow, 30; Manchester, 32. That means that 
 in London alone, in a year of no special sickness, 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 223 
 
 more than 21,000 were killed who ought to have 
 lived. In the British Islands an army of over 
 176,516 lives were swept off unnecessarily. This 
 is not all : a much larger proportion of the population 
 is always ill at one time; about 78,000 in London 
 is reckoned, of whom one-third are suffering f- im 
 preventable diseases. This calculation does not take 
 into account those feeble, ailing persons who are 
 never more than half well, who lack strength and 
 energy for the daily fulfilment of duty. It is shown 
 that in the whole of England the peopl ^ have only 
 a mean life-time of forty-one years — not half the 
 term of life that seems to belong naturally to our 
 race. Of those who died within the year, over 
 134,000 were in ripe manhood ; but yet more note- 
 worthy are the deaths under the age of twenty-five : 
 over 242,000 perished in childhood and youth. The 
 wholesale slaughter of children in our civilized 
 country is truly appalling. Out of 233,515 deaths 
 at all ages, 94,804, or 40*60 per cent., vvere those 
 of children under five years of age. 
 
 To understand fully the grave import of these 
 records three facts must be noted : first, that the 
 death-rate of a country is always under-stated ; 
 second, that town populations increase at a much 
 more rapid ratio than country populations ; third, 
 that the death-rate increases in direct proportion to 
 the density of the population. 
 
 In proof of these three propositions let me quote 
 from recent testimony of our most eminent statis- 
 ticians : 
 
224 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 h I 
 
 ! 
 
 ' Wherever the population is increasing the amount 
 of mortality is under-rated in consequence of there 
 being an excess of young people in those numbers, 
 which make the mortality appear lower than it 
 really is. The mortality of London appears much 
 less by statistics than it actually is ; it is reduced 
 in two ways by having a large influx of persons at 
 the period of age when mortality is low, and by the 
 departure and return of patients to the country to 
 die, as consumptives for instance. The causes of 
 disease in London are excessively active, as is seen, 
 for instance, in the mortality of male children under 
 five years of age, which is about 8 per cent, {i.e., 
 80 per 1,000), while in some of the more healthy 
 districts it is not more than 4 per cent.' Again : 
 ' Of the 20,066,224 persons enumerated in England 
 in 1861, nearly ii,ooo,ooc were in the towns and 
 9,000,000 in villages and country around the towns. 
 The total population in London and 71 of the 
 largest towns in England was over 7,667,622, and 
 the population in the country and in smaller towns 
 was over 12,398,602, so that there are nearly eight- 
 twentieths of the population in those 72 towns. 
 The total increase from 180 1 to 1861 in the popula- 
 tion of England was over 11,173,688, and one- 
 half of that increase was in those 72 towns. It 
 will thus be apparent that the town population is 
 increasing at a much more rapid rate than the 
 country population.' ' The country population now 
 is very nearly the same as it was in 1801. By a 
 law, which at present is quite constant, the moitality 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 225 
 
 increases rapidly with the density of the population. 
 In our thinnest districts the mortality is about 
 15 per 1,000; in our densest districts it ranf:^es from 
 28 to 33. This relation is a constant law : where 
 there are 179 persons to a square mile, there the 
 mortality is from 17 to ig ; where the density of 
 population varies from 3,000 upwards, the mortality 
 ranges from 26 to 33 ; so that under our present 
 arrangements there is a constant connection between 
 the density of population and its mortality. That 
 connection is not necessary; our towns might be 
 made nearly as healthy as these country districts, 
 having a mortality of 17 to 20.' Of the circum- 
 stances under which large masses of our population 
 grow up, another distinguished physician writes : 
 ' They create special diseases, demoralize the popula- 
 tion, and in course of generations completely over- 
 throw the physique of the people. It is impossible 
 to walk through the central streets (of this large 
 town) without observing that you are in contact 
 with a population awfully degraded, both in its 
 physical and moral attributes ; a population whose 
 mere external characteristics impress you at once 
 with the idea of a depth of degradation of bad 
 habits growing for generations, in consequence of 
 these arrangements.' ' Thousands and hundreds of 
 thousands are thus brought up.' 
 
 Turning from the towns to the agricultural popu- 
 lation, where we have the right to expect the fullest 
 measure of health, we find a condition of things 
 which strikes an observer with dismay. The culti- 
 VOL. II. ^5 
 
i 
 
 a 
 
 226 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 vators of the soil constitute the backbone of a 
 nation. I have carefully observed them in America, 
 and have learned to consider them the ruling force 
 of the nation ; independent, thouj^htful, exercising 
 judgment and common-sense. Again and again I 
 have seen the corrupt or mischievous vote of the 
 large towns reversed or overwhelmed by the country 
 majorities. The condition of the peasants who 
 cultivate the soil all over our country presents a 
 terrible contrast to this picture. Fever, produced 
 by extreme misery, seems to be endemic amongst 
 them, sapping their strength and stupefying their 
 minds, when it does not kill ; they are crippled by 
 rheumatism and destroyed by scrofula ; their miser- 
 able cottages are damp, dark, close, and over- 
 crowded ; their pitiful wages will not supply them 
 with decent dwelling, sustaining food, and other 
 necessaries of life. 
 
 Let me quote testimon}' from high authority 
 given within the year : ' As many as ten persons 
 are often crowded into a sleeping-room not 12 feet 
 square ;' ' the external walls are too thin, the rooms 
 too small, no ventilation, brick or tile floors ;' 
 * cottages are frequently built in marshy situations, 
 and by stagnant water, or at the foot of hills where 
 there is no free circulation of nir ; the spot is chosen 
 on account of the small vuiue of the land and its 
 uselessness for agricultural purposes ;' ' they are not 
 able to pay what would be a fair interest on a 
 decent cottage.' ' If a new colliery is opened in an 
 upland valley, 200, 300, or 400 cottages are built 
 
THK KELIGiON Oi- HHALTH 
 
 227 
 
 very rapidly, and they are inhabited long before 
 they are dry. The foundations as a rule are simply 
 upon the sod, which is merely turned over, and a 
 ^ag is put on that sod. There is no drainage of 
 any kind ; 40,000 to 50,000 persons will live in 
 houses of this kind, in one valley.' ' There are 
 numbers of villajjes throughout I%nf:;land where the 
 people are drinking polluted water.' ' I have seen 
 no place in England in a worse condition than this 
 village. I have seen many native villages in South 
 Africa, but none so bad as this !' Volumes might 
 be tilled with similar testimony as to the physical 
 state of our country popul tion — a population whose 
 condition is the truest measure of a nation's sub- 
 stantial strength. 
 
 There is no error so dangerous in national life as 
 the discouragement of honest labour. If the con- 
 ditions of labour are injurious and repulsive, whether 
 from exhausting hours of toil, unhealthy work- 
 places, squalid hemes, or dreary monotony of toil, 
 the workers of either sex will inevitably seek relief 
 from hopeless drudgery in the excitement of vicious 
 indulgences. 
 
 Our social experience joins its testimony with 
 these statistics of town and country, to show how 
 widespread is this destruction of health. Every 
 housekeeper knows the extreme difficulty of obtain- 
 ing a healthy servant ; nine-tenths of those who 
 apply for a situation are suffering from some chronic 
 form of disease, which, if they belonged to a different 
 class of society, would place them in the list of 
 
 In— 2 
 
 L 
 

 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 permanent invalids. There is no more frequent 
 cause of the ill-health of domestic servants than the 
 damp and sunless rooms in which they pass so 
 much of their time, owing to the injurious practice 
 of building dwelling-houses, both in town and 
 country, without a cellar under the whole house, 
 drained, and vent'lated frr side to side. No room 
 is fit for human habitation which has not a six-foot 
 cellar, dry, with ample through ventilation under- 
 neath it. It seems surprising that, in a damp 
 climate like ours, with rheumatism and scrofula 
 prevailing everywhere, this necessity has not been 
 perceived. 
 
 It is often thought that sanitary knowledge means 
 chiefly ventilation, food, and drainage ; that it 
 applies only to the lower classes, and that we must 
 await the action of Government to build better 
 houses and otherwise deal with the gigantic 
 question of pauperism. This is a profound mistake. 
 Health depends upon the observance of all the laws 
 of our complex nature ; it applies to the mind as 
 well as the body. A deteriorating influence which 
 proceeds from within is more to be dreaded than 
 one that comes from without. The nervous system 
 (from mental or physical causes) may be completely 
 shattered, leaving the individual a vvreck. The 
 senses (from mental or physical causes) may be 
 rendered so craving and irritable that the noble 
 proportion of the nature is lost. An hysterical, 
 feeble person is an unhealthy one ; equally unhealthy 
 is a coarse, brutal one. In either case, health, in 
 
THK RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 22(J 
 
 the true meaning of the word, is thoroughly im- 
 paired. Those classes of society wh' arc able to 
 command every physical appliance that wealth will 
 purchase are often, from their kind of suffering, 
 more dangerously diseased than the labouring 
 classes. I need only mention the spread of luxury, 
 the delay of marriage, the frail progeny of unsuit- 
 able unions, to show how inextricably the mind and 
 body are blended in all that concerns health. 
 
 The highest authority on this subject thus con- 
 denses the lessons of his great work on health : 
 ' Hygiene is based upon the physical and moral 
 perfectibility of man, of which it furnishes the 
 proof ' Health may be described in two words- 
 morality, competence.' 
 
 The general deterioration of health prevailing in 
 all classes and both sexes is most strikingly seen 
 amongst women. It is proved by the increase of 
 nervous and special di: ses, the prevalence of 
 scrofula by general fragility of constitution, and 
 inability to bear the unavoidable burdens of life. 
 
 The health of the mass of educated women is a 
 matter of serious national concern. These women 
 form the heart of the nation, they mould its family 
 life, they create society, they exercise an unbounded 
 influence on the lower classes. If the health of the 
 mother breaks down family happiness is destroyed ; 
 so if the health of this class of a people is deterio- 
 rated the welfare of the nation is imperilled both in 
 the present and the future. 
 
 Young parents enter upon the heavy responsibili- 
 
230 
 
 THE KKLIGION Ol HMAI.TH 
 
 I 
 
 n 
 
 ties of family life in deplorable ignorance of their 
 duties to one another and to their children. As 
 parents, it is their first duty to secure right con- 
 ditions of health for the infant, for the child, and 
 for youth, until they leave the parental roof Each 
 age demands a varying set of conditions, which 
 become continually more complicated as the neces- 
 sities of the mind increase in proportion to the 
 physical wants. The conditions that will keep an 
 infant in perfect health will not suffice to secure the 
 health of the boy or girl of fifteen. As a weak 
 stomach will impair the temper, so a vacant or 
 corrupt mind will injure the body. Comprehensive 
 knowledge is needed to embrace the wants of 
 every age, and such knowledge all parents should 
 possess. 
 
 In seeking the cause of this destruction and dete- 
 rioration of life, thus briefly stated, we find it in the 
 universal ignorance or neglect of the Divine laws of 
 human growth. We find this neglect and disobedience 
 equally among rich and poor, learned and unlearned, 
 religious and worldly, in individual life, in business 
 enterprise. The fevers of the poor, the hysteria of 
 the luxurious, the indigestion of the learned, the 
 devastation of our mining districts, equally show 
 contempt for the wonderful organization which God 
 has made — indifference to the conditions which He 
 has clearly laid down as essential to its welfare. 
 
 One of the most important problems of the present 
 time is liow to embody the sanitary knowledge 
 which we possess in the life of the nation so that 
 
THi: RELIC. ION OF IIKALTH 
 
 2 SI 
 
 a higher standard of health may be i^'ained by the 
 present and succeedinj^ Rcn'trn' 
 
 The solution of this i^re; oblcin must be 
 
 attempted in many dir. ons. It must be souj^'ht 
 in the power of lefjishitive action, in the wide- 
 spreading influence of education, and in the stren^'lii 
 of social combination. 
 
 The part which legislation should take in pro- 
 moting national health deniands serious considera- 
 tion. Legislation is the human imitation, or visible 
 representation, of the greate-t facts in the universe 
 — law, and it derives from this representative 
 character its immense power in mouKling the mind 
 and habits of a people; for, as the Divine laws of 
 the human organization limit its powers and direct 
 its modes of action, so the human laws which rule 
 a people determine their modes of thoui,dU and 
 their relations to one another. Legislation, there- 
 fore, not only represents the life of the present 
 generation, but is the most powerful educator of the 
 rising generation. Every law contains this latent 
 power hidden within it, and so often overlooked. 
 In every subject of legislation, whether it be the 
 most trifling village regulation or the gravest inter- 
 national question, there are principles hidden behind 
 the facts which induced legislation, and it is the 
 attitude that legislation assumes towards those 
 hidden principles, which stamps its character as 
 good or evil, which makes the human law obedient 
 or disobedient to Divine law. 
 
 The health of a nation is a most important 
 
 . 
 
232 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 concern of a wise government. No other agency 
 can act with such extensive and combined power. 
 But much wise caution is needed in dealing with 
 such a subject as national health. Human agencies 
 are very imperfect, and much has to be learned 
 as to the right way of dealing with most important 
 subjects of health legislation. If the authorities 
 introduce a supply of pure water into a village 
 suffering from typhoid fever they do a righteous 
 thing. They deal with causes. By careful investi- 
 gation they have collected a body of facts which 
 prove that impure water will produce typhoid fever. 
 In this act of introducing a supply of good water 
 there are many principles enfolded. Thus they 
 destroy the cause of a great evil ; they express 
 approbation of that good thing — pure water; they 
 educate the people into liking it ; they show them, 
 through experience, the blessings that flow from 
 it. They thus render obedience to Divine law by 
 their legislation. But it is very different if they 
 attempt to regulate a village gin-shop. Gin, as a 
 drink, is always bad, whether adulterated or not, 
 and, in dealing with the greatest evil that afflicts 
 our country — the curse of drink — legislation must 
 adopt the same course that it did for typhoid fever: 
 it must patiently and persistently accumulate the 
 facts which will show what produces this dangerous 
 disease of drinking. 
 
 Divine law rewards the good (i.e., the obedient), 
 punishes the bad (i.e., the disobedient), swiftly, 
 surely, inexorably, no matter at what cost or pain ; 
 
 L 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 233 
 
 and human law must never temporize with evil, 
 neither directly nor indirectly sanction it, or it loses 
 its character of law and becomes simply blind or 
 blundering expediency. In dealing with evils legis- 
 lation is bound to investigate the causes of evil and 
 attack them. Herein lies the superiority of legis- 
 lative over individual effort — that it is able to 
 accumulate that body of varied facts through which 
 causes can be clearly ascertained and the attention 
 of the community directed to them. It is only 
 on this sound basis that wise legislative measures 
 can be framed ; only in this way that great questions 
 of national health can be judiciously dealt with. 
 
 Our English Government — in advance of every 
 other nation — is learning to recognise this great 
 function of legislation, and is gradually accumu- 
 lating such a storehouse of facts as will render 
 comprehensible measures of wise statesmanship 
 possible. The mass of the people, however, must 
 become sufficiently intelligent to support such 
 measures. The difficulties which now stand in the 
 way of health improvements from want of this 
 intelligence, are inconceivable to those who have 
 not considered the subject. No matter whether the 
 health improvement suggested be great or small — 
 whether it be the redemption of a lovely mountain 
 river, whose sparkling waters have been turned into 
 a black source of pollution, or a swamp that ought 
 to be drained, or a poor cottage that needs the 
 introduction of fresh air — there is always the same 
 opposition and misconception. Thus a short-sighted 
 
234 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 i i 
 
 view of expense will excite furious opposition from 
 small ratepayers and ignorant farmers, even to the 
 most necessary measures — measures which would 
 rapidly diminish the poor-rates and increase the 
 prosperity of a place. Incompetent men or poorly 
 paid men are appointed to carry out Health Acts, 
 or timid men, afraid to excite ill-will in the neigh- 
 bourhood. The Acts thus becoaie a dead-letter, 
 or lawsuits are instituted against improvements, 
 harassing and even destroying local health boards. 
 Large proprietors enclose the commons, farm out 
 their estates to agents, and thus neglect the duties 
 which are inseparable from rights. The same 
 ignorance which opposes such endless obstacles to 
 the establishment of sanitary improvements often 
 defeats the best laid plans when they are carried 
 out, and proves, if proof were necessary, that a 
 people must be educated to appreciate laws before 
 the objects which those laws were intended to effect 
 can be accomplished. 
 
 Much confusion also at present arises from patch- 
 work legislation that has not been based on sound 
 principles. This is shown by the present Acts 
 regulating towns : ' A recent edition of the laws 
 affecting health and sanitary affairs gives the text of 
 fifteen Acts relating to health, diseases prevention, 
 nuisances, local government, sewage, and kindred 
 subjects ; twelve Acts consolidating provisions as 
 to towns, lands, markets, police, loans, bakehouses, 
 etc. The public health and local government supple- 
 mental Acts are twenty-nine in number, while the 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 ^35 
 
 liws treated by the work are affected by not less 
 than 296 public general statutes, which the author 
 tabulates in the index as being referred to i;" the 
 text. No lawyer can grasp these enactments save 
 by great research, much less can a man who has his 
 own business affairs to look after.' 
 
 The sanitary investigations carried on by the 
 Privy Council and other government bodies, the 
 labours of the Royal Commission appointed to 
 inquire into the condition of the poor, etc., cannot 
 be overestimated ; but none feel more strongly than 
 the very men w'ho are carrying on these measures 
 the necessity of effort in other directions — directions 
 where the co-operation of every member of society 
 is neede 1 — viz., in education and in domestic and 
 socia' '■ L. 
 
 Wi 1" possess enough sanitary knowledge to 
 reforn. me physical and moral condition of the 
 human race if it were generally diffused and its 
 rules systematically applied. Scientific investiga- 
 tions and the knowledge of hygienic laws are far in 
 advance of the practices of daily life. The knowledge 
 is within our reach, which, if employed, would save 
 the lives of tens of thousands of human beings around 
 us, keep this army of sick in vigorous health, and 
 make our homes the precious centres of ennobling 
 influence that they are intended to be. We fail, 
 however, in the means of diffusing and putting nto 
 practice the substantial knowledge which scientific 
 observation has laid before us. The first duty, 
 therefore, which rests upon us all is an endeavour to 
 
236 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 M 
 
 5 
 
 secure the universal diffusion of sanitary knowledge. 
 As every human being in the British Isles should 
 know how to read and write, so every human being 
 should be taught that health is a duty, and shown 
 how to secure it. Sanitary teaching (varying, of 
 course, in its style) should be introduced into every 
 school and coUcLje in the kingdom — in the common 
 school, in Oxford and Cambridge equally, into every 
 series of lectures, whether at the Royal Institution 
 or the South Kensington Museum, into every Work- 
 ing Man's Institute, and into every medical and 
 every theological seminary. 
 
 Above all other classes of men, it is certainly im- 
 portant that physicians and medical men generally 
 should be thoroughly educated in sanitary knowledge. 
 The authority which they possess, and their oppor- 
 tunities for instilling this knowledge when families 
 are keenly alive to the dangers of illness, would give 
 them greater success as health missionaries than 
 any other class of society. But medical men are 
 not taught that it is equally their duty to prevent 
 disease as to cure it ; and their attention is not, 
 therefore, sharpened to observe and to deprecate 
 the numerous habits in family life which tend to 
 produce disease. There are but two chairs of 
 hvfriene established in connection with our medical 
 schools, and attendance upon those lectures is not 
 obligatory — i.e., is not essential to the attainment of 
 a degree. Every practical instructor knows that 
 the press of studies is so great that the student 
 always neglects whatever is not absolutely necessary 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 237 
 
 to his success. One of the most beneficial chanf;;cs 
 that could be introduced into medical education 
 would be the establishment of hygiene as a first-class 
 chair, of equal importance with anatomy, a search- 
 ing examination in its teachings being indispensable 
 to the attainment of any degree which gives authority 
 to attend the sick. Almost equally important is the 
 introduction of sanitary instruction into theological 
 seminaries. The clergy generally seem to he sadly 
 ignorant of the laws of health. The powerful and 
 legitimate influence which they exercise would be 
 more valuable if it were not so one-sided. If the 
 clergy all over the land, who command a mighty 
 army of parish visitors, could show those visitors 
 the direct and positive connection between pure 
 blood (made out of food, light, and air) and pure 
 thought, what a revolution would be wrought in 
 every country village! But the clergy themselves 
 must be educated in such knowledge, for it is not 
 simply intellectual assent, but a thorough reali;iation 
 of it that is necessary. The same knowledge is as 
 necessary to our schoolmasters. No one is fit to 
 direct the education of youth who does not perceive 
 the difference between the young and the old, and 
 suit education to the child's nature and not to his 
 own. The kind of studies, their variety, frequent 
 movement, and change, the arrangement of school- 
 rooms, the unlimited supply of fresh air, the play- 
 ground, etc., must all be based upon an acquaintance 
 with sanitary knowledge, which vould be a proper 
 subject for examinations and certificate"^. 
 
238 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 The education of children and youth in Health is 
 a subject in which women are especially concerned. 
 It is a large subject ; it demands not only the intro- 
 duction of sound sanitary instruction suitable for 
 different ages into all our schoolrooms and colleges, 
 but the creation of a love of such knowledge and 
 the habit of its practical application. But this is 
 not all: our great need — education in Health — 
 implies the confirming and improving the health by 
 means of education. It is not sufficient that the 
 course of studies laid down for children and youth 
 should not injure them — it is also necessary that it 
 should do them positive physical good ; they should 
 be stronger, better, and brighter for the hours spent 
 in technical education, or there is something wrong 
 in the plan of education. If lessons produce head- 
 ache, lassitude, inactivity of functions, if they make 
 children pale, quiet, spiritless, then the lessons are 
 bad ; they have done the children an injury, no 
 matter how slight the evil effect appears to be each 
 day ; and the injury cannot be remedied by sending 
 them out to play and repeating the same process 
 day after day. A wrong cannot be made right by 
 constantly committing it and then endeavouring to 
 repair it. It cannot be too strongly urged that, 
 unless the plan of education adopted with children 
 does them a positive physical good in all its details, 
 it docs them a positive physical harm ; it cannot be 
 neutral. This is also true of the youth in college or 
 boarding-school. The same principle is applicable : 
 if the course of study is not positively beneficial to 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 239 
 
 the bodily organization, it is positively injuriot^ 
 The over-taxed brain cannot be righted by boating 
 and cricketing. The rules which apply to the fully- 
 formed adult organization do not apply to the 
 growing youth, and it could be clearly shown how 
 much moral, as well as physical, harm arises from 
 our failure to recognise the radical difference between 
 the youthful and adult natur. 5. 
 
 Education in Health, therefore — not simply theo- 
 retic instruction — is what we need to make our 
 children stronger ; and it requires such a reverence 
 for health on the part of educators that there shall 
 be a constant endeavour to make every part of in- 
 struction strengthen the physical as well as mental 
 nature. 
 
 In seeking the best means of imparting sanitary 
 instruction to youth we find that a certain prepara- 
 tion is necessary before anything like a full and 
 direct hygienic education can be given. This pre- 
 paration must be laid in childhood. A knowledge 
 of the structure and functions of the human body is 
 indispensable ; yet young women generally shrink 
 with repugnance from physiological instruction for 
 which they have not been prepared. All reference 
 to bodily functions is unpleasant to them. They 
 have never learned to respect the laws of their 
 organization, and they turn from the subject of 
 physical structure as very repugnant, or a great 
 bore. The tastes of children, however, are of a 
 very different character ; the intellect, as shown in 
 untiring curiosity and incessant questioning, is pre- 
 
240 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 dominant in childhood, and taste for any study may 
 then be formed. Children will receive the elements 
 of comparative and human anatomy and physiology, 
 learn to handle bones and examine structure, not 
 only without disgust, but with extreme interest; 
 and they may thus be prepared for the fuller in- 
 struction which they should receive as youths. 
 Everything should be done to cultivate the taste 
 for natural history and science that is latent in 
 almost every child. Their fondness for > " .Us 
 indicates this taste, and the care of animals should 
 be encouraged and directed. The manual of phy- 
 siology in every schoolroom should be pleasantly 
 written, well printed, and with abundant illustrations. 
 Bright, well-drawn pictures, clean and fresh speci- 
 mens, shelves and little boxes for collections, should 
 be provided. 
 
 To the intellectual training which results in the 
 formation of tastes the formation of healthy habits 
 of life must be added. These habits should be 
 formed without, in general, giving any reason for 
 them. Children should not be taught to reason 
 on matters of Health. They utterly lack the power 
 of proportion which is essential to reason, and they 
 run the risk of becoming morbidly conscientious 
 or hypochondriacal if compelled to reason on these 
 practical matters. It is very important that they 
 should go to sleep early, eat simple food, live in 
 fresh air, and take a great deal of out-door exercise, 
 but it is not desirable that they should know too 
 early why they do these things. The proper time 
 
THE RELIGIOK OF HEALTH 
 
 241 
 
 for reasoning on these habits has not arrived, but 
 the healthy habits early formed wiP gradually 
 become a part of their nature. Habits of self- 
 control and obedience to rules are also an essential 
 part of the moral hygiene of childhood ; they 
 prepare the nature for the intelligent obedience to 
 law which should come in later years. Children 
 should not be worried with unimportant observances. 
 The precepts which it is necessary to give them 
 will make more impressions if they are not too 
 numerous ; the rules laid down must be wise rules ; 
 children are trustful, and their trust must never 
 be abused. If, as they grow older, they learn to 
 recognise the wisdom of the obedience that has 
 been exacted, they will escape that dangerous scepti- 
 cism which so often comes to youth, who find that 
 their intellectual and moral guides have cheated 
 their youthful trust. Intellectual tastes, healthy 
 habits, and obedience to law being thus formed 
 in childhood, the youth is prepared for that full 
 instruction in health which is adapted to the period 
 where reason is developed. 
 
 For the education of youth in health — i.e., in 
 physical strength — and in sanitary kn.wledge and 
 habits a training college seems to be urf:;ent]y 
 needed. The acquisition of knowledge, enthusiasm 
 for the study, and a practical realization of it must 
 go hand in hand. Modifications may doubtless be 
 gradually introduced into the ordinary plan of family 
 and school instruction. But if, under the present 
 system of schoolroom discipline, we attempt to 
 
 VOL. II. 16 
 
242 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 instruct young ladies in the laws of health, we are 
 called on to contend with insurmountable obstacles, 
 not only with an utter indifference to all subjects 
 of health and repugnance to many topics connected 
 with it, but with enfeebled powers from a neglected 
 or misdirected childhood, and with vitiated tastes 
 from the substitution of artificial excitements for 
 natural healthy enjoyments; it is also impossible 
 to find the necessary number of teachers inspired 
 with that respect for Divine laws which would give 
 them insight into matters of health and the true 
 order of education. This combination of difficulties 
 makes the task of education in health almost a 
 hopeless one, unless the individual be placed in a 
 fresh educational atmosphere where the objects and 
 methods of education are entirely changed. Health 
 education should train the body — of which the brain 
 forms part — into well-balanced strength, giving full 
 command of the various f ulties and power to 
 meet the demands of future life. To accomplish 
 this work the hearty co-operation of the individual 
 IS essential ; such education cannot be forced from 
 without: it must be accepted by the will. All the 
 mixed motives which act upon human nature are 
 needed to vanquish indifference and excite enthu- 
 siasm : large and beautiful arrangements in build- 
 ing and grounds ; the sympathy of numbers ; the 
 stimulus of honours and rewards ; the increased 
 prospect of establishment in life. All the motives 
 which act upon young men, stimulating their zeal in 
 college life, are also nejded by young women. The 
 
THE RKLir.loN OF HEALTH 
 
 24.) 
 
 ! 
 
 natures, if not identical, are strictly parallel. The 
 broad rules applicable in one case are applicable 
 in the other, and success in education can only be 
 attained when it is adapted to the one common 
 human nature. 
 
 Education in health would be best attained by 
 giving prominence to the following subjects : First, 
 the practical study of natural science, including 
 sketching from nature. Second, the practical study 
 of hygiene, which would include the structure and 
 management of houses and households. Third, 
 the direct training of the bodily powers in precision, 
 agility, and strength. 
 
 I. The importance of the practical study of 
 natural science in the education of youth can 
 hardly be too strongly urged. The love of nature 
 when strengthened by a knowledge of nature gives 
 occupation, amusement, mental and physical develop- 
 ment of the best kind ; it is an antidote to the 
 morbid influences of fashion and dissipation ; it 
 hinders the premature development of function ; 
 it furnishes a basis of intellectual companionship 
 between the sexes, and would prove invaluable to 
 a mother in the education of her children. The 
 power of habits formed in children by their parents 
 are second only to the original type of constitution, 
 and often overpower even the original tendencies; 
 these habits are nevertheless formed by the silent 
 working of influences, hour by hour and day by day. 
 that are invisible and cannot be measured, that 
 seem valueless, taking item by item in the long 
 
 1 0—2 
 
244 
 
 THK RELIGION OP Ui \1/! 
 
 account, and yet in the a;^'^ rt};iitc they mould 
 body and soul. A mother may inst i ihe love of 
 reading or the love of dress, she may fuim the habit 
 of outdoor exercise or the habit of gossip, not by 
 set precept or even formal rc;,'ulations, but by her 
 own tastes unavoidably moulding the tastes of her 
 children, and flowing out naturally into those 
 external arrangements that reflect the ruling spirit 
 or affections of the individual. Did the mother 
 possess a hearty interest in the wonders of field and 
 forest, of sea and sky, what a treasury of delightful 
 intercourse might be found in every country ramble ! 
 A mother's love, joined to broad t?stes and know- 
 ledge, would never weary of the ceaseless question- 
 ing of childhood ; the older the child, the closer 
 and more influential would be the companionship. 
 The holiday by the sea-side or amongst the 
 mountains, so often wasted in idleness or frivolity, 
 might be a rich harvest-time of delightful know- 
 ledge drawn from the treasures of iand and water. 
 
 It is the outdoor study of science and art that 
 must be insisted on with the young — the cultivati' n 
 of the powers of observation rather than memory — 
 which powers compel the exen ; of the muscles 
 and senses. The guiding principle of health educa- 
 tion is to follow the order of nature, and place the 
 strengthening of the physical powers not indepen- 
 dently of, but in advance of, the mental powers. If 
 the order is reversed, and the immature mind be 
 allowed to tyrannize over the immature body, and 
 disturb the proportion of Nature's work by with- 
 
THE KELIC.IDX Ol IIIALTU 
 
 •^15 
 
 drawing too much creative force to the exi lusive 
 stimulus of the mind, the true r iatioi: of mind and 
 body can never h< restored, t: < ad will lever 
 receive that ready and capable survicc hat tl body 
 should render to rhe mijd. In thus ur},Mi : the 
 paramount importance of some branches of tudv, 
 particnlariv in a ^ii 's education, it is not intended 
 to exclude all others. Many accomplishments, as 
 well as various branches of knowledge, may be 
 taught in such a way as to conduce to physical 
 and mental health, and ail stu lies may )e so 
 arranged and suboriimatui as lo be innocuoi -. 
 
 he principle here insisted m is ti at those studii 
 must predominate and lea- in t\.: education <» 
 yoiith which most fully require ihe exerci e of ' 
 physical as well as mental nature in their pu sui 
 
 J. The direct study of hyi,'»ene involve^ <^o 1 ge 
 a ran^ of profound! intei^sting subjects t t is 
 
 dilficult to display it.N full importance in onu used 
 sketch. The creatiun of a healthy tiaj'py Mti-me 
 (which all will allow is the legitimat work of a 
 woman) requir' s C( mprehensive knowli Igt '^V'e 
 structure and a ..Ilgement^ of a house o 
 
 the climate, so 1, and want of a famil\ ling 
 
 drainage, ventilaioi, warnim:, economy u i.i >ur : 
 rhe management of a household in uiation to ndi- 
 \idual wants and to society, including the subjects 
 of food and waste, domestic service, petty trading, 
 the cari of the ick md preventio ' ^ disease, 
 occupations and am: ements — these and mpny 
 other topics belong di ectly to the formation of a 
 
246 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 
 noble Christian home. These are subjects that men 
 and women have a direct personal interest in. They 
 may be taught in graduation with abundant illus- 
 tration. The examination of economic museums, 
 exercise in the inspection of houses and neighbour- 
 hoods, etc., should be added for advanced students. 
 Every method should be used to impress facts on 
 the memory and excite personal interest. To this 
 end a system of rewards would be useful, whether 
 of prizes or honours. There seems to be no reason 
 why honorary degrees, scholarships, and fellow- 
 ships should not be bestowed for proficiency in 
 knowledge that relates to the health of mankind, 
 as well as for distinction in classical and mathe- 
 matical study. 
 
 3. The third subject of education in Health is 
 the direct cultivation of the various bodily powers 
 in strength, agility, and grace. This culture pre- 
 supposes close attention to the weak points in the 
 health of each individual student — those tendencies 
 to disease which exist at present in every person. 
 All will have remarked that the same morbid cause, 
 applied to half a dozen people, will produce varying 
 effects, according to individual peculiarities ; thus, a 
 current of cold air applied when the body is over- 
 heated may cause either catarrh, bronchitis, neu- 
 ralgia, rheumatism, intestinal derangement, according 
 to the individual susceptibility. Youthful vitality 
 masks, but does not cure, weak tendencies, unless 
 those tendencies are known, and the exuberant 
 vitality be especially directed to their cure. This 
 
 J 
 
THE RELIGION OF HKALTH 
 
 247 
 
 season of life is, however, particularly favc able to 
 such cure. Nature will never again present so 
 valuable an opportunity of remodelling the constitu- 
 tion. A doctor of health or preventive medicine, 
 who shall become acquainted with the constitution 
 of each student and determine how far exercise 
 must be modified to meet individual peculiarities, 
 is an indispensable member of the faculty of any 
 college that undertakes to educate in Health. With 
 this observation and caution modern gymnastics 
 and exercise in various forms will become an in- 
 valuable part of education. The muscles of the 
 body are capable of the same careful training as the 
 senses. As the eye and hand in painting, or the 
 ear and hand in music, require long and careful 
 practice to acquire skill, so the great variety of 
 delicate or powerful muscles in the human body 
 require careful exercise to draw forth the varied 
 powers that belong to them. The ordinary move- 
 ments of life do not call forth half these powers. 
 As the large majority of people go through life with 
 only an imperfect use of their lungs, from the con- 
 straint of clothing and sedentary habits, which 
 weaken the thoracic muscles, so it is with other 
 organs, and imperfect muscular action and weakened 
 health is the result. 
 
 The principles of education which are thus laid 
 down are the following, viz. : a constant observance 
 of the order of human growth, the selection of 
 studies that will carry out this order, habits and 
 arrangements of college life that will enforce it, 
 
248 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 direct instruction in the necessary conditions of 
 health, and careful training of the body. It is 
 giving to education the grandest of all objects — use, 
 which, if properly understood, includes the highest 
 and most permanent culture of which the individual 
 is capable. Were our beautiful sea-coasts studded 
 with such colleges, with their wonderful playgrounds 
 washed twice a day by the Atlantic waves, furnishing 
 endless treasures for the eager gatherers, enthusiasm 
 for health-giving studies wculd grow up in the youth- 
 ful mind, and a stronger generation mould a nobler 
 society. 
 
 The establishment of sanitary improvements by 
 Government, and the remodelling of education, are 
 not the only means by which we must seek to obey 
 those Divine laws which are implanted in our nature. 
 Every class of society, every institution — in short, 
 our whole social life — needs to be re-born into the 
 idea of health. The customs to which we all con- 
 form, whether rich or poor, the standards by which 
 we measure success in life, and the means by which 
 we seek to reach it, are all opposed to the idea of 
 health. The hours we keep, our dress, our food, 
 the excitements and strain of life, are injurious 
 alike to mind and body. The deeper we look into 
 the structure and state of societ\, the more serious 
 are the effects of the general neglect of the laws of 
 human growth. Practical life now is a cruel foe to 
 pure enthusiastic youth ; purity and enthusiasm are 
 alike destroyed by the corrupt and faithless society 
 into which they enter. We preach one standard of 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 249 
 
 right ; we practise another. We exact a super- 
 human effort from our children when, surrounded 
 by temptations, we tell them not to fall into evil 
 habits ; we require an impossible thing when we 
 expect them, as social beings, to do what is right 
 when society does what is wrong. The diffusion, 
 therefore, of sanitary knowledge through all classes 
 of adult society is as necessary as the remodelling 
 of education. It is through the gradual diffusion of 
 this knowledge that combinations of individuals 
 may be formed who will be strong enough to put 
 down some of the senseless and injurious customs 
 that now pervade society. 
 
 This principle of combination may wield a great 
 and increasing power for good. Departure from 
 any established custom by a single individual is an 
 eccentricity, but the union of iifty for the same 
 purpose will exercise a decided influence, and a 
 hundred resolute men and women form a social 
 power in the State. It is encouraging to recognise 
 the power that might be exerted by such a band 
 resolved to carry out the * Laws of Health " in their 
 daily lives ! 
 
 There is only one form of combination, however, 
 that I shall venture to suggest, and whose utility I 
 think will be at once apparent. 
 
 I refer to the formation of a National Health 
 Society.^ Such a society seems to be much needed 
 
 1 The same year ( 187 1) at a drawing-mom meeting hcltl in 
 Dr. IJlackwell's bouse the Xationa! Healtii Society was formed, 
 which has its offices at 53, Berners Street, London, W.— Editor, 
 
250 
 
 THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 —needed to give combination, direction, and impulse 
 to the efforts of individuals ; to form a storehouse of 
 information to which all could apply; to assist health 
 legislation by looking at this great subject from a 
 family point of view, and educating the community 
 into an intelligent appreciation of wise legislative 
 measures ; to attack such a great and growing evil 
 as that of unconsumed smoke; to suggest improve- 
 ments in education, and draw every charitable 
 institution into health missionary work. Every 
 other subject of human interest is represented by 
 some society, more or less active, which takes up 
 the social side of each particular work and urges its 
 claims. It seems characteristic of the general 
 neglect with which Health is treated that no 
 national society of men and women has yet been 
 formed to promote this vital subject— Health. 
 
 Such a society should extend its branches into 
 every town and village of the land, and form a body 
 of corresponding members, not only throughout the 
 kingdom, but abroad. It might, with great advan- 
 tage, promote the wide application of that excellent 
 system of instruction initiated by Mr. Twining, of 
 Twickenham. This gentleman has devoted his life 
 to the diffusion of sanitary knowledge. Having 
 established a museum of domestic arts in his 
 grounds, open to the public, he has written a series 
 of lectures, which are read by the curator of his 
 museum and illustrated by his librarian, the illus- 
 trations for each lecture being ingeniously packed 
 in a small box; he generously sends this little 
 
THE RELIGION OF HEALTH 
 
 251 
 
 establishment to any place which will make arrange- 
 ments for the delivery of the lectures. Such a 
 system, varying the lectures and illustrations, might 
 be applied to every little village in England, for 
 two young ladies or gentlemen might certainly be 
 found in every place to read discourses so prepared. 
 If a Health Society did no other work than keep in 
 constant activity such a simple plan of instruction 
 as this, it would do a work of immense utility. 
 There is, however, no limit to the practical sug- 
 gestions that might thus be brought before the 
 public to the influence that might be exercised upon 
 family life, or to the sanitary institutions that might 
 be formed by an energetic Health Society. 
 I have thus endeavoured to show : 
 
 1. That there are laws governing human growth 
 
 according to an unvarying plan. 
 
 2. That neglect to study and obey these laws 
 
 produces individual suffering in all classes 
 of society and national degeneration. 
 
 3. That obedience must be rendered through 
 
 legislation, education, and social life. 
 
 It is only when we have learned to recognise 
 that God's law for the human body is as sacred as 
 — nay, is one with — God's law for the human soul, 
 that we shall begin to understand the Religion of 
 Health. 
 
 bll.LlNO ANU SCI.VS, Llil., t•KINTEK^, OUII.LlHiKl).