Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 50

6. The lively P. _Ki_, pulsation rapid in succession.

7. The skipping P. _Teng_, pulsation unequal, sudden, and frequent.

In this minute attention to the many variations of the pulses, the Chinese aided their study, by attending to age, s.e.x, stature, const.i.tution, the seasons, the pa.s.sions, and the comparative state of health and disease.

In a person of high stature, the pulse was full--concentrated in diminished individuals--deep and embarra.s.sed in fat subjects--long and superficial in the meager--soft in the phlegmatic temperament--tremulous in the lively and the active--slower in man than in woman, excepting when threatened with disease--full and firm in the adult--slow and feeble in old age--soft and vivacious in infancy.

The rhythm of the pulse was affected by the pa.s.sions, though chiefly in a transient manner:--moderately slow, in joy--short, in grief--deep, under the impression of fear--precipitate and regurgitating, in anger. In the spring, they maintained that the pulsation was tremulous--replete, in summer--spare and superficial, in autumn--dry and deep, in winter. Much mysterious ceremony was observed by the Chinese physicians in this investigation; they felt the pulse with four fingers, which they alternately raised or dropped on the vessel, as if playing on a musical instrument.

In this profound study, they attributed to every disease a peculiar state of the pulse by which it could be recognised and ascertained, and at the same time it enabled them to form a favourable or unfavourable prognostic. Some of these rules are curious. If the pulses stop before fifty pulsations have been counted, disease is at hand; when an interruption in the course of the circulation takes place after forty pulsations, the patient has not more than four years to live; when an interruption takes place after the third pulsation, three or four days are the probable term of existence; but the patient may linger on for six or seven days more, when the interruption only succeeds the fourth pulsation.

Idle as these speculations may appear, it is to be feared that while the Chinese paid such minute attention to the state of the circulation, more distinguished and learned schools do not consider this powerful indication of the strength or weakness of the vital functions with sufficient care and discrimination, and perhaps a translation of the works of _Ouang-chou-ho_, might not be altogether useless in the present enlightened age. I have no hesitation in saying that this important investigation is sadly neglected in medical education--so much so indeed, that the different appellations given to the varied state of the pulse, are neither well defined nor generally understood. The French physician Bordeu has given much valuable information on this subject, which occupied the ancients as much as it seems to have fixed the attention of the Chinese. We find that the Indians, in the time of Alexander, accurately studied this important point.

Notwithstanding the a.s.sertion of Sprengel, Hippocrates was a most attentive observer of the state of the pulse. Thus we find him giving the name of [Greek: sphygmos] to that violent and spasmodic beating of the artery, which was not only sensible to the touch, but evident to the bystander's eye--in more than forty pa.s.sages of his immortal works do we find important references to the pulse, which he also declared could enable us to detect the secret workings of the pa.s.sions. Many were the ancient physicians who have minutely entered into these investigations, amongst them we may name Herophilus, Erasistratus, Zeno, Alexander Philalethes, Heraclides of Erythrae, Heraclides of Tarentum, Aristoxenes.

Several of the doctrines founded on these observations were most absurd, attributing the various conditions of the circulation to the _Pneuma_ of the heart and arteries; such were the doctrines of Asclepiades, Agathinus, Galen, and many others; and amongst the Arabians we find _Thabeth Ebn Ibrahim_ a.s.serting that by the state of the pulse he could ascertain what articles of food had been taken--in more modern times Baillou, Wierns, Boerhaave, Hoffmann, have sedulously applied themselves to this most essential study, and Schelhammenn a.s.serts that the pulse never once deceived him.

The effect of our pa.s.sions on the circulation is much more powerful than is generally believed, and they are a more fertile source of our maladies than is commonly apprehended. We can readily conceive why the Spartan Chilo died through excess of joy whilst embracing his victorious son.[53]

In the treatment of disease, the Chinese, so fond of cla.s.sification, divide the medicinal substances they employ into heating, cooling, refreshing, and temperate; their _materia medica_ is contained in the work called the _Pen-tsaocang-mou_ in fifty-two large volumes, with an atlas of plates; most of our medicines are known to them and prescribed; the mineral waters, with which their country abounds, are also much resorted to; and their emperor, _Kang-Hi_, has given an accurate account of several thermal springs. Fire is a great agent, and the _moxa_ recommended in almost every ailment, while acupuncture is in general use both in China and j.a.pan; bathing and _champooing_ are also frequently recommended, but blood-letting is seldom resorted to.

China has also her animal magnetizers, practising the _Coug fou_, a mysterious manipulation taught by the bonzes, in which the adepts produce violent convulsions.

The Chinese divide their prescriptions into seven categories.

1. The great prescription.

2. The little prescription.

3. The slow prescription.

4. The prompt prescription.

5. The odd prescription.

6. The even prescription.

7. The double prescription.

Each of these receipts being applied to particular cases, and the ingredients that compose them being weighed with the most scrupulous accuracy.

Medicine was taught in the imperial colleges of Pekin; but in every district, a physician, who had studied six years, is appointed to instruct the candidate for the profession, who was afterwards allowed to practise, without any further studies or examination; and it is said, that, in general, the physician only receives his fee when the patient is cured.

This a.s.sertion, however, is very doubtful, as the country abounds in quacks, who, under such restrictions as to remuneration, would scarcely earn a livelihood. Another singular, but economical practice prevails amongst them--a physician never pays a second visit to a patient unless he is sent for. Whatever may be the merits of Chinese pract.i.tioners both in medicine and surgery, or their mode of receiving remuneration, it appears that they are as much subject to animadversion as in other countries:--a missionary having observed to a Chinese, that their medical men had constantly recourse to fire in the shape of moxa, redhot iron, and burning needles; he replied, "Alas! you Europeans are carved with steel, while we are martyrized with hot iron; and I fear that in neither country will the fashion subside, since the operators do not feel the anguish they inflict, and are equally paid to torment us or to cure us!"

EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS.

However ungrateful the discussion of this subject may be, since, in truth and justice, it must be considered with an unbia.s.sed and unprejudiced mind, and elicit observations which may prove offensive to many, and absurd to some, it is one of such moment on the score of humanity, that I undertake the task without hesitation or reluctance.

In support of the practice it has been urged, that mankind owes the most valuable discoveries in the science of medicine and its collateral branches to the vivisection of animals; that since the brute creation was intended for the use of our species, we could not apply them to a more important and justifiable purpose, than that of endeavouring to initiate ourselves in those wonderful functions of nature, a knowledge of which would give us a clearer insight of the mysterious machinery, and thereby the better enable us to remedy their derangement when in a morbid state.

It has further been maintained, that when man to indulge his capricious appet.i.tes and his various amus.e.m.e.nts, tortures every creature that can minister to his depraved fancies or his unruly pleasures--he would be more excusable, if not fully justifiable even in the eyes of the most sentient philanthropist, in submitting these creatures to smaller or greater sufferings, if mankind could be ultimately benefited by this sacrifice of feeling. What, indeed, could be our commiseration when beholding the agonies of a mangled dog or a cat, if the throes of his sufferings, and the incalculable pangs he endured, could restore a beloved child to his disconsolate parents, or a sinking father to his helpless family. Moreover, is not man, from the very nature of his social position, created to suffer more than animals, not only from the many natural diseases to which flesh is heir, but to the torturing wounds received on the field of battle--the burning fevers of distant climes--the chances of war, pestilence, and famine--all of which are aggravated by that power of judgment, that reflection and consciousness derivating from the possession of an immortal soul, which makes the future more horrible than the present, however great its miseries may be. It has also been urged, that animals in their savage state, undomesticated by the _humane_ interference of man, inflict upon each other injuries under which they linger and die in excruciating pain; and, therefore, when we submit them to similar agonies, we only fill up the intended measure of their destined sufferings.

It is painful to a.s.sert it, but all these allegations, I consider as not only unsupported by facts and experience, but grounded on speculative sophistry; for, in regard to the injuries which animals in their wild condition may inflict upon each other, they may be the result of the wise provisions of the CREATOR, with which man, however presumptuous he be, has nothing to do, and even were it in his power to check their furious and destructive propensities, it is more than likely, from what we daily witness, that he would turn them to a profitable or a pleasurable account, as most probably, the sight of a combat between a wild elephant and a rhinoceros (provided the spectators were perfectly secure), would attract a greater mult.i.tude, and _draw_ more money, than a dog-fight or a bull-bait--a tiger-hunt, were it not attended with some personal danger which requires courage, would prove more delectable than the pursuit of a timid hare.

But I now come to a much more important consideration--the benefit to mankind that has occurred or that may be derived from such experiments.

And here I must give as my most decided opinion, that if any such beneficial results did arise from the inquiries, they were not commensurate with the barbarity of the experiments; nay, I shall endeavour to show, that they are frequently more likely to deceive us, by propping up fallacious and tottering theories, than to shed any valuable light on the subject of investigation.

I readily admit that there does exist much a.n.a.logy in the structure of man and certain animals in the higher grades of the creation; that the functions of respiration, digestion, absorption, locomotion, are to a certain extent similar, and that experiments made to ascertain the mechanism of these functions (if I may so express myself), may tend, in some measure, to teach us that which the inanimate corpse of man cannot exhibit; but, admitting to the full extent of argumentation, the a.n.a.logy of these functions, I do maintain that the phenomena of life differ widely between man and animals, and the very nervous influences which we seek to discover are, in life, of a nature totally different. Were it not so, would the senses of different animals, rendered more or less acute or obtuse according to their natural pursuits and protective habits, be so materially unequal? Indeed, the laws of nature that submit every creature to the immutable will of Providence are totally unlike; and each apparatus of life in divers beings seems to be especially calculated for the identical race: what is poison to the one is an aliment to another; and the vivid light which the eyes of one creature can bear, would produce blindness in another; the same effluvia which one animal would not notice, would guide another over trackless wastes in search of friend or foe. I therefore maintain, that the mere material examination of the living organs of animals can no more tend to ill.u.s.trate their vital principle, than the keenest anatomical labours can enable us to attain a knowledge of the nature of our immortal and imperishable parts.

I shall enter still more minutely into this subject. In the barbarous experiments to which I allude, animals bearing the strongest resemblance to man (at least in their conformation, for Heaven, in its mercy, did not gift them with what we call _mind_) are usually selected amongst such as possess a heart with four cavities, and double lungs. The dog--the natural companion of man, his most faithful friend in weal and woe, the guardian of his couch and property, the protector of his infants, the only mourner o'er the pauper's grave!--dogs, are in general selected for the scientific shambles; and this for obvious reasons,--they are more easily procured, and at a _cheaper rate_; moreover, they are more manageable and unresisting under the mangling scalpel. Well, thousands of these creatures have been starved to death with b.u.t.ter, sugar, and oil, to prove that they must die in all the aggravated pangs of hunger,--pangs producing ulcerated eyes, blindness, staggers, parched up organs, unless their food contains azote. Will any one maintain, that a similar nourishment would produce similar effects on man? Certainly not. The one was created by nature to consume animal substances highly azotized; the other, from the transition of life to which he is born to be exposed, is essentially polyphagous.

Then, again, millions of animals have had their bones broken, sc.r.a.ped, bruised in every possible manner, to discover the process of the formation of bone, called _Osteogeny_: has a single fracture of a human limb been more rapidly consolidated by these experiments, which fill hundreds of pages in the works of Duhamel, Haller, Scarpa, and other physiologists?

Animals will digest substances that would kill a human being--have the experiments in which their palpitating stomach and intestines have been torn from them, lacerated, p.r.i.c.ked, cut, separated from their surrounding vessels and nerves, increased our means of relieving the dyspepsia of the sensualist, the surfeit of the glutton, or the nausea of the dissolute? On the other hand, the gin, the ardent spirits in which the drunkard wallows, would soon destroy what we think proper to call a _brute_!

In many animals, moreover, there is a tenacity of life--highly convenient to the physiologist, since it enables him to prolong his experimental cruelties--which man does not possess; and we find the electric fluid acting much longer upon their muscles even after death, than on a human body or its severed limbs.

Another point to be considered is the a.s.sertion of the advantages to be derived from contemplating the living viscera in a healthy state. Good G.o.d! a healthy state!--what a mockery, what a perversion of language!

Behold the dog, stolen from his master--(for theft is encouraged to supply the man of science--and theft of the worst character, since it is of the most cruel nature;--our goods, our money, may be restored, replaced by industry, but what hand can restore the faithful companion of our solitude, whose looks seem to study our thoughts! left us perhaps by the lost one of our heart, symbol of that fidelity which death alone abridged!) the poor animal hungry, chained up for days and nights pining for his lost master, is led to the butchery. Still he looks up for compa.s.sion to man, his natural protector, licks the very hand that grasps him until his feeble limbs are lashed to the table! In vain he struggles--in vain he expresses his sufferings and his fears in piteous howls: a muzzle is buckled on to stifle his troublesome cries, and his concentrated groans heave his agonized breast in convulsive throes, until the scalpel is plunged in his helpless extended body! His blood flows in torrents, his very heart is exposed to the torturer's searching hand, and nerves which experience anguish from a mere breath of air, are lacerated with merciless ingenuity,--and this is a healthy state! The viscera exposed to atmospheric influence are already parched, and have lost their natural colour, and not a single function is performed in normal regularity. One only effort is natural until vital power is exhausted--a vain instinctive resistance against his butchers!--The heart sickens at such scenes, when cruelty that would bid defiance to the savage's vindictive barbarity, sacrifices thousands of harmless beings at the shrine of vanity. For let the matter not be mistaken--these experiments are mostly made to give an appearance of verisimilitude to the most absurd and visionary doctrines; and if a proof were required of this a.s.sertion, it can be easily obtained by reading the works of various physiologists at different periods, who all draw _different_ deductions from _similar_ facts. For when the mind labours under a certain impression, or a reputation is founded upon the support of a doctrine, these facts are distorted with Procrustean skill to suit the views of the experimentalist.

Let us, for instance, consider the subject of digestion, to ascertain the nature of which, thousands--millions of animals have been ripped up alive.

This practice has been attributed to _coction_, to _elixation_, to _fermentation_, to _putrefaction_, to _trituration_, to _maceration_, to _dissolution_, and to many other shades and shadows of similar theories; and were additional millions of living victims sacrificed in further scientific hecatombs, posterity may deem our present vain glorious physiologists as ignorant of the matter as they might consider their numerous predecessors in the same career of groping curiosity. Has the cruel extraction of the spleen from a thousand dogs to show that they could live without that viscous, explained the nature of its functions, or enabled us more successfully to control its obstinate diseases?

We know nothing of the phenomena of life; all our functions are regulated by an allwise Power that sets at naught human presumption--and Hippocrates justly called this harmonic organization a _concensus_, or a circle, in which we could not discover the commencement or the end.

There does however exist one course of experiments which probably might prove beneficial to mankind. The search of antidotes to various poisons that are too frequently administered by criminal hands; but here again experiments fall short of our expectations, for these substances act differently upon different animals, and even to some the prussic acid in large doses may be given with impunity. But I affirm, and can prove it, that in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, in which such substances are given to animals, it is not with a view to discover antidotes, but to ascertain, according to the unfortunate creature's species, size, and condition, how long he can linger under the pangs of the poison, or what is the dose sufficient to occasion death. Of what benefit can it be to humanity to know that thirty drops of hydro-cyanic acid destroys dogs and cats in the s.p.a.ce of six, twelve, or fifteen minutes; that twenty-six drops kill a rabbit in three minutes; that one drop introduced into the bill of a sparrow deprives it of life in eleven minutes; that a duck takes fifteen drops to put an end to its convulsive struggles; and that the exposing animals to the influence of hydro-cyanic acid gas destroys them in two, four, six, eight, and ten seconds? What benefit does society reap from the knowledge that, after the most excruciating suffering, a dog died in five hours after having taken half an ounce of tobacco, and that another ill-fated canine victim in whose limbs tobacco had been introduced, died of paralysis and in horrible convulsions in about an hour? Were antidotes sought in the thousands of similar cases that I could adduce? Certainly not--the experiments merely went to ascertain the power of the drug, and the only possible good that could have resulted from the barbarous trial, was the appearance of the viscera after death; a fact that one experiment could demonstrate as well as one thousand--but which could be more effectually exhibited in human creatures who died from the effects of deleterious substances. In short, these experiments are nothing more than cold calculations on the tenacity of life in various individuals. Every one knows that a.r.s.enic and prussic acid destroy life, and surely such an a.s.sertion on the part of a lecturer to his pupils should satisfy them on this head without having recourse to ill.u.s.trations of the fact. In the case of supposed poison introduced into alimentary substances, and which are given to dogs to prove the criminal act, surely chemistry is not so little advanced in its boasted progress, not to be able to afford us a test of the presence of poison, without having recourse to so savage an expedient.

Another most absurd argument has been upheld in favour of these experiments in the presence of pupils, that of hardening their feelings in the contemplation of acute sufferings. This a.s.sertion is worse than idle and absurd; many of our most able surgeons and anatomists have never practised these cruelties, and yet their nerves have not been unstrung during the most fearful operations. With hands imbrued in blood I have performed the arduous duties of my profession in fourteen battles, yet I never could _witness_ these heartless exhibitions without disgust, and I am sorry to say contempt. I am aware that these sentiments have been called _puling_ professions of humanity; nay, that there are men and women who would weep bitterly over the sufferings of a sick pet, while they would view acc.u.mulated human misery unmoved. These are painful anomalies arising too frequently in disappointed minds, when the cup of life has been imbittered by ingrat.i.tude, and the "milk of human kindness" curdled by deceit. These are not reasons to prevent us from censuring acts of cruelty, when they may be considered _useless_ in a scientific point of view, and _degrading_ to mankind in regard to private feelings. I can readily believe that the best and the most humane of men, may be induced by an ardent desire to elucidate obscure parts of physiologic inquiry, to try such experiments; but most undoubtedly--unless the object to be so attained was commensurate with the sacrifice and abnegation of humane sentiments, I should deeply lament their obduracy, and be inclined to doubt their benevolence towards their fellow-creatures.

I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polish'd manners, and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility), the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that hath humanity forewarned Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

In fine, whenever it is not evident that such practices can benefit mankind and increase our means of reducing the sum of human misery--it is a barbarous and criminal abuse of that power which the Creator has given us over the inferior grades of animated beings; and it is deeply to be lamented that no legislative measures can be adopted to restrain it, if it cannot be altogether prohibited. At any rate, professors alone should be allowed the "_indulgence_," but in no instance should such pseudo-scientific practices become a public exhibition or a student's pastime. Brought up in early life, amidst all the complicated horrors of a revolution, I have been sadly convinced that the contagion of CRUELTY is much more doubtless and active than that of PESTILENCE!

THE END.

WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE STRAND.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] During these ten years the following works appeared:

Montesquieu--Esprit des Lois, 1748.