[Five other dogs were then submerged and removed at graduated intervals of time.]

Having seen that a dog lives after being submerged one minute, and dies after being submerged one minute thirty seconds, another experiment was performed.

Experiment 30.-A large dog was submerged one minute fifteen seconds. On being removed it perfectly and almost immediately recovered.

Thus then the remarkable fact appeared that, whereas in simple apnoea recovery may be possible after the deprivation of air for three minutes fifty seconds (Experiment 13), and subsequent experiments showed that a dog simply deprived of air almost certainly recovered after four minutes, one minute and a half's immersion in water suffices to destroy life.

Now, to what is this striking difference due? With reference to this question the following experiments were performed :—

It was resolved in the first place to eliminate the element of exhaustion produced by struggling; it was thought that possibly the violent struggles of the animal to gain breath, when its limbs were confined, might exhaust it and hasten the catastrophe.

Experiment 31.-A cat was placed in a cage, and the cage plunged under water. The animal's limbs were at perfect liberty, and there were no violent struggles. After two minutes the cage with the cat in it was taken out, and the cat was dead.

The

Experiment 32.-A dog was treated in the same way, but the cage was kept submerged in the water only one minute and a half. dog died. There had been no struggle.

Thus it was seen that struggling had nothing to do with the early fatal result, as it happened equally soon where there were no struggles. It was next determined to eliminate the element of cold, and for that purpose the following five experiments were performed, in which cold was applied to no part of the surface except the animal's head. [All the dogs died.]

Still further to clear up this question it was determined to place two dogs under precisely similar circumstances, with the single exception that in the one case the free access of water to the lungs should be permitted, and in the other case prevented. The following were the experiments :

Experiment 38.-Two dogs of the same size were fastened to the same plank and submerged at the same moment, but one of them had previously had its windpipe plugged in the usual way, and the other had not. At two minutes they were taken out together; the one that had been plugged at once recovered, the other died. [This was repeated, and the committee add :—]

These experiments satisfactorily show that the difference between

apnoea produced by plugging and that by drowning is not due to submersion, to depression of temperature, or to struggles.

The fact that animals do not recover after so short a period of immersion is mainly due to the entrance of water.

[Three other experiments were tried with windpipes plugged, after which chloroform was used.]

Experiment 43.--A medium-sized dog was rendered insensible by chloroform and drowned. It was kept in the water for two minutes and a half. Its respiratory efforts were by no means violent, and were in this respect in strong contrast with those of the unchloroformed dogs.

[Two other experiments of a similar kind followed, which proved:—] That by simply depriving the animal of the power of making violent respiratory efforts the period during which submersion may be continued, and yet recovery follow, is at once prolonged. The value and conclusiveness of these chloroform experiments, as showing the essential connection between the early fatal result in drowned animals and the violent inspiratory efforts that fill the lungs with water, need not be pointed out.

Various means of resuscitation were employed in many of the experiments performed by the committee, and with variable results. [Then follow seven experiments, in all of which, save one, the animals died.]

Experiment 51.-The same dog as had been previously used in Experiment 13 was again deprived of air as before, and on the use of Dr. Marcet's instrument, one minute after respiration had ceased, it again recovered.

[This poor dog therefore recovered from death twice. The committee then say :-]

No definite conclusion concerning the relative value of the various methods of artificial respiration can be drawn from these experiments.

For this subject the committee would refer to the "Report of the Experiments upon the Dead Human Body."

Many other methods of resuscitation which have been recommended were practised, including actual cautery, venesection, cold splash, alternate application of hot and cold water, galvanism, and ̧ puncture of the diaphragm.

[Twenty-six experiments under this head were tried, in which the animals were "suffocated in the usual way by plugging their windpipes;" and the committee add :—]

Although some of the above means were occasionally of manifest advantage, no one was of such unequivocal efficacy as to warrant the committee in specially recommending its adoption.-Report of the Royal Humane Society, 1865, pp. 31–66,

[Numerous experiments were also made on the bodies of deceased human beings which appear to have yielded excellent results.

Reference to the Reports of the Royal Humane Society will show that with immaterial modifications the method originally introduced to the Society by Dr. Silvester is still in use; such modifications having arisen out of experiments on dead human bodies alluded to, and were not derived from the foregoing painful experiments on animals.]

On the occasion of presenting the above Report to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, the Chairman of the investigating Committee, Dr. Williams, closed his own summary of proceedings by saying:-"So far then as these experiments go, they show a great superiority of Dr. Silvester's over Dr. Marshall Hall's ready method."

66

Dr. Edward Smith remarked upon the great importance of the present discussion from the interest of the subject, and the fact this being the first occasion on which the Society had appointed a Committee to make scientific investigation, it might be a precedent for future action. He thought it most desirable that the Society should endeavour to accurately estimate the true value of the results which such Committees could produce. On the present occasion they had a Committee amongst whom were men of world-wide reputation, and a subject of inquiry of the highest interest, and not of greater complexity than would be found in all practical questions in medicine. The Report must be regarded in two aspects: one that of the scientific facts which had been elicited; the other in their exact application to the purposes for which the Committee was appointed— to determine the best methods of restoring the drowned. As to the facts, no one could doubt their extent and interest, the care with which they had been ascertained, and the pains taken to estimate the influence of disturbing causes.

It was in reference to the practical object in the appointment of the Committee that the Report failed. The Committee had not proved that any one of their inquiries was applicable to the drowned human subjcet. The time during which a man could be immersed in water and recover could not be proved by experiments on dogs, and the Committee themselves had shown that all their plans for the restoration of drowned dogs had failed. The Committee had in one part of the Report disclaimed any intention to say how far the Silvester method was fitted for the restoration of the drowned; and yet in their recommendation they advised the use of this method almost exclusively, without having in any experiment tried it, under these conditions. The recommendation to place the body prone and allow fluid to run out of the mouth, was an old recommendation; but they had inferred and not proved its value, and that only from experiments on drowned dogs which they could not resuscitate. The

experiment on dogs had shown that neither hot nor cold water alone had any value as restorative agents, but that the alternative of the two was somewhat useful; but this alternative had not been recommended for man.

Dr. Webster said that he thought the Silvester method was the best, and that the recommendation was very important. He was sorry to hear that the lives of so many dogs had been sacrificed in the experiments. He hoped that in future, if possible, experiments on living animals would be avoided.

Mr. Charles Hunter said that as he was one of those gentlemen who six years ago conducted the experiments upon the dead body for Dr. Marshall Hall, and upon those experiments the "ready method" was established, he felt called upon for a few words in its defence. He regretted that the Committee thought fit to condemn it, and observed that if the Marshall Hall method after all was a failure, the long series of experiments carefully made by him (Mr. Hunter) with others must go for nothing; and yet the original experiments were much more numerous than those made by this Committee, and perfectly conclusive in their general results to those who made and saw them.

Dr. Williams would remark in reply to some objections made by Dr. Webster as to the destruction of animal life involved in these experiments that no one experiment had been undertaken without a definite and useful object; that animal sufferings and life had been spared as much as was possible in pursuing the inquiry; and he did not think that, when it was considered how animal life was hourly and unsparingly sacrificed for the gratification of appetite, there could be any objection to the dedication of a few lives to the elucidation of a subject of real importance to the interests of humanity.-Lancet, No. 2,028 p. 39–40.

(78.)-[Other similar experiments were made by Dr. Waters, and the results communicated by Dr. Sharpey to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, May 14th, 1861.]

The subjects of experiments were dogs, cats, and rabbits. They were drowned in water varying in temperature from 40° to 50° Fahrenheit, and in one instance 56°. On being removed from the water, after every external symptom of life had disappeared, they were opened by the removal of the anterior part of the chest, so that the movement of the heart could be observed. . . . . . Thirteen experiments were performed, twelve on rabbits, one on a cat. Of the thirteen seven were put into the hot bath; of these six died at periods varying from two to twenty hours after submersion. Six animals were left to themselves; of these four recovered and two died, both between the eighth and twentieth hour after submersion.

The author believes that the best method of performing artificial

respiration we are not acquainted with, is that recommended by Dr. Marshall Hall.

Dr. Babington was not sure whether experiments upon dogs, respecting warm baths, were applicable to human beings. The warm bath would probably be more injurious to asphyxiated dogs, from the fact that the skin of the dog was remarkably thick, and it was known that he did not perspire. He (Dr. Babington) did not know whether cats were subject to perspiration.

Dr. Waters in reply said that of the experiments he had detailed some were performed about four years ago. The attention of the profession was at that period directed to the subject by the late Dr. Marshall Hall. He (the author) at that time brought the results of his experiments in reference to the hot bath before the Committee of the Liverpool Royal Humane Society. This society had previously adopted the rules of the Royal Humane Society of London. The Committee of the Liverpool Royal Humane Society referred his plan to the Liverpool Medical Society for their opinion. The result was that the plan was recommended, and it was therefore adopted. Unfortunately no record whatever had been kept of the cases thus treated, so that no practical test of the working of the method was attainable. The experiments of Mr. Erichsen, and those performed by himself, tended to prove that the heart contracted for some time after complete asphyxia.—Dr. Waters, Lancet, No. 1,969, PP. 513-14.

[After all these valuable (!) experiments the learned Dr. comes to the following honest, sensible, conclusion.]

In considering the question of the deviation of the heart's beat in asphyxia, and the possibility of restoring animation in the affection, it is very desirable that if we err we should err on the right side. It is better that we should make fifty ineffectual attempts to save life, acting on the supposition of the prolonged duration of the heart's beat, than that we should suffer one life to be lost by allowing the opposite assumption to paralyse our efforts.-Dr. Waters, Lancet, No. 1,977 p. 60.

(b.)

EVIDENCE OF PROLONGED PAIN.

(79.)-[Some of the following show pain only for a short time, but they could not well be eliminated from the series in which they appear.]

This pamphlet contains the results obtained by burning and scalding about thirty dogs, in regard to-1st, the local temperature