IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCOVERIES.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16847, 29 May 1920, Page 10

IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCOVERIES.

-» annottncemeiit by a doctoe LLP. (from: ocr. own connz>To>DEsr.) LOXDOX, March '25. A very valuable outline was given in the House of Commons by Captain "\Y. E. Elliot, a medical man, of Lanark, of the discoveries that had been made ouite recently as tho result of experiments on dogs. The occasion was tho debate on Sir F. Banbury's Cogs' P-o----tection Bill, which Captain Elliot described as a measure "not to prevent nainful experiments on dogs." but a.? "a pettifogging measure to obstruct, as far as possible, the progress of medical science." * Numberless experiments, ho added, were conducted on dogs hy do'r fanciers every year, such as docking their tails, and altering the shape of"their ears, without any license being required from tho Home Office, and yot no one, not even tho promoters of the Bill, raised a hand to prevent them. lii rejecting the Bill which eamo iin about a* year ago, Captnin Elliot _ said the House performed a great service to humanity. * The dog is a p-e-eTTfine'uly suitable subject for rcsoarcli investigation, be-ause he is the onlv nnimal o" which the experiments can be carried out which could net be performed on a cat, a rat, or a guinea-pig. They aro too'small. Thcv cannot he carried out on sheer* and other animals because their hearts are loaded with fat.

HEART DISEASE. Already there have been valuable results from the research, which, since the war. has been resumed by Professor Lewis, of London University. For ten -ears tho work has been going on, and now something ha-s been learned about the causes of heart disease. There is one form of palpitation of the heart from which some 20,000 pensioners from the Army alone are suffering, and good progress has been made. Captain Elliot had diagrams showing that the heart beat in man and_ the heart in tho dog are practically identical Another diagram showed dis(Va.se of the heart in man and disease in the heart in dogs. These experiments were carried out on dogs under complete anesthesia, the dogs were killed before thcv recovered from tho experiment. and these experiments prove practically and conclusively tho cause of heart 'disease. "Thc_ heart beat starts bv an impulse beginning at the top of the heart, and passes down in a certain sort of current throughout the muscle. In heart disease, the wires are faulty, tho circuit is bad, and instead of passing straight down through tho heart, as it should do, the impulse is broken up, and the heart goes into what is known as Eacn muscle fibre begins twitching independently, and in some cases one single muscle impulse gets loose. so to speak, and courses round .and round the heart. These things have been found out very largely within the last twelve months, and vrv largely because of the rejection of the Bi'f by the House last March. When we have really definite results like that, this House would be taking a step oi the gravest responsibility to stop experiments—to squash the result of nine years of experiment, scr.-ip- it, aid throw it into the waste-paper basket and cnus;> another start to be made. Colono 1 Moore-Brabazon says that if we }v.ero tn use some other animal for vivisection we should ston the agitation. "Go across tho water to St. Thomas's Hospital and ask the doetT to take you round tho wards there nr.d point, out t"> you all the v.Tet-hed, blue-faced_ people sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows, gasping for breath, afyaid to lie ■down, their legs all swollen with dropsy. Would you say to them, 'Here, I am going to stop these experiments with whieli it is hoped to cure you, but never mind, nine years hence the doctors may be nearly as forward as they are to-day.' I do not believe thero i = a man in this Houss who wc-rild take the responsibility of saying that to those wretched men and_ women, yes, and children too, lying in those hospitals suffering from heart d'sense. "In the last twelve months," continued Captain Elliot, "we have pissed very far along the d to discovering what heart disease really is. It is due to the break-up of this impulse* passing through tho hsart from the top to the bottom. That gives us a direct lino as to how to cure it. AYe suggest that the way we can cure it best is this: if the circuit is faulty, improve the circuit, and by altering the chemical composition of the blood by means of certain chemical salts we hope t.o oe sb'e to improve it, and to set this fluttering, useless, palpitating heart beatin? strongly and steadily and regularly, pumping the blood through tho system again, and restoring the man to be a useful member of society, instead of a helpless, gasping wreck, propped up in bed, afraid even to lie dnvn and to go to sleep for a few minutes, as is the case just now.

"In regard to this impulse tlv.it pa~scy-' round the breaking it nil up, it is hoppd tluvfc bv an ele'tric slick you can break- it up nnd stop tho palpitation, and s»t the l>e*irt beating agaiii. That is only possible bocr.u-e of tlio researches and the work whi?]i have been done on the dojr, aud vory largely in this pity of London, within "a radius of a mile or so of this by an eminent British scientist who, in any other oountry. would bo helped in his work and not hindered By ar>y possible action c-f the -Legislatures. All this is brand-new work, which has been done s'nee tlie rejection of this Bill by this last- year." fr>ir Y/atson Cheyne, the eminent surgeon, snoke for an hour against the Bill. He related a story of a woman who callcd at his consul ting-rocms, and. having placed a small box on the tablej said her little pot had broken its W, and would lie do -what he cnrld for it! She opened the box and produced a dormoase! The preat mass .of the knowledge which lind enabled charts of thoi brain to be drawn was due to work on doss. Experiments which were followed by real riaiu must be very few. During the last thirty or forty years the antesthefeisin? of does had been perfect. Tho idea that dogs suffered pain during experiments was due to memories of the early davs, and was contributed to by the illustrations to be found in catalogues of instruments and apoliancos.

A GREAT HOXOUP.

Captain Lospby could not understand tjie attitude of the promoters of the Bill towards the animal world. They might inflict suffering on animals for sport, but they might not experiment on dogs, without suffering, with the object of alleviating human suffering. They did not denounce tbo practice of hunting a little animal with a pack of hounds and. tearing it to pieces. Tno sport of coursing was cruel. The hunting man killed from barbiric instinct. The shooting man killed beautiful birds. Thousands of dogs in London wore condemned annually to die. The great majority of the medical profession told them that these dogs would be of ines-

timable value in tho work of protecting humanity; and thev undertook that the operations should be painless. Captain Losoby startle.! the House by stating that lie had been the subject of vivisection. "When I was gassed in France —'and I was among tho first — blood was taken from me in order that the doctors might find out what the gas was. I consider that a great honour." Ho was convinced that if vivisection were prohibited humanity at' large would suffer greatlv. C aptain Elliot a!sp dealt with rickets, and the work dene with dogs in this connexion. J'ickcts cause a certain amount of pain, alike to a baby suffering from it and to a foxhound suffering from it. "Foxhounds in kennels suffer from rickets, and if yon conduct an experiment so as to be able to cure a child suffering, from the complaint, down comes this Bill, and says it is calculated to n-iro this disease to a dog, nnd consequently the experiment must ston, and no more work "ho done on the subject. * This thing can onlv be carried out on a dog, because a doc has a similar diet to a man, and his diet can he changed, and you can find out what "s the particular ingredient that is missing. I think it is of particular interest to tho Labour men, becauso there is no class in the whole of our. country which supers moro from this dreadful disease of rickets than the children of tho labouring classes. _ The Medical Research Committee, which was set up "by this House, published a very strong and an ahsiJu+el" recommendation about tho Dogs' Bill." FAMOUS CLERGYMAN ON A

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