Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/76

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X.
RATIONAL EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH.

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.^[1] 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 com-

↑ The entirely negative results of all 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 as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirst, translated by Dr. C. Creighton, vol. i., in the treatise on 'Asiatic Cholera.'

[1] The entirely negative results of all 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 as their inconclusiveness, is impartially detailed in the classic work of Hirst, translated by Dr. C. Creighton, vol. i., in the treatise on 'Asiatic Cholera.'

[1]