ess cannot be fairly
put forward regarding the tuberculin experiments upon the eye. But
should we overlook the fact that these tests, at first were purely
experimental in character? No absolute assurance of results could have
been declared in advance; if certainty existed beforehand, what would
be the use of experimenting upon so many human beings? Are experiments
upon man only reprehensible when injury follows? Do we apply this rule
to the engineer of a passenger-train, who again and again runs by a
danger-signal, and yet escapes a tragedy?

The utility of experimentation is urged. Only by experiments upon
human beings, it is said, could the value of either the tuberculin
test or the Noguchi emulsion be definitely determined. But surely
every thinking man must realize that utility cannot exculpate, or
justify the use of any method which is otherwise wrong in itself. A
murder is not regarded as pardonable, because thereby the interests of
religion are advanced. Dr. Noguchi for instance, admits that although
it is almost certain that the germs which Schaudinn discovered and
which he has isolated and grown outside the human body, are the cause
of specific disease, yet scientific certainty can only be acquired by
producing the ailment from the artificially cultivated germs. He
says:

"While there are few, to-day, who would deny that the Treponema
pallidum is the causitive agent of syphilis, YET THE FINAL PROOF CAN
ONLY BE BROUGHT FORTH THROUGH THE REPRODUCTION OF SYPHILITIC LESIONS
BY MEANS OF PURE CULTURES OF THE MICRO-ORGANISM."[1]

[1] "Studies of the Rockefeller Institute," vol. xiv., p. 100.

A scientific experiment upon a human being of greater interest than
this it is hardly possible to imagine. With germs invisible to the
naked eye, grown in a flask, will some future experimenter be able to
produce in a human being all the terrible symptoms of this worst
scourge of the human race? That the experiment will be tried, there
can be no doubt; experiments involving the inoculation of the same
horrible disease, have been made both in America and in Europe. But
does anyone think that the utility of this suggested experiment of
Dr. Noguchi would justify its being made upon an unsuspicious patient
in a charity hospital? Would it be likely to meet general approbation,
even in our day, if it were performed upon an infant in a Babies'
Hospital? And yet why should it be criticized, if utility to science
is a suffici