• Dr. Arthur Stradling, of the ship 'Elbe,' who appears
to have got himself five times bitten by rattlesnakes in order to test the efficiency of a certain precautionary regimen which he believes to be a safeguard against the results of rattlesnake poison, is a scientific experimenter of true heroism. These are experiments made not only at his own expense, but with some security that they will answer their purpose. You may torture innumerable dogs by such experiments, and be none the wiser. What secures the dog against the poison need not secure the man; what falls to secure the dog might secure the man. But Dr. Arthur Stradling may fairly infer that whatever protects him against the poison of a rattlesnake, will protect many of his fellow-men also. He deserves better things than to go through all the 260 remaining kinds of rattlesnake poison, in order to test his regimen.. It might well happen, indeed, that so long a course of vaccination with snake poison would render the experiments on himself ineffectual as a test of what the poison would pro- duce in a fresh human organism.
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