medicaldelays

MEDICAL DELAYS

Far from providing any medical benefits,
animal experiments have actually DELAYED medical progress...

ANATOMY

Galen (131-201AD) related his experiments on pigs and apes to humans -
stating that humans have a five-lobbed liver; a double bile duct; two uterine
cavities (the right side for male, the left side for female foetus); an inter-
maximillary bone in the skull between the two bones which form the upper
jaw.

Versalius (151-1564) dissected human cadavers, correcting Galen`s wrong
theories.

BLOOD CIRCULATION:

Galen proposed that blood ebbed and flowed like the tide, and passed thru
invisible pores.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) noted, from studies of human cadavers, that
valves prevented blood changing course and returning to the heart by the
same route. Servetus (in 1545), by studies of human cadavers, contradicted
Galen`s theory that blood passed thru invisible pores. Fabricus (in 1579)
studied human cadavers and described valves in the circulatory system.

CAUSES OF CANCER:

Galen believed that an excess of black bile built up in the lips, breasts or
tongue, causing cancer.

Versalius (in 1540) studied human cadavers and, failing to find black bile,
proved Galen was wrong.

John Hunter (1728-93), an animal experimenter, thought that cancer tumours
grew from coaguated lymph, constantly nourished by the host organism.

Johannes Mueller (in 1838), by microscopic studies, established that cancer
was not of coagulated lymph but was of cells.

Rudolph Virchow (in 1858), an animal experimenter, wrote that cancer came
from abnormal changes within cells, the abnormal cells then multiplied
through division, so that cancers were the result of disturbances in the
cellular division of the body.

Theodor Klebs (in 1867) condemned Virchow`s theory, and suggested that
most human cancers originate in eptheral tissue. Tumours originating in
human epitheral tissue - for example, breasts, lungs, stomach - are known
as carcinomas.

DIABETES:

Galen reasoned that diabetes was a "weakness of the kidney which cannot
hold back water".

Thomas Cawley (in 1778) showed by autopsy studies that diabetes may
result from damage to the pancreas.

POLIOMYELITIS:

Flexner and Lewis (in 1910) experimented on rhesus monkeys, which led
to the belief that blood vessels, lymph channels, and tiny nerves below
the surface of the nasal mucosa and close to the brain were incriminated
in the cause of polio.

Harmon (in 1937) isolated poliovirus from the intestinal washings from five
human polio patients. This led to Flexner`s "olfactory portal" tract theory
giving way to acceptance of the understanding of "oral-alimentary tract"
portal of entry of the poliovirus.

ARTERIAL SUTURING:

Asman (in 1773) tried suturing experimentally-produced lacerations of
small arteries in dogs and failed. Negative results in animal experiments
led to abandonment of the arterial suturing for clinical use.

Postempski (in 1886) undertook lateral suturing of a human, and described
the procedure to the Italian Surgical Society.

HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY:

B F Skinner (in 1938) developed a perspex box into which a small animal,
such as a rat, could be placed and taught to press a lever for a "reward".
If the animal failed to response, it did not receive the reward.

Later, in a review of a book on the life of Skinner, the author wrote that
"By his over-simplification, Skinner held back progress of human
psychology for a generation".

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