Reprinted from The Philadelphia MEDiffiB. journal, Dec. 13 1902. 
MIDSHIPMAN AIKIN AND VIVI: 
An Open Letter to Hon. Jacob H. Gallinger, Ch.airmg,n of 
the Senate Committee for the District of Columbia, 
Washington, D. C. 
By W. W. KEEN, M. D., of Philadelphia. 
My Dear Sir: 
As you have repeatedly introduced bills into the Senate 
for the purpose nominally of regulating experiments upon 
animals in the District of Columbia, which bills, however, 
if they had become laws, would in fact have prohibited 
many, if not all, of them, I deem it my duty to call your 
attention to the case of Midshipman Aiken, of the United 
States Naval Academy, who was recently injured in a foot- 
ball game. My reason for doing so is to show you by a 
single concrete example that knowledge gained by animal 
experimentation is an immense boon to humanity and that, 
therefore, such experiments should be heartily encouraged. 
The facts of Mr. Aiken's case are as follows: When I 
first saw him, three days after the accident, I found that 
he had been unconscious for a half hour after the accident 
and ever since then had complained bitterly of headache, 
which he located always in the forehead. Mentally he was 
very dull, though not comatose. His pulse was slowed 
do-wn to 52 instead of being 72, the normal. Soon after the 
accident he began to develop convulsions, first in the 
right leg, afterward in the right arm also, the right arm 
being finally the chief seat of the convulsions. WTien they 
were very severe they involved the left side also. The face 
was never involved. In 6y2 hours after I first saw him he 
had 24 of these attacks, all limited to the right arm. They 
were not attended with any loss of consciousness. They ex- 
hausted him very greatly, especially when they were ex- 
cessivelj'- severe. Several times it was necessary to give 
him chloroform. 
There was no fracture of the skull. The only physical 
evidence of any injury was a very slight bruise at the outer 
end of the left eyebrow7. 
Had I seen this case before 1885, I should have been 
unable to explain why the spasms were chiefly manifested 2 
in the right arm, and from the evidence of the slow pulse, 
the headache, the stupor, the bruise in the left temple, 
ect., 1 should have been justified in inferring that probably 
the front part of the brain was injured at the site of the 
bruise. Had I opened his skull at that point. I should have 
found a perfectly normal brain and should have missed the 
clot. The young man, therefore, would have died whether his 
skull had been opened or not. 
In 1902 observe the difference. As a result of the knowl- 
edge derived from experiments upon animals which have 
located precisely the center for motion of the right arm on 
the left side of the brain near the top and a little in front 
of a vertical line drawn through the ear, and disregarding 
entirely the site of the headache and the bruise, I reached 
the conclusion that there had been a rupture of a blood- 
vessel within the head, which had poured out a quantity 
of blood, and that the situation of the clot should corres- 
pond to the "arm center." The location of this arm center 
was far away (about three inches) from the location of the 
bruise, and its position was fixed absolutely as a result 
of experiments upon animals, confirmed later by many 
operations on human beings and also by post mortems. 
As soon as the skull was opened at this point, the clot 
wras found, its thickest point being exactly over the arm 
center, and 9 tablespoonfuls of blood were removed, with 
the result that the patient's life has been saved. The blood 
had first been poured out over the "leg center," which is 
located a little higher up than that for the arm. This 
explained the early spasms in the right leg. The clot did 
not extend, however, further down than the arm center. 
This explained why the face was never convulsed, for the 
"face center" lies just below that for the arm. 
I think if you were to ask the parents of this young 
man how many animals they would be willing to have 
sacrificed in order that their son might have his life saved, 
there would be no doubt of the answer. Indeed, had it been 
your own son, I cannot doubt the answer. But this is only 
one of hundreds of cases in which a similar exact localiza- 
tion has been made by many surgeons, both in Europe and 
America. Yet, by a curious coincidence in the very same 
issue of a Baltimore newspaper containing a reporter's ac- 
count of the successful operation on midshipman Aiken 
there is a letter signed by an active antivivisectionist agita- 
tor, which, among other misstatements and misrepresenta- 
tions usually found in such publications, asserts that "brain 
surgery is disregarded." 3 
If the laws which you and your friends advocate were 
in force, the conditions for scientific investigation in medi- 
cine in this country would be quite as deplorable as those 
in England. For example, when Lord Lister, who has revo- 
lutionized modern surgery, largely as a result of such ex- 
periments, wished to discover possibly some still better 
way of operating by further experiments, he was obliged 
to go to Toulouse to carry them out, as the vexatious re- 
strictions of the law in England practically made it im- 
possible for him to continue there these pre-eminently hu- 
mane experiments. 
Again, when Sir T. Lauder Brunton, in London, started 
a series of experiments on animals to discover an antidote 
for the cobra and other snake poisons of India, where every 
year 20,000 human lives are sacrificed by snake bites, these 
beneficent researches were stopped by the stringent 
British laws to protect animals. Meanwhile half a million 
of human beings have hopelessly perished. 
Who, I may ask, is the more humane; he who, doubtless 
with the best and sincerest motives of love for dumb 
beasts, would prohibit experiments upon animals and there- 
by prevent the acquisition of such knowledge and so com- 
pel surgeons to stand with folded arms and see innumer- 
able lives thus needlessly sacrificed; or he who, by proper- 
ly instituted experiments, would discover such new truths 
and apply them to the service of humanity? 
The antivivisectionists have frequently denied that sur- 
geons have learned anything from such experiments. I 
presume that I may be considered a competent witness as 
to the source at least of my own knowledge, and I state 
with the greatest positiveness that, without the knowledge 
derived from experiments upon animals which have dem- 
onstrated the facts of cerebral localization, I should never 
have been able to locate the clot in Mr. Aiken's head and 
to remove it, nor should I have been able in the last 15 
years to locate numerous tumors and other brain troubles 
and relieve many of them. What is true of myself is 
equally true of other surgeons. 
In view, therefore, of the evident and positive benefit 
of such experiments, I trust that you will be willing to de- 
sist from further efforts at such repressive and, as I regard 
it, most inhumane and cruel legislation. 
As this matter is of vital importance to the well-being 
of the entire community, I shall take the liberty of giving 
this letter to the press as soon as you have received it. rtie> 
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