Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty.

Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection (1875)

Date:: 1876

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

131/1052 (page 101)

$interesting series of experiments that ever were made on this very subject of the action of mercury on the liver of dogs, and he arrived at certain conclusions which must of course be accepted by medical men as ultimate facts to go upon if we were called upon to treat sick dogs, but they do not apply to sick men at .ill. Notwithstanding the publication of these results, there is not a medical man in all Europe or America who has altered his practice in regard to giving blue pill in cases of liver congestion. It is a very interest- ing illustration of the fact that you cannot argue by analogy from one animal to another. I would give as an illustration of that a case I am familiar with, as the experiments were made by myself. At the time of the Palmer murder attention was directed to the properties of stryclmia, and a murder occurring at the same time in Belgium, when Comte de Bocarme, with the connivance, if not with the aid of his wife, murdered her brother with nicotine, led to a number of experiments being made by myself on strychnia and nicotine ; and I discovered by experi- menting on frogs that I could make a bath of nicotine which Avould kill a frog in a minute, and another bath of strychnine which would kill another frog in four minutes ; but that taking a mixtm-e of nicotine and • strychnine, mixed in certain proportions, T produced a batli wdiich the frog could live in for weeks. I'hose experiments were published by the Royal Irish Academy, and the first application made of them was by a young man wlio was present at the reading of the paper, who was clinical clerk in tlie Meath Hospital. He went out and became a practitioner in America, and he had the good fortune to save a sailor's life at Saint Louis, Cincinnati, who liad taken a hirge dose of stryclmia in a glass of beer, and whom he cured afterwards by tobacco. Since that, five or six similar cases of cure of poisoning by strychnia have occurred. I went on and extended the ex- periments to dogs, and was greatly struck with tlie result ; I got no such result in dogs at all. That shows how uncertain a priori jitdgroents are in reasoning from analogy. I found in that case tltat the action of strychnia and nicotine upon frogs was nearer to its action upon men than its action upon dogs Avas, which is contrary to wliat you would a priori suppose. 1876. {Cliairmcm.') I understand you then to oljject entirely to the tise of living ani-mals for the purposes of instruction ?—Yes. 1877. Whether under auEEsthesia or not ?—Yes. 1878. I understand that you would tolerate but regulate the same proceeding in reference to original scientific research ?—Following the principle of the Anatomy Act of 1834, because that is an important guide to us in this whole question. ] 879. Now have you seen the two bills that were in the last session before the two Houses of Parlia- ment ?—I have. 1880. Do you approve of either of those bills, or are you prepared to suggest anything yourself as an improvement upon them ?—I do not entirely approve of either of the bills. There is a defect in Lord Henniker's bill, in clause seven, in his definition of vivisection. It is confined to cutting or wounding either with knives or galvanism any living vertebrate animal, or producing in any living vertebrate animal a painful disease. That leaves out of the question tlie case of the administration of poisons or narcotics, because they can hardly be said to produce diseases. It is a defect in the definition of vivisection. And then I object, in clause four, to the principle of charging 10/. for a license for a person to conduct experiments, because the Almighty does not always give brains to men who have 10/. in their pocket. I would have the poorest man in the country,, if the Almighty had endowed him with the gift of I'esearch to advantage, at liberty to use it. And I would leave out details such as that bill goes into about mari, as to whieli it is very doublfnl whetlier tlie physiology of them is correct or not; and I would secure such a supervision as would arrange details of that kind. N 1881. You would leave tlie details to the judgment Rev. of the supervising body ?—Yes. I would charge no Hdngluoji, fee for vivisecting, and I would include more in M.U. vivisecting; I make the range of it very general. (>r~i8^ Those are the only objections that I have to Lord Henni- ~ ' ' ker's bill. Dr. Lyon Playfair's bill I have not considered so carefully; but I have noticed two things that I object to in it. I object to clause four, authorising the President of the Royal Society, the Presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in London, Edinburgli, or Dublin, the Presidents of the Colleges of Physicians in Loudon, Edinburgh, or Dublin, and also a professor of physiology, medicine, or anatomy in some university in Great Britain, or recognised by the colleges of surgeons and physicians aforesaid to give certificates to a person wanting to vivisect. I haveisio confidence in those gentlemen at all; they would give their per- mission or prohibit it according to individual opinions. That Avould be no control, but would he utterly insufficient. And I am entirely opposed to clause eight, A license under this Act shall extend to any person assisting the holder of the license, providt'd the person assisting acts in the presence and under the directions of such holder. That would open the door to vivisection performed by young men who are utterly unfit for the [lurpose ; it would be gradually handed over, like post mortem examinations in a hospital, from the hands of the head man to the hands of the class, and it would introduce the pi-actice of vivisection liy students. That would be the inevitable result of it, and I lielieA C tiiat is intended to Vie the result of it in any medical school, that the person holding the license w^ould really be very lightly responsilde for what was done ; his mere presence Avould be sntficicnt. 1882. Do you approve of the distinction drawn in Dr. Playfair's bill betAveen experiments which do not cause pain, that is, which are made under ana3stliesia. and experiments Avhicli must necessarily cause pain, and which are made by license from the Secretary of State ?—^That contemplates, as I understand it, the ana^sthetical experiments for class teaching, Avhich I Avish entirely to stop. 1883. But Avith regard to those that are made lor the purpose of original scientific research Avonld j-ou be satisfied Avith that distinction ?—No, I Avould require the controlling power, Avhatever it is, to order the aiiiesthesia in cases Avliere they thought fit, and to permit its absence Avherc they thought lit, but I Avould leave no discretion to the operator. 1884. You would not approve of its being taken out of the operation of the criminal Acts against cruelty if anesthesia Avas used ?—Most certainly not, because I knoAv the practice is to use the anaisthesia very imperfectly, and Avhen the controlling eye is gone to drop the use of it altogether. 1885. The present law, I think, protects only certain animals, and leaves Avithout protection certain other animals ?—Yes, and there is great inconvenience in that. 1886. Then are you prepared to recommend a detailed mode of restriction based upon the view that you have given us, that there should be inspectors as there are under the Anatomy Act of 1834 ?—That hardly falls under the province of a Avitness; it is rather for the Commission ; I merely thrcAv out the suggestion, as a guide, of the supervision under the Anatomy Act of 1834, Avhich has worked uncom- monly well, and it occurs to me that if Ave availed ourselves of the services of the inspector of anatomy under that Act as one of tAvo inspectors, and let the public appoint another, Ave should have every guarantee that is necessary. These vivisections Avill necessarily be ahv^iys performed in connection Avith large cities and medical schools. There will always be an inspector of anatomy in such a town as Edin- burgh, or any large toAvn, or AA^e can get them appointed if necepsary at only a slight expense. In Cork, Galway, and Belfast there is an inspector of anatomy, AA'hose expenses are paid by the price jiaid for the coi'ijses. If the Society for the Prevention 3$