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
Licence: Public Domain Mark
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.
187/1052 (page 157)
![were on lasting animals and his on non-fasting animals ?—Yes, the conclusions drawn regarding podophylline were different. 3016. Does not that suggest that the same experi- ment must be repeated to sec whether that Avas the cause of the difference ?—It might be ; I do not know that it would be necessary, but still it might be. 3017. My point is, that on the whole the results are purely approximate, and may be subsequently disputed ?—Well, I could conceive that they might be disputed, although I do not think that there is any reasonable ground for disputing them. 3018. I understand you to say (and that is a point on which I am rather anxious to get a distinct answer) that you find dogs and cats so very much moi'e useful than other animals for the purposes of experiments that it would be destroying your practical physiology to exclude them ?—I said dogs and rabbits are required in addition to frogs ; I am distinctly of that opinion. 3019. The rabbit, I take it, is not a domestic animal; would not rabbits alone be sufficient for your purposes ? I believe they are less sensitive, are they not, than most other animals ?—I do not think that rabbits alone would suffice ; I thiuk it is necessary to have my twa dogs. 3020. Would not your experiments on podophylline and other substances have succeeded equally well if tried on rabbits ?—My very first experiment with podophylline was tried on a rabbit, and I got no result; I tried it on a dog and got a result similar to what is supposed to take place in man. 3021. Is it not conceivable that somebody might say that the results were spoiled by your use of curari ?—Quite conceivable, but not likely, because I give sufficient reason for stating that it is not likely in the report. W. Rutherford, M.D. 2G Oct. 1875. The witness withdrew. Mr. William Turner, M.B., called in and examined 3022. (Chairman.) You are Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh ?—I am. 3023. In that capacity do you yourself come into connexion with the subject of experiments upon living animals? — I do not myself for class purposes, for demonstration purposes, experiment on living animals ; my work as a teacher lies with dead bodies, not with living animals. 3024. Plave you given much consideration to the subject which is referred to us ?—I have. 3025. Will you state what is the result of that con- sideration ?—I have made a few jottings to assist me in what I have to say on this matter, and I propose in the first instance to speak of the practice of submitting living animals to experiments for scientific purposes in its bearings on the advancement of physiological science generally. With this object I have made notes of the history of various discoveries, and I propose to take in illustration the discovery of the circulation of the blood, the discovery of the lacteal and lymphatic system of vessels, and the discovery of the compound function of the spinal nerves; and I have selected these three subjects for illustration because they lie at the very foundation (jf all our present physiological knowledge; without them physiology, and conse- quently practical medicine, would be a perfect chaos; and moi-eover, the history of the discovery of these matters is so well ascertained and so generally accepted that I do not thiuk that any exception can be taken to the narrative which I shall give. With regard to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, this, as the Commission of course know, was made by the immortal Harvey, our own country- man, who published his memoir on the motion of the heart and of the blood in the year 1628. Before the time of Harvey many important observations had been made by anatomists, and many facts discovered. The structure of the heart, the difference between the arteries and the veins, the ]n-esence of valves in the veins, were all known ; and these were discoveries which were necessary as a pre- liminary to the discovery of the circulation of the blood itself. These discoveries were all anatomical, made by observation on dead bodies ; but in order that the discovery of the circulation of the blood siiould be made, it was necessary that the living body should be examined and I may select one or two passages from the memoir of Harvey, to which I have just referred, so that the Commission may have before them Harvey's own testimony on this matter. In the first chapter of his memoir, as rendered by his translator Dr. Vv'illis, I find the following statement: When I first gave my mind to vivisections, as a means of discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover these from actual inspection and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of difficul- U M,: W. Turner, ties, that I was almost tempted to think, with M.B. Fracastorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God. For I could neither rightly perceive at first Avhen the systole and when the diastole took place, nor when and where dilata- tiou and contraction occurred, by reason of the rapidity of the motion, which in many animals is accomplished in the tAvinkling of an eye, coming and going like a flash of lightning; so that the systole presented itself to me now from this point, now from that, the diastole the same; and then everything was reversed, the motions occurring, as it seemed, variously and confusedly together. My mind was, therefore, greatly unsettled, nor did I know what I should myself conclude, nor what believe from others. I was not surprised that Andreas Laurentins should have said that the mo- tion of the heart was as perplexing as the flux and reflux of Euripus had appeared to Aristotle. At length, and by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing a variety of animals for the purpose, and collating numerous observations, I thougjit that I had at- tained to the truth, that I should extricate myself and escape from this labyrinth, and that I had discovered what 1 so much desired, both the motion and the use of the heart and arteries, since which time I have not hesitated to expose my views upon these subjects, not only in private to my friends l)ut also in public in my anatomical lectures, after the manner of the Academy of old. Then in the second chapter of the same treatise is a passage which refers to the same subject, and states what the animals are on which he made his observa- tions. These statements are as follows: These things are more obvious in the colder animals, such as toads, frogs, serpents, small fishes, crabs, shrimps, snails, and shell fish. They also become more distinct in warm-blooded animals, such as the dog and hog, if they be attentively noted when the heart begins to flag, to move more slowly, and, •' as it were, to die ; the movements then become slower and rarer, the pauses longer, by which it is made much more easy to perceive and unravel what the motions really are, and how they are performed. In the pause, as in death, the heart is soft, flaccid, ex- hausted, lying, as it were, at rest. In the sixth chapter of the same treatise there are also observations bearing on the same matter, and showing how errors had arisen through the non-employment of vivisection by previous observers. He says, Since the intimate connexion of the heart with the lungs, which is apparent in the human subject, has been the probable cause of the errors that have been committed on this point, they plainly do amiss who, pretending to speak of the parts of animals generally, as anatomists for the most part do, confine their researches to the 3](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23983334_0189.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
