Appendix to Second report of the Commissioners : minutes of evidence, February to March, 1907.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection (1906)
- Date:
- 1907
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Appendix to Second report of the Commissioners : minutes of evidence, February to March, 1907. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![wished to sleep. I suppose you would wish to be quite sure that it would send him to sleep in the first in- stance’—But Liebreich had not the remotest concep- tion that it would cause any sleep at all, it was a pure chance. He did not give it to his animals to cause sleep ; he chose chloral because it was a substance of which he could detect the constituents in the blood. lt was a purely scientific inquiry he was engaged on} no one had any conception at the time that such a drug would cause sleep. 4720. I was referring rather to the experiments you speak of when you state that he devoted his attention to a long series of experiments on its soporific action in animals ?—It was not so much its soporific action— perhaps I put it badly—it was. to find whether there were any other effects besides the soporific ; for example, whether it acted strongly upon the heart, which would be a bad thing; whether it was eliminated rapidly by the kidney, and whether other organs were deleter- iously affected, or whether ‘it was purely a sleep drug. 4721. (Colonel Lockwood.) What is it made of? What are the component parts of it?—It is made from alcohol and chlorin. It is not very: far away from chloroform. 4722. (Chairman.) You would not have thought it safe, I understand, to experiment on mankind ; there might ‘be something harmful in it?—Yes. Liebreich had to find out not only its sleep-bringing property, but also whether it had any poisonous properties in addition. 4725. Were these experiments experiments which in- volved death to the animal?—Yes, I think most of them were manometer experiments. As a matter of fact, the animal would mcstly die of chloral afterwards, with the large doses he used, anyhow. 4724. Or would an injection into the veins kill it? —wNot necessarily. 4725. Were these experiments after the Act of 1875? —No, in 1868 and 1869. 4726. And they were in Germany ?—Yes, they were in Germany. 4727. At any rate the result of them was to intro- duce chloral as being a safe and useful soporific, I under- stand P—Yes. 4728. And has it been adopted generally in medicine ? —Very largely. 4729. And, as I understand you to say, after, and in consequence of these experzments of Liebreich ?—Yes. 4730. Then what are the other soporifics ?P—The second example I take is sulphonal. While Baumann and Kast were examining the changes in organic sul- phur compounds in the body (a research in physiological chemistry. of purely scientific: interest) their attention was attracted to the action of a group of bodies, the disulphones, on a dog, which went asleep and. only regained its normal condition a number of hours after- wards. Kast examined this phenomenon in a long series of experiments on different animals, and ther took occasion to test the effect on man. The successful results induced him to introduce into therapeutics the very valuable hypnotic sulphonal, which he found the best of the disulphones. 4731. I understand both these discoveries of the use of chloral as a soporific and of sulphonal arose inci- dentally out of experiments which had an object of general physiology?—Yes, they were casual notes, casual observations, so far as therapeutics are con- cerned, 4732. And the particular experiments out of which they arose in the first instance were not experiments with the view to discovering a remedy for any particu- lar disease ?—No, they had no reference to thera- peutics. 4733. Then other soporifics that you refer to?— Later, comparisons of the effects on animals led Kast to prefer the analogous compounds trional and tetronal as somewhat better, and they have also been used in therapeutics. In 1881, Cervello examined the effects of a number of bodies on animals, among them paralde- hyd. bos 4734. Were those in Italy ?—I think he began them in Italy and completed them in Strasburg, under Schmiedeberg. They are published in Schmiedeberg’s Archive. He expected this compound to act like aldehyd, and was much surprised to find it cause 349. 21 sleep. He advised its use in medicine, and it is now included in most pharmacopeias, including the British Pharmacopeeia. Mr. A. R. Cushy, M.A., M,D. ing irritation of the stomach and irritation ef the throat. Paraldehyd is. very closely related to it chemically. 4736. But it has not its deleterious effects?—Thev are almost entirely absent; in fact, they are absent in most cases. 4737. And that. experiment also was the discovery of a remedy arising out. of general inquiry ?—Yes. Then Crum-Brown and Fraser were the first to point out as the result of animal experiments that bodies resemb- ‘ing each other in chemical composition often induce somewhat similar effects in the anima] body, and the discovery of these sleep-compelling compounds sug- gested the view that all bodies of a chemical composi- tion similar to them would act as useful hypnotics. As a matter of fact, this is only partially true. Hach body has to be tested on animals to find whether it has hypnotic properties which can be utilised in practice, and comparatively few have stood the test. Liebreich’s introduction of chloral has, however, proved to be the first of a very considerable group, all introduced into medicine by the same way of animal experimentation. These are amylene hydrate, urethane, hedonal, neuronal, chloretone, isopral, chloralamid, chloralose, bromoform, and last of all, perhaps the best of the series, veronal and proponal. No soporific has been introduced in the last forty years, except by means of animal experiment. 4738. Do you consider that these could any of them have been safely introduced ag an ordinary remedy for man without experiment first on animals; is that your view ?—They could not have been introduced without experiment on animals. Perhaps I might give you an example of that in the dose. For example, if you take paraldehyd, the last one I mentioned, an ordinary dose of paraldehyd would be four or five cubic centimetres, say, and if you started with the latest member of the series, veronal, in the same dose, it would be poisonous. The dose of veronal would be only about a tenth of the dose of paraldehyd, and it might be a very dangerous matter. 4739. Veronal is the one most approved now, is it not ?—It has been introduced in the last two or three- years, and is becoming very popular. 4740. (Colonel Lockwood.) Is it a coal tar product, made from coal tar ?—No, it is not made from coal tar.. It is made from the alcohol series. All those are-. alcohol derivatives almost, 4741. (Chairman.) I see among them is urethane... Is that an anesthetic too. I think we have been told it was used as an anesthetic?—Urethane is am angesthetic on animals in large doses, and would be im man if sufficient were given; but it would require a very large dose in man, I take it, to cause anesthesia. 4742. However, it is the same drug we have heard mentioned as used as an anesthetic P—Yes, all of those drugs are anesthetics in large doses. In small doses . in human beings they cause sleep; in large doses they remove pain entirely—all this series, 4743. (Sir. William Church.) Does an animal recover: from an anesthetic dose of urethane ?—There is a large - mortality I would say ; but they can recover. acted as an anzesthetic the chances would be greatly- against his recovery P—I think so. 4745. (Sir Mackenzie Chalmers.) Do the animals recover only under special treatment or do they re- cover naturally from the aneesthetic?—They recover naturally, provided they are not allowed to become too cold ; but unless precautions are taken in that way they are very apt to die. A certain proportion of them would recover, I would say. 4746. (Mr. Ram.) Have any of these discoveries of Crum-Brown and. Fraser disclosed drugs which were poisonous in themselves, which, if untested by animals, might have killed human beings?—Crum-Brown and Fraser were interested only in drawing a chemical law ; they thought they would draw a chemical law. All of those first four or five bodies belong to one chemical series, and the question they tried to work out was whether all the members of a chemical series would D2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3218217x_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
