Appendix to First report of the Commissioners : minutes of evidence, October to December, 1906.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection.
- Date:
- 1907
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Appendix to First report of the Commissioners : minutes of evidence, October to December, 1906. 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.
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![You said that the organism of swine fever wa6 invisible, but that its results could be traced manifestly by the use of it in inoculating animals ?—Yes. 3007. Are there other diseases in which it is not only true that the serum can be seen in its effect, but in which the actual organism can itself be seen micro- scopically P—Yes. 3006. Undoubtedly ?—Undoubtedly. 3009. In the case of swine fever, so far as you can see at present, the organism is so small that it is not visible by any known process?—That is so. 3010. It has never been made visible ?—It has never been made visible. 3011. Just one other matter. You spoke of your assistant operating on a rabbit for rabies. Is that the only instance in which you or your assistant have what I may call cutting operations to perform ?—I mentioned one bleeding operation. 3012. I do not trouble about that. There is a great difference, of course, from the animal’s point of view, between such a thing as opening a vein to draw blood out and opening the skull to insert matter into the brain ?—Yes. 3013. Is the single instance of a rabbit for rabies the only operation of that sort performed by you or your assistant?—That is the only one. 3014. And you say that the animal, when it recovers from the operation, appears to be wholly free from pain until such time as the disease may develop, if it does develop ?—Yes; I do not know that it is in pain when the disease does develop. 3015. But, after recovery, does the rabbit take its food and run about ?—'Yes; it runs about and takes its food. 3016. And does it sleep ?—It is a little difficult to say. It seems to be at rest. 3017. It does not seem to be suffering ?—No. 3018. What is the longest time that you have known a rabbit, to survive after a portion of the skull had been removed ?—That I cannot tell you. We generally kill them as soon as we think the object is attained. 3019. That is what I wanted to arrive at. How long a time have you known to intervene between the opera- tion and the time when you kill the rabbit ?—I think the longest time I have seen intervene has been about 30 days—-between 30 and 40 days. 3020. In that time was the rabbit wasting away, or apparently ill ?—No. 3021. (Chairman.) If it was wasting away, would you kill it, or keep it longer to see whether it really had the disease. If you are clear that it has the disease, you have no object in keeping it.alive?—No. ' 3022. And if you are clear that it is not going to have the disease*, you have no object in keeping it alive ?—No. 3023. So soon as either of these things is clear, you kill it?—Yes. 3024. (Sir Mackenzie Chalmers.) If it does not de- velop the disease, you can keep it indefinitely ?—Yes ; but we do not do that. 3025. But you might* keep it a dozen years ?—Yes, when the wound is healed. 3026. (Dr. Gaskell.) I suppose I may take it that the number of animals that are castrated and spayed in England, of different kinds, is very large indeed ?—Yes. 3027. Probably many times as large as the number vivisected ?—Yes, I should think so. 3028. I suppose there are a great number of those that do not heal up directly?—Quite a number. It takes quite a week or two for such a wound to heal ; it is a big wound. 3029. It does not heal by first intention ?—I should think it almost never completely heals by first inten- tion. 3030. There is always suppuration and suffering of the animal therefore?—I will not say that spaying does not heal by first intention sometimes, but in the case of castration of males I should think it almost ]\fr. S. never heals by first intention. Stockman, 3031. Still one may take it that there is a good deal m.r.c.y.s. oUsuffering in the wound?—Yes, I think the animal s TyJf. ioac will have a painful wound. . 3032. There was another thing I wanted to ask you about which I do not think the Commission quite understand, and that is the method of obtaining im- munity—the experimental methods tried for obtain- ing immunity—you spoke of the serum method, and you spoke also of injection of virus ?•—Yes. 3033. Those are two distinct methods, are they not ? —They are two distinct methods which in the last two or three years have been combined most successfully. I think the most successful methods are the combina- tion of virus and serum. 3034. Would you tell us how the injection of virus confers immunity? What is the rationale of it?— The rationale of it is that it gives the animal a slight attack of the disease, a non-fatal attack, but sufficient to give it immunity. 3035. But how is it that it only gives the animal a small attack and not a fatal attack?—One generally uses attenuated virus, or else with the virus one injects serum so as to control the intensity of the disease. 3036. Then when you speak of the serum treatment that applies only to what I may call the vegetable parasites ?•—Yes, it has riot been developed with regard to other parasites—animal blood parasites. 30371 And the animal parasites—the protozoa para- sites, as one may call them, have been investigated much later than the bacilli ?—Yes. 3038. So that it is natural that we should not know so much about their action as we know about the action of the bacillus?—Yes. 3039. It is also true, is it not, that in tropical countries, such as South Africa, the diseases are es- sentially protozoa diseases ?—Very largely they are protozoa diseases. 3040. Produced by ticks and other insects ?—Carried by ticks and blood-sucking flies. 3041. So that yon cannot expect to get a serum treatment for those diseases at the present moment, at all events ?—I should not say that exactly, because of the .results with horse sickness, which, of course, is a virus the nature of which is not known ; the results with horse sickness serum have been very encouraging. 3042. Is that a protozoa sickness ?—It is supposed to be ; I think the answer would probably be that you cannot expect to have the same results—that you do not get the same results by serum with regard to protozoa diseases. 3043. Was not the oldest and first to be investi- gated Nagana ?—Yes, one of the oldest. 3044. The tsetse fly disease?—Yes. 3045. That has been largely investigated over in England as well as in South Africa ?—Yes- 3046. And as yet no serum treatment has been found for it?—No practical serum treatment. For instance, Laveran thought that human serum had an effect, but you may say that there is no serum method in vogue. 3047. And it is most important, of course, for South Africa, to find some such remedy ?—It is very important for many parts of Africa. 3048. Because it is entirely a stock-raising country —over large tracts of it ?—Yes. 3049. And the diseases there are so numerous and so virulent that until some such remedy is found the future of South Africa does not look at all well ?— That is so of all the country, whether the country be an arable farming country or a stock country (for you cannot farm without stock). Until they have some method of preventing or curing these diseases, the death rate and losses will be enormous. 3050. What I mean is that the failure in finding an anti-serum treatment for certain of these diseases is not failure of the experimental method, it is due to the difference between the protozoa parasite and the vegetable parasite?—That is so. 349. 0](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28038496_0113.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
