Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes of evidence and appendix.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection (1875)
Date:
1876
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes of evidence and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    VIU 3090. 1886. 2242. 2301. 2868. .'3420. .326. 2607. App. IIJ. App. I. 22S4. 2333. 2367. 2368. 2369. tlie conviction, at which the men of science have generally arrived, that no teaching of physical science is complete unless it is illustrated by practical instruction. Physiology in particular is now for the first time assuming the position of a separate science. The professed physiologist has been until recently almost entirely unre- presented ; that is to say, the physiological work has been done by persons engaged in other pursuits at the same time. The professor of physiology in Edinburgh was until a few years ago, a medical practitioner, a consulting physician; hut the position is now filled by a professed physiologist, who occupies his whole time in that way. At present there are three positions in England, the tenure of which limits the holders to he exclusively professed physiologists, viz., Er. Burdon-Sanderson’s at University College (London), Dr. Poster’s at Cambridge, and the Brackenbury pro- fessorship at Owens College, Manchester. It is indeed the expectation of those most conversant with the subject, that physiological investigations will more and more take place in connection with public institutions, that new chahs will from time to time l3e founded, and that an organised system of instruction in physiology will speedily become an important featm’e in scientific education. It is evident, therefore, that the number of experiments at present performed u]3on living animals can by no means he regarded as the limit of the number which we are called upon to include in our consideration, hut that on the contrary we must assume that the experimental method is being rapidly developed,.—very rapidly, Dr. Sharpey has assured us,—for, he says, that the application of physics to the plisenomena of hfe, particularly in making exact quantitative determinations, is one of the great characteristics of modern physiology. In laying before Your Majesty our opinion as to the extent to which the practice now prevails, we “have not the means of referring to statistical returns except as regards the experiments performed in the physiological laboratories attached to medi- cal schools and universities; and there can he little doubt that experiments have lieen and now are performed occasionally by private persons, of whose number we are able to form no accurate computation. The number of persons systematically engaged in the performance of them does not appear to be more than from 15 to 20 at the utmost. Such statistical information as we have been able to obtain will he found in the Appendix. A very strong feeling has been excited in the country, within the last two or three years, on this subject. On the occasion of the assemblage in London in 1874 of delegates from foreign coun- tries connected with associations for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to give public expression to a warm interest in the success of their efforts,—to a horror in hearing and reading of the sufferings which the brute creation often undergo,^—to a fear that this is sometimes the case from experiments in the pursuit of science,—and to a hope that the entire advantage of those anaesthetic discoveries, from which man has derived so much benefit himself in the alleviation of suffering, may he fully extended to the lower animals. We believe that these are the sentiments of Your Majesty’s subjects generally. The present feeling appears to have been excited by a variety of concurrent circum- stances, such as the movement, of which we have already spoken, involving, it is generally believed, a great increase, present and prospective, in the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments;—the introduction at some of the principal medical schools of experiments, by way, not .of original research only, hut of demonstrations to students given in public;—and the circulation here of the reports of many very painful experiments, mainly taken from foreign publications ;—hut most of all by the appearance in 1873 of a work called a Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory, professing to be intended for beginners, and describing niany very severe ex- periments. It is admitted in his evidence by the editor himself, that no adequate means had been taken either to explain the meaning which was intended to be conveyed by the word “ beginners,” viz., beginners in the special study of physiology,—or to make known what he told us is the general understanding in all English laboratories, that ansesthetics should he administered in the great majority of cases, and in other cases painful experiments should not he repeated merely to demonstrate truths aheady sufficiently established. This, it was presumed, would he taken for granted. He expressed his regret that this feehng should have been occasioned by the publication of .the hook, and gave us reason to expect that he would take measures, to which he referred, for correcting the impression it had produced. Much attention also has been drawn to a series of experiments which were recently performed by Dr. Eerrier in the lahoratorv of Dr. Crichton Browne, at the West Biding Lunatic Asylum at Wake-