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
- 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 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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![cord, namely, between the occiput and atlas; and they oblongata. At all events, it is unlikely that it is situated in the spinal cord, since the experiments of Kiissmaul and Tenner and Schiffer show very clearly that the circulation of dyspnoeic blood (a term that implies no theory as to whether the phenomena produced are due to the absence of oxygen or the presence of carbonic acid) through the cord is not followed % any symptoms of irritation, as by con- vulsions, but by rapid paralysis of the posterior extremities, the paralysis appearing in the course of a minute or a minute and a half.—LoMcet, No. 2,551, p. 87. Professor Cyon gives the following results of experiments made upon the above point. Dogs and rabbits were used, some under the influence of curare during the exjieriments, and some not. 1. The uterine plexus is the most im- portant, if not the only motor nerve which can produce eflPectual mov'ements of the uterus by the irritation of its peripheral ends. Irritation of the central ends only gave rise to severe vomiting. 2. Irritation of the central ends of the first two sacral nerves produces in a refle.x way powerful uterine movements which cease after the uterine plexus has been cut through. Irritation of the peripheral nerves gives rise to powerful contractions of the bladder and rectum, d. Irritation of the brachial, crural, median, sciatic nerves, etc., give rise to no peristaltic movements of the uterus, but only causes a slight rigidity and paleness. 4.. The effect of the irritation of these nerves disappears if the aorta has been previously compressed, but irritation of the central ends of the sacral nerves still causes, even after the closure of the aorta, peristaltic movements of the uterus. 5. Suffocation through continued interruption of respiration causes powerful peristaltic movements, probably through direct excitation of the involuntary muscular fibres by the accumulation of carbonic acid gas.—British Medical Journal, No. 717, p- 405. These reasonings have been confirmed by certain experi- ments of M. Bernard, who found that, when an incision is made into a lobe of the liver in a living animal, the blood may be seen to jet from the mouths of the hepatic veins during the movements of expiration, but to return sucking in air with it at each deep inspiration, so that the animal soon dies from the passage of air into the heart.—Dr. Charles Murchison, British Medical Journal, No. 695, p. 567. Dr. Hertzmann says that by continuous administration of lactic acid to dogs and cats, rickets, firstly, and then osteo-malakia may be caused, whilst in rabbits and guinea- pigs osteo-malakia.may be caused without rickets occurring. Lactic acid, he says, causes rickets as long as the animal is young, and osteo-malakia when it is older.—The Doctor, He cut down upon the splanchnics in dogs and rabbits from behind, and divided them without opening the peri- toneum. After section of both great splanchnics the blood pressure fell greatly, while the rapidity of the pulse increased. Strange to say, in some animals which survived the operation, when the blood pressure was again observed after some days interval, it was found to have attained a degree as high as it had been before division of the nerves. On irritating the peripheral end of the divided splanchnicus maijor, or the central ends of any of its roots, the blood pressure always rose, and with few exceptions slowing of the pulse resulted. The latter was much less marked when the vagi had been previously divided.—Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 1869, p. 211. He has found that after division of intestinal nerves in dogs a large secretion of watery fluid into the intestines results. In a large healthy dog, v'hich had fasted for twenty-four hours, he exposed a knuckle of bowel, and put four ligatures round it; these were separated from each other, so that the three portions of intestine, each about fifteen centimetres in length, were included within the ligatures. He carefully isolated and di^■ided the nerves supplying the middle ligatured portion, taking care to avoid injury to the vessels. He closed the wound in the abdominal wall, and allowed the animal to remain at rest. In one dog a hundred grammes of fluid were found in the intestine three hours after the operation ; arid in another dog, killed eighteen hours after, two hundred and twenty- five grammes were present.—Journal of Anatomy and Mr. Joseph Michon records an experiment which pro- duced results different from those heretofore recoi’ded. He I'emoved the superior cervical ganglion of the sympa- thetic in the common cock.—Lancet, No. 2,218, p. 238. In the last number of the American Journal of Medical Sciences we find one more added to the many theories that have been advanced to explain the uses of the cerebellum. Dr. Mitchell, an able experimenter, who states he has been studying the subject for six years, obtains the following results in pigeons, on which he had practised both the ablation of the organ, and the application of intense cold by means of Richardson’s spray apparatus. After ablation he found, in accordance with the observations of other experimenters, that if the wound were deep con- vulsions invariably occurred, together with a tendeney to backward movements, and that immediately suceeeding, or even accompanying these, was an indescribable con- fusion of movement, the animal staggering, &c., and exhibiting what is commonly described as an apparent want of co-ordination.—Lancet, 2,393, j). 57. At a recent sitting of the Parisian Academy of Medicine, Mr. Colin sought to demonstrate wth the aid of anatomical preparations, that in man and the higher animals the auri- cular systole precedes the ventricular in the action of the heart, just as it occurs in the lower animals. He asserted that conviction of this fact may be obtained by taking certain precautions in experimenting on the higher animals. If the animal be carefully bled to avoid disturbance of the cardiac circulation, and if artificial respiration be properly kept up, it will be clearly seen that the contraction of the heart begins at the auricles. The speaker undertook to perform and show the experiment whenever called upon to do so. [A readiness to repeat “ whenever called upon ” shows a bad tendency of e.xperimentation.]—London Medical Record, 1874, p. 306. Let us first take under review the action of ozone on living animals. If a warm blooded animal be placed in a glass chamber, and be subjected to a stream of ozonised air, the oxygen of that air having been ozonised to the twelfth part and the influence of carbonic acid being entirely excluded, special physiological phenomena are quickly displayed. The first sign or symptom is an irritability of the mucous surface of the nostrils and of the conjunctivae; there is often free secretion of saliva, and even profuse sweating in those animals that exhibit sweating, there is also thirst, and dryness of the tongue and nostrils. These symptoms are succeeded by great rapidity of respiration, and soon by violent action of the heart. When the chest is auscultated in this stage there is always dry bronchial breathing, and a whistling sound, as in the first or prelimi- nary stage of acute bronchitis in the human subject. The effect of the ozone being sustained, cough manifests itself, followed by secretion of frothy fluid from the bronchial surface; this is equivalent to the congestive stage of bronchitis. Finally, there is lividity of the skin of the nose, of the nostrils, and of the lips, great coldness of the surface, gasping respiration, jactitation, and death, the death being often sudden. This may be said to resemble most perfectly the exudative stage of bronchitis. This order of symptoms, or phenomena as they perhaps had better be called, has been recognised by all experimentalists; it has been pointed out with particular care by Dr. Richardson, and my own experiments have been attended with a corresponding result. There is, however, a remarkable difference in the periods of the phenomena noticed in different animals, their order, nevertheless, being maintained in each case in which they are manifested. Guinea-pigs are peculiarly susceptible of the influence of ozone; these animals die in an atmosphere saturated,with ozone usually in about an hour and a quarter, presenting with great exactitude the order of symptoms ! have described above. Rabbits live longer than guinea-pigs, exhaling water from the lungs much more freely, and also micturating with greater freedom. Rats die very rapidly. Mice e.xhibit a greater tolerance. Pigeons resist the effects of ozone much longer than guinea-pigs, and may readily be taken out of the chamber in which they have been confined with guinea-pigs, apparently but little inconvenienced, at the period when the guinea-pigs are dead. If when just re- moved the chest is auscultated, the breathing, however, is found to be particularly sharp, dry, and cooing, the action of the heart being amazingly rapid, reaching even 240 beats in the minute, and the respiration being from 90 to 100 in](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21302893_0385.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
