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
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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.

    399/450 (page 369)
    changes induced were examined at various intervals of time ranging from two hours' to six months, and both in the fresh state and after maceration in different preserving Vulpian removed completely this ganglion in dogs, on the left side. At the end of from ten to fifteen days the animals were curarised and artificial respiration kept up. body were stimulated by strong induced ciu’rents. Each time the pupil on the left side dilated a little from the quarter to a third of its radius.—Journal of Anatomy and After extirpating the superior cervical ganglion in a dog, it was curarised after the la'pse of from 10 to 15 days. Artificial respiration was kept up, and the skin of the abdomen and hinder extremities were stimulated with strong induced currents, each time both the pupils became dilated, even that corresponding to the side operated (jn, and which is inervated from the upper cervical ganglion (a part of the sympathetic was destroyed at the time of extirpation).—Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, No- A. Binder excised a piece (1‘5 c. m. in length) of the left cervical sympathetic from a half-grown rabbit. In about a month the rabbit had grown just as the other rabbits, and appeared quite sound. The left pupil was only half as large as the right, and the left eyeball projected much less from the orbital cavity than the right. The left ear was distinctly broader and larger than the right, and was more hyperaemic and warmer. In a fortnight later the difference in size was more 1874, p. 214. Dr. Hjalmar Heiberg's (of Christiania) paper on the regeneration of the corneal epithelium, which leads olf the serial, contains several points. His mode of procedure was to scratch the surface of the cornea with a cataract needle in animals (frogs, birds, rats,) and after the lapse of from 18 to 40 hours to remove If one continues to administer a daily dose of alcohol sufficient to bring on intoxication, one remarks in the dog from about the fifteenth day a nervous excitability of quite peculiar character. The animal is melancholy and uneasy; he listens, the least noise makes him start; when the door is opened, seized with fright he runs and crouches in the darkest corner of the room; he no longer responds when })atted, he runs away and tries to bite when one attempts to take hold of him, and utters sharj) cries at the mere threat of blows. This irritable and timid condition increases each day, and from the end of the first month, illusions and hallucinations becoming added to it, it is transformed into a veritable delirium. In the middle of the night he utters plaintive moans, or even whilst all is quiet he begins to bark, the cries becoming louder and more frequent as if an enemy were approaching; speaking or calling does not reassure him, one must interfere with a light. At last, during the day he growls without cause; then, thinking that he is pursued, he cries out, runs scared hither and thither, with his head turned back and snapping in the AVhat we see in the dog, in some cases, after intravenous, subcutaneous, or stomachal injections of essence of absinthe is as follows :—In the interval between tv/o epileptic attacks, and sometimes before the convulsive symptoms, or even without convulsions, the animal is seized with an attack of delirium. All of a sudden he erects himself on his paws, the hair bristles, the look becomes wild, the eyes injected and brilliant, staring at some particular spot where there is nothing apparent to draw his attention; he barks furiously, advances and retires as before an enemy, with open mouth he throws his head suddenly forwards, and immediately shuts his jaws and shakes them from side to side, as if he wished to tear his prey in pieces. This attack of delirium may recur several times; then the effects pass off, and the animal becomes quite calm.—Dr. Magnan, / 3 Mr. Ranvier adduced certain experiments, which, if they do not absolutely disprove the ordinarily received views, at least are strongly suggestive of the suspicion with which we should regard all traditional dogmas, however high the authority by which they are supported. The views above mentioned seem to date from, the ex- periments made by our countryman Richard Lower, vzho, in his “ Essay on the Heart and on the Colour and Move- ment of the Blood,” first showed that tying- the vena cava cedema of the head, with copious flow of saliva and tears, resembling, as he says, the salivatiori produced by mercury, terminating in two days in suffocation. repeat the second experiment of Lower, He tied the two jugular veins at the inferior part of the neck in a dog and in a rabbit. To his surprise, however, these animals pre- sented no discharge of tears, no salivation, nor any aedema of the head. In other experiments he ligatured the femoral vein immediately below the crural ring in the dog; but here again no aedema occurred either on the day of opera- tion or any subsequent period. These results conse- quently were in accordance with those observed by Hodgson in man. Lastly, he applied the ligature to the inferior vena cava, but still no aedema occurred. He then conceived the idea of favouring the production of dropsy by paralysing the vaso-motor nerves, and recalling the experiments and ob- servations of M. Claude Bernard he divided the sciatic nerve on one side in a dog whose vena cava inferior had previously been .tied. On this side a considerable degree of aedema immediately supervened, whilst the opposite hind limb remained in its ordinary condition. This remarkable experiment was performed three times, and on each occasion with the same results. From these experiments M. Ranvier believes that he is justified in con- cluding that mere ligature of the veins does not in the dog at least produce aedema, but that after obliteration of the veins, dropsy may be caused by section of the vaso-motor nerves.—Lancet, No. 2,428, page 383. * Dr. Tschaussow has lately made some observations of interest on the inflammatory ])rocess as observed after ligature of the artery supplying the inflamed i)avt, and his results are recorded in a recent number of the Centralblatt. He remarks that, under ordinary circumstances, the several stages of an acute inflammation proceed with such rapidity that it is difficult, if not im])ossible, to define their limits. It was therefore suggested by Dr. Samuel that means should be adopted by which the progress of the inflamma- tion might be retarded, and to this end it was practicable either to apply cold or to ligature the artery supplying the part with blood. These suggestions were carried out by Dr. Samuel himself to a certain extent. The part in- vestigated was, for the sake of convenience, the ear of the rabbit, and in this inflammation was established, after ligature of the common carotid or auricular arteries, by the rubbing in of croton oil. Dr. Samuel found that in the first stage (within twenty-four hours) of acute inflammation there first occurred retardation, and subsequently arrest, of the venous circulation ; white “ vesicle ” appeared in the veins. Then followed a second stage, characterised by congestion of the arteries, which previously presented no visible change wliatever. This was followed by intense arterial congestion with exudation, cloudiness, and swelling of the tissue. By means of this secondary congestion the arrest of the circulation was overcome, or, if not overcome, the death of the part was the result.—lancet, 1869 Ablation of the cerebellum is therefore equivalent, for a time, to extensive irritation of the organ, but this gradu-ally subsides, and in those that long survive the effects of the operation may wholly disappear. The only permanent change Mr. Mitchell thinks he has seen is, that in all the birds there is an incapability of prolonged exertion, the animals tiring much sooner than their uninjured fellows, but beyond this, no locomotor defect, no alteration either in sensibility or in the sphere of emotional activities is perceptible.. Vomiting is an occasional but transitory symptom. Diarrhoea commonly follows ablation, and persists for a week or more. After having eoncluded these investigations. Dr. Mitchell examined the effects of freezing the various parts of the nervous system, and found that complete refrigeration of of the respiratory nerves, but mere chilling produced gasping respiration, convulsions, backward movements, A