"VERY, VERY DEAD"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 10

"VERY, VERY DEAD"

DOGS CUT UP.

CRUELTY CHARGE DISPROVED.

VIVISECTIONIBTS ASTRAY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 17.

The Sydney Anti-Vivisection Society last week convened a public meeting, which occupied itself chiefly with certain allegations concerning the treatment of dogs sent for scientific purposes to the Sydney University. It had been asserted that dogs killed in. the lethal chamber of the Royal Society , for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animalfe had been resurrected at the university for vivisectional purposes.

The meeting evidently included a • lumber of anti-vivisectionists of the ' ;ype that is not prepared to follow the ' *ood old legal maxim and "hear the >ther side," for when Professor Douglas Stewart, who is dean of the faculty of medicine at Sydney University, explained that all the dogs utilised for the study of anatomy at the university ivere worthless strayß that had been jarefully killed in the R.S.P.C.A. lethal :hamber and could not possibly be brought to life again, the audience refused to listen, and "amid uproar" they passed a series of resolutions asking that no further dogs be sent to the university, "dead or alive." The meeting also protested against the appointment of any vivisectionists as officeholders on the R.S.P.C.A. Full Investigation. However, as the charges of resurrecting dead dogs for the purpose of cutting them up had been brought most circumstantially against the veterinary school at. the had set up a committee to investigate' the matter, and its report is now. available. So impressed was the' society with the desirability of making: public the full results of its researches that it published the report in the form of a manifesto in our leading newspapers. This interesting document set forth that no live dog had ever been sent to the university by the R.S.P.C.A.; but that the carcases of stray dogs which had been in its lethal chamber (saturated with carbon monoxide) for 20 minutes or more were sent to the university veterinary school at the request of the authorities for the use of anatomy students. These carcases, preserved by injections of arsenic and formalin, are checked next day by an officer of the R.S.P.C.A., who sees that the preserved carcases are identical in number and description with the dogs sent there. The council considers that it is better to send dead dogs to the veterinary school than that miscellaneous dogs should be procured from other sources for the teaching of anatomy. Out of the large number of stray or unwanted dogs collected arid disposed of by the society—more than 15,000 a year—less than 50 carcases are sent to the veterinary school. Professor Davies, of the physiology department at the university, reports that in less than 15 minutes after enter-ing-the lethal chamber the hearts of the dogs cease to beat and after 20 minutes "resuscitation would be impossible.'' We may reasonably conclude that all jdogs sent to. the university by the R.S.P.C.A. for the edification'of sjtu'dents are "very, very dead," and apparently the students obtain dogs for anatomy work from this source only. "Quite Superfluous." 11 The two final clauses of the manifesto should convince even 1 the most sceptical that the resolutions passed by the "antis" at last week's meeting were, to put it mildly, quite superfluous. One contains the assurance of the Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Sydney University to the effect that "the Veterinary School has never attempted, nor even contemplated, the resuscitation of dead dogs received for anatomical purposes." The other contains the conclusion reached by the R.S.P.C.A. authorities, after its researches into this matter were completed : "The council of this society has

investigated rumours that lethalised dogs have been resuscitated and used

for objectionable- purposes, and it 'confidently assures the public that lethalised dogs sent by it to the university have not been and cannot be resuscitated."

On the whole, it would he difficult to conceive any more convincing disproof of the silly report that dead dogs have !>een brought to life and vivisected at the university, or anywhere else. The "antis." unfortunately, are hard to convince when once their emotions have been stirred by some gruesome tale of callousness or cruelty.