VIVISECTION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7822, 15 August 1887, Page 4

VIVISECTION.

From the Home OHice report, just issneil, it appears that the experiments on liviag animals made last year under the provisions of the Cruelty to Animals Act numbered \OX>. The total number of persons holding licences is .sixty-four (forty-eight in England and sixteen in Scotland), nnd of these fifty-four have performed such operations in twenty-one separate buildings, of which eiyht are in London, eight in the provinces, and live in Scotland. Notwithstanding that these experiments come under the term " vivisection," as commonly used, a comparatively small proportion only were attended with pain to the animals experimented upon. In 458 eases the use of ana-'sthetics was dispensed with, on the ground chiefly that, the operation consisting meiely in the .slight puncturing, necessary for inoculation, more distress and annoyance would be occasioned to the subject of the experiment by the administration of a narcotic taken than by the operation itself. Of the remainder "213 crises -were subject to the condition that the animal should be killed before recovering consciousness, in which cases, therefore, no pain at all was inflicted ; while forty are reported as painful in character. Even in these instances, however, (ho amount of pain iullictcd was genet ally but small. Upon the whole, the ollieial ree.ord warrants tho belief that Ihc demands ot science have within the past year been reconciled with the infliction of a, very small total of pain and in inconvenience upon its victims. When our business and our sport come to be conducted with etjiial consideration for the brute interests involved, we .shall be able to congratulate onrselves on having deserved well indeed of the lower creation. — Lancet.