LAST YEAR’S VIVISECTIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4425, 3 August 1901, Page 2

LAST YEAR’S VIVISECTIONS.

MOSTLY PAINLESS,

INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS OF, * GREAT VALUE. LONDON, July 7. The anti-vivisectionists make such statements as to the tortures to which animals are subjected at the hands of those do.otors who practise vivisection that the Parliamentary return showing tlio exptriments performed last year on living animals, distihguisliing painless from painful experiments, with the report from Mr Thane, inspector under the Cruelty to Animals Act, will come as a relief to thos e who wish for a plain, straightforward statement of the extent of these experiments. The number of experiments was, with anaesthetics. 1885, without anaesthetics 8954; total, 10,839. Few of tliese experiments, says Mr Thane, had been in any serious degree painful. Of the 1885 with anaesthetics, the 1229 performed under license alone or in illustration to lectures, were painless, beoaus 6 the animal was under an anaesthetic during the whole of th 0 experiment, and had to b 3 killed before it came to if pain were like to continue or if it.had been seriously injured. The remaining 58b operations were performed aseptically under anaesthetics, from the influence of which the animals were allowed to revive. The healing of the wounds, as a rule,' took place without pain. These operations are now seldom, if ever, followed by pain, and Mr Than© reports that he Had seen 'numerous animals on which serious open* ations had been performed—removal of organs and the like —which wore clearly nob in pain. , ... The 8964 experiments performed without anaesthetics were mostly inoculations. A few were feeding experiments or tjie administration of various tubstances by the mouth. • “In a large proportion of these inoculations,” says Mr Thane, “the result is negative, "the animal does not exhibit anv ill effects and therefore does not suffer any pain. This is especially tho case with many inoculations for the purpose of diagnosis, with the great majority of the inoculations performed for the testing of' articles of food, and with many o r the inoculations made for t purpose of standardising ;i-toxic serum namely, those es in which the anti-toxin is sufficiently powerful to neutralise tho amount of toxin injected, so that the latter has no action. It is onlv a smaU , proportion of th© inoculations practised that are followed; hv disease or poisonin'^. “In some of these cases, such as tho injection of certain drugs, or of tetanus toxin, the effect produced is without doubt painful; but in the two most frequently employed proceedings of this kind, viz., inoculation for tho diagnosis cf tuberculosis, and for the standarclisation of diphtlioria anti-toxin, there is some difference of opinion, amongst those who have had most experience as to whether the effects produced are attended by pain or not. “There is, however, strong reason for holding that the gradual development of tuberculosis and the poisoning by diphtheria toxin resulting from such inoculations, although they may not be accompanied by acute suffering, are conditions which bring these proceedings within the category of ‘experiments calculated to give pain.’ In the event of pain ensuing as the result of ai mooulation, a condition attached to tho license requires that tho animal shall h» killed under anaesthetics as soon as the main result of the experiment has been attained. It Will be seen, therefore. that in a very large number of instances, especially in the case of experiments performed without the use of anaesthetics, the experiments ar, entirely painless.” , To the argument advanced by the anti vivisectionists that the experiments have no scientific value, Mr Thane gives adecided refutation. The largo increase in the number of these inoculation experiments without anaesthetics is, he eays, “mainly due to the growing appreciation of their great value as a means or detecting, curing and preventing disease Inoculations for the purpose of diagnosis are now part of the routine of medical practice. During the year 1900, 2230 inoculations were made by three licensees for the purpose of standardising anti toxins, and over 1500 inocu’ations were, made by two licensees for the testing of milk. The appearance of bubonic plague in this country has’afforded an illustration of the value of the experimental method in diagnosis. It is of the greatest importance that this disease should be recognised as early as possible. This can only be done with . cer " tain tv .with the aid of inoculations into animals. Two fresh places were registered, and two new licenses were, granted during 1900, expressly to_ allow of the necessary experiments being performed in localities where infection was apprehended.”

Tho report states that licenses and certificates have been granted and allowed only upon the recommendation of persons of high scientific standing; the licensees are persons who, by their training and education, are fitted to undertake experimental work and to profit by it, and air experimental work has been conducted in suitable places. The net result, therefore, seems to be that the Government exercises an effective supervision over Vivisections, that the majority of experiments are attended by either no pain at all or only a small amount; that in a small number of cases the animals do undoubtedly suffer, but every effort is made to minimise the time and the extent of the suffering, and that these experiments are of undoubted value as a means of detecting, curing and preventing disease i* human being's and animals alike.