38 ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION 



crime or fault, with nothing to conceal or to be ashamed of, 

 and with no reasonable ground of suspicion of anything of 

 the sort, we and our work must be placed under espionage, 

 under the surveillance of the police. This is a reversion 

 to the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, done away with, 

 even in Spain, about the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century. 



From active experience in a number of laboratories both 

 in this country and abroad, extending now over more than 

 fifteen years, I can truthfully say that I have not seen a 

 single case of abuse. I have uniformly found anesthetics 

 efficiently and humanely employed. A single instance will 

 serve to demonstrate to you the spirit which, I believe, 

 rules every physiological laboratory in this country. It 

 was in the Johns Hopkins University laboratory. The 

 class in physiology were working upon the reflex functions 

 of the spinal cord in the frog. Our specific directions 

 said: " Etherize the animal and, while under ether, sever 

 the spinal cord at the base of the skull. Then destroy the 

 brain, etc." In passing from table to table Dr. Howell, 

 who was then, and is still, in charge of the laboratory, 

 noticed a movement of the eye of one of the frogs and 

 stopped to ask the man who was working with it: " Mr. 



, did you destroy that frog's brain? " He answered : 



" I practically cut his head off." " Your directions tell 

 you to destroy the brain." " In such a cold-blooded ani- 

 mal, it is possible that the severed brain may feel pain for 

 some time after the head is cut off. You will break up the 

 brain, please; in all cases where there is any doubt that 

 the animal may be suffering needless pain, we must always 

 give the animal the benefit of the doubt." 



