IDS 



NATURE 



[April io, 19 19 



able— it was felt that the time of the telescope 

 would be better devoted to these two pieces of 

 direct, useful, and much-needed work than if it 

 were used in miscellaneous researches which, 

 thoug^h possibly more interesting, would certainly 

 not be so generally useful in the advancement of 

 the science. J. S. Plaskett. 



THE USE OF ANIMALS IN MEDICAL 

 RESEARCH. 



WHEN a Bill to prohibit experiments on dogs 

 was before the House of Commons in 

 1914, a memorial signed by more than three 

 hundred eminent physicians, surgeons, and other 

 representatives of medical science, protesting 

 against the measure, was addressed to the Home 

 Secretary. The strong conviction was then ex- 

 pressed that the Bill would inflict very severe 

 injury, not only on medicine and surgery, but 

 also on the study of the diseases of animals; 

 and the memoriaUsts added : " We think that we 

 have some right to ask you to oppose this attack 

 on the advancement of medical science and prac- 

 tice, especially as the Final Report of the Royal 

 Commission on Vivisection does not advise the 

 prohibition of experiments on dogs. We are 

 absolutely certain that such experiments are 

 necessary for the complete study of many prob- 

 lems of physiology, pharmacology, and patho- 

 logy." 



The second reading was carried in the House 

 of Commons before this memorial was presented 

 to the Home Secretary, but the Bill was with- 

 drawn in June, 191 4, after a number of amend- 

 ments to the principal clause had been carried 

 in the Standing Committee appointed to consider 

 it. The subject has, however, been raised again 

 by the introduction of another "Dogs' Protection 

 Bill," which received its second reading in the 

 House of Commons on March 21, and passed 

 through the Grand Committee stage last week. 

 Sir Edward Sharpey Schafer, Dr. T. Lewis, Prof. 

 E. H. Starling, and Prof. Leonard Hill have 

 stated the case against the Bill in letters to the 

 Times, and we may be permitted to recall a con- 

 vincing article by the first-named in Nature of 

 May 7, 1914, where it is shown that the prohibi- 

 tion of the employment of dogs for certain investi- 

 gations would put a complete stop to the progress 

 of physiology in Great Britain. 



The position now is much the same as in 1914, 

 and Sir Edward Sharpey Schafer 's forcible state- 

 ment in our columns of the case against the Bill 

 is as applicable to the new measure as it was to 

 the old. After the brilliant successes achieved 

 during the war by physiological and scientific 

 medicine in the preservation of life and the pre- 

 vention of suffering in our armies, it might have 

 been thought that the agitation against medical 

 experiments on animals would have received its 

 death-blow. But there are some people who are 

 incapable of learning, and the passage of the 



NO. 2580, VOL. 103] 



Dogs' Protection Bill through the Grand Com- 

 mittee stage suggests that many of them are con- 

 gregated in our legislature. 



Do the supporters of the Bill really imagine 

 that, since it has been proved possible to slaughter 

 millions of human lives and to subject men and 

 women to slow death by starvation, brutality, 

 and disease, the value of human life has really 

 become lower than that of a dog? For it must 

 be remembered that the prevention and cure of 

 disease are possible only by means of an accurate 

 knowledge of the functions of the body, and that, 

 with regard to these functions, there is scarcely 

 any fundamental truth which has not been estab- 

 lished by experiments on dogs. The action of the 

 heart and its nerves, the circulation of the blood, 

 the nature of respiration, the processes of diges- 

 tion, the chemical changes which the food under- 

 goes in the body, the functions of the kidneys and 

 of the liver, and the action of the internal secre- 

 tory glands, have all been revealed by such experi- 

 ments. And, although corroborative experiments 

 have been carried out since on other animals, 

 these would have been in many cases impossible 

 if the principles had not first been established by 

 the use of dogs. If these animals had been ex- 

 cluded from experiment, few of these facts would 

 have been found out, nor would the knowledge 

 and power gained thereby have been applied for 

 the benefit of man. 



Why is the use of dogs so essential in medical 

 research? No one will dispute that, to gain a 

 knowledge of living functions, recourse must be 

 had to living animals, and those animals must 

 be such as can be kept in comfort and health 

 within the precincts of a laboratory. The ordinary 

 farm animals are therefore excluded by this fact 

 alone, altogether apart from the difficulties pre- 

 sented, so far as medicine is concerned, by the wide 

 differences which exist between their digestive 

 processes and those of man. 



For a vast number of experiments, viz. the 

 greater part of those necessary in research on 

 infective disease, the smaller animals — mice, 

 rats, guinea-pigs, and rabbits — can be employed. 

 In these experiments it is chiefly necessary to 

 decide whether the injection of a given organism 

 or microbial poison is followed by death or sur- 

 vival. As soon, however, as it becomes neces- 

 sary to analyse the processes occurring in 

 separate organs, e.g. the heart, the kidney, etc., 

 it is essential to make use of larger animals, 

 and the limitation mentioned above confines these 

 to dogs and cats. Cats are used wherever pos- 

 sible. But the delicacy of their tissues, the small 

 size of their organs, and the marked differences 

 which exist between their food habits and those 

 of man render it necessary to employ dogs for 

 many important lines of research. Thus it comes 

 about that the greater part of our knowledge of 

 the heart's action, of the production of lymph and 

 the causation of dropsy, of the nature of diabetes, 

 and of the fate of different kinds of food in the 

 body, is owing to experiments on dogs, and would 



