358 



ACT 39 AND 40 VIC. C. 77 



with the use of anaesthetics is necessary, in addition to the 

 license, since it is evident that the experiment could not be 

 performed if the animal had to be kept under an anaesthetic 

 during the whole period from the administration of the injec- 

 tion until the close of the experiment. 



It must not be assumed that the animal is in pain during 

 the whole of this time. In cases of prolonged action of an 

 injected substance, even when ending fatally, the animal is 

 generally apparently well, and takes its food as usual, until a 

 short time before death. The state of illness may last only a 

 very few hours, and in some cases it is not observed at all. 



In a large proportion of the inoculations included in 

 Table III. (B.), the result is negative ; that is, the animal does 

 not exhibit any ill effects, and therefore does not suffer any 

 pain. This is especially the case with many inoculations for 

 purposes of diagnosis, with the great majority of the inocula- 

 tions performed for the testing of articles of food, and with many 

 of the inoculations made for the purpose of standardising anti- 

 toxic serum, namely, those cases in which the antitoxin is suffi- 

 ciently powerful to neutralise the amount of toxin injected, so 

 that the latter has no action. It is only a small proportion of the 

 inoculations practised that are followed by disease or poison- 

 ing. In some of these cases, such as the injection of certain 

 drugs, or of tetanus toxin, the effect produced is without 

 doubt painful ; but in the two most frequently employed pro- 

 ceedings of this kind, viz., inoculation for the diagnosis of 

 tuberculosis, and for the standardisation of diphtheria antitoxin, 

 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 inocula- 

 tions, although they may not be accompanied by acute suffer- 

 ing, 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 an inoculation, 

 a condition attached to the license requires that the animal 

 shall be killed under anaesthetics as soon as the main result of 

 the experiment has been attained. 



