HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 87 
finally allowed food, it was not a balanced diet. One was calculated to “show 
many features characteristic of a rather severe alarm reaction.” The authors 
report that “Selye states that fasting is an alarming stimulus and sensitizes 
the animal to other alarming stimuli.” The dogs, now having been subjected 
to two major operations, starvation up to 6 weeks, and feeding with an im- 
proper diet, “dermatitis, cutaneous ulcerations and alopecia” in the sympa- 
thectomized dogs “were much more frequent and often intense.” The authors 
show their familiarity with starving dogs, stating: “Normal, healthy dogs 
tolerate prolonged fasting surprisingly well — during the first 2 or 3 weeks they 
frequently appear stimulated and are unusually playful and lively, later their 
reactions are slowed but they are usually in good condition for as long as 
5 to 6 weeks.” 
It should be recognized, however, that the layman’s idea of “good condition” 
and that of some scientists are farther apart that the inexperienced person, 
could believe possible. The fact is well demonstrated by the photographs of 
the dogs in the Overholt Clinic case. Dr. Frederick Panico who did major sur- 
gery on these dogs, using the heart-lung machine on them, described them as 
in “good condition” as the court record shows. Other witnesses emphatically 
contradicted this. For example, “* * * we found 11 live dogs and the remains 
of a dead dog. Just outside the gate that entered the shelter, there was a thin 
black mongrel lying on its side. Part of its chest area had been clipped, and 
there was an open running wound about midway to the clipped area.” At 
autopsy, this dog was found to have more than a litre of pus within the heart 
sac and between 600 and 700 cubic centimeters of pus free in the chest cavity. 
So much for “good condition.” 
Other photographs may help to demonstrate other kinds of suffering. For 
example, these white rats have been forced to swim to complete exhaustion. 
Some have sunk, and others are sinking. Once they have gone through this 
desperate attempt to keep from drowning, they are taken from the tank, and 
“After a specific period the animals must again swim to exhaustion.” A report 
on a commercial drug in the American Journal of Medicine April 1962, glibly 
refers to the “rat swim” test which is used as a standard measurement. 
Here is an illustration of another standard device advertised in scientific 
journals: “This low cost restraining cage and holder,” the ad runs, “for rats 
permits rapid and safe immobilization of animals. It can be used for extended 
housing of rats during nutritional studies, when animals must be kept from 
attacking tubes and other fixtures.” As the illustration shows, the rat cannot 
turn or stand because the so-called cage fits him more snugly than a coffin fits a 
human body. Note the invitation to use it for “extended housing.” 
Here you see a monkey in a monkey chair. His brain has been stimulated with 
electricity. With him is Dr. John Lilly who wrote in a popularization of labora- 
tory activities, 1 “electrical stimuli placed by mean of fine wires in specific portions 
of the brain can cause either intense rewarding or intense punishing experiences 
in a particular animal and in humans. This has been demonstrated in rates, 
cats, monkeys, and in later years, dolphins.” One method is described as 
follows : “The cresendo-stimulus method was worked out with the macaque 
(monkey). One puts in a train of stimuli that starts at zero intensity and 
during the next 15 seconds is gradually built up beyond the level at which the 
animal can stand it. A sophisticated animal will push the switch in order to stop 
the gradually increasing stimuli before they reach an unbearable level * * *. 
A monkey will miss and allow crescendo to go through its peak until he is so 
strongly stimulated that he is in a state of panic, when he cannot possibly shut 
the current off.” 
The monkey chair now being more and more widely used as standard equip- 
ment, thanks to Dr. Lilly and others at the NIH and Walter Reed Army Institute 
of Research, is now considered a “living unit” according to a paper in “The 
Proceedings of the Animal Care Panel,” volume 7, No. 2. Speaking of the old 
days before monkeys were kept in the equivalent of the stocks for months at a 
time, the paper states, “The chair and strap arrangement allowed so much 
freedom of movement that the monkey often struggled for long periods of time 
to free itself and was often injured in the process.” In the newer models “It 
is usually necessary to grasp the hair on the monkey’s head to guide it through 
this opening while the lower plate is raised still further. The lower plate is 
raised to the point where the monkey is effectively pinned betwen the seat and 
“Man and Dolphin,” by Dr. John Lilly. 
