HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 99 
in Great Britain and will be in America if the bill becomes law is readily grasped 
directly one realizes the fact that no one has defined, or can define, what is to be 
understood by the terms “severe” and “prolonged,” or “likely to endure.” in 
practice this decision is left entirely to the discretion of the experimenter who 
is solely concerned with the success of his investigation. He is also allowed to 
decide at what point the main result of the experiment has been attained. It 
is to be noted that even the most well intentioned research worker is faced with 
the difficulty of determining if an animal is in pain or not. As is truly stated 8 
in the March 1900 issue of the Proceedings of the Animal Care Panel : “The 
detection of pain in the dog is often quite difficult. This, unfortunately, has led 
many people to assume that pain is not present postopera tively. There may 
be some truth to the impression that the dog possesses a higher pain threshold or 
can endure more pain before showing evidence of discomfort.” 
VIVISECTION BY STUDENTS 
In section 4 of the American bill it is laid down that all experiments involving 
pain shall be conducted by licensed persons or by students in an established 
training school who are under the direct supervision of a licensee. In the 
latter case the animal must be killed before recovering consciousness, if it has 
been used for practice surgery or similar painful procedure. 
In Great Britian there is no provision whatsoever for the performance of 
experiments on living animals for students, even under supervision. Physi- 
ological experiments are performed by them on pithed or decerebrate animals 
which are, in consequence, incapable of sensation and are considered virtually 
dead. The American bill will do nothing to curb the widespread and increas- 
ing use of animals (especially dogs) for the purpose of gaining skill in surgical 
operations. 
Under the British law it is illegal for even a trained, qualified scientist to 
practice on an animal for the acquirement of skill. There is no avoiding this 
restriction. Yet, in spite of this prohibition, Sir W. Heneage Ogilvie, 9 con- 
sulting surgeon, Guys Hospital and Royal Masonic Hospital, was moved a 
few years back to declare : “British surgery has always stood high because it 
can be claimed, and not without reason, that every surgical advance of major 
importance has come from this country.” 
LOOPHOLE 
There is no corresponding provision in bill S. 3570 and this omission pro- 
vides a loophole which opens the way to untold animal suffering. Reliance upon 
skill obtained through experience in animals is likely to prove, as it has in the 
past, misleading when the qualified surgeon comes to deal with human patients. 
This, in its turn, will lead to human suffering: for it is not long since that Dr. 
Paul R. Hawley, director of the American College of Surgeons, is reported 10 to 
have stated : "It is reliably estimated that today one-half of the surgical opera- 
tions in the United States are performed by doctors who are untrained or inade- 
quately trained to undertake surgery.” One of the most distinguished surgeons 
in the work told him, he said, that at least half his current practice “consists 
of attempts to correct the bad results of surgery * * * by doctors inadequately 
trained in this field.” But there can be no doubt but that they were well trained 
in dog surgery. Thus does one evil lead to another. 
UNAUTHORIZED VIVISECTION 
One most unfortunate and glaring omission in the American bill is that there 
is nothing to prevent the use of animals in so-called research by young students, 
and even by schoolchildren in the cellars, attics, or bedrooms of their own homes, 
whether such investigations, admittedly immature, crule, and useless, be carried 
out overtly or clandestinely. This type of research, deplored by many educa- 
tionalists and condemned by scientists, is left untouched, since the bill only 
seeks to control, and is only concerned with, persons and institutions which 
function under a grant from the U.S. Government. 
8 Article entitled “Preoperative and Postoperative Care of the Laboratory Dog,” by Dr. 
N. Bleicher. Quoted in Information Report of the Animal Welfare Institute, New York, 
March-April 1900 (vol. 9, No. 2. p. 3). 
9 British Medical Journal, Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1438. 
i° Time, June 8, 1959. 
