100 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
A MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE 
It cannot be repeated too often or emphasized too strongly that in Great 
Britain it is illegal and an offense punishable by fine or imprisonment for any 
person, save one licensed by the Home Secretary under the Cruelty to Animals 
Act of 1876, to perform any experiment on a living animal calculated to give 
pain. 
INSPECTION OF PREMISES 
Section 4 of the bill S. 3570 authorizes the Secretary to inspect the animals 
and premises together with the books and records kept. Nothing is said as to 
the number or qualifications of the representatives he may send for this pur- 
pose; but if in the United States the British administration is taken as a 
pattern and as few as five inspectors (who may themselves be ex-vi visectors) 
appointed to supervise hundreds of laboratories and millions of experiments, 
the benefit to the animals is likely to be as barren and futile as it has proved 
to be in Britain. 
KEEPING OF RECORDS 
Clauses regulating the keeping of records, the submission of plans of work, 
and of reports of the results of investigations appear to be very similar in both 
documents and there is little worth noting here. 
PENALTIES 
One important difference concerns the penalties which may be inflicted for 
infringement of the regulations. In the American bill there is no penalty for 
contravening the terms of his certificate by any licensee save the suspension or 
revocation of the certificate, and it seems clear that the authorities in sympathy 
with vivisection as a method of research constitute themselves as sole adminis- 
trators in control of the due and proper working of the contemplated enactment. 
A person whose certificate of compliance has been suspended or revoked may 
be reinstated at the discretion of the Secretary. 
Under the British act of 1876 offenders may be prosecuted (and penalties re- 
covered) before a court of summary jurisdiction. Subject to appeal to a higher 
court, they may be fined, or, in default of payment of the fine, liable to imprison- 
ment. To quote the act (clause 2) : “Any person performing or taking part in 
performing any experiment calculated to give pain, in contravention of this act, 
shall be guilty of an offense against this act, and shall, if it be the first offense 
be liable to a penalty not exceeding £50, and if it be the second or any subsequent 
offense, be liable, at the discretion of the court by which he is tried, to a penalty 
not exceeding £100 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 3 months.” 
Any such prosecution, however, must be instituted within 6 months of the occur- 
rence of the alleged offense. 11 Another proviso which considerably weakens the 
scope of this clause in the act of 1876 runs as follows : “A prosecution under this 
act against a licensed person shall not be instituted except with the assent in 
writing of the Secretary of State” (Home Office). Procedure varies somewhat 
according to whether the offense be committed in England, Scotland, or Ireland. 
FURTHER DIFFERENCES 
There remain to be described certain restrictions in the British act which find 
no place in bill S. 3570. Under the act of 1876 — 
(1) Any exhibition to the general public, whether admitted on payment of 
money or gratuitously, of experiments on living animals calculated to give 
pain shall be illegal. Penalties for infringing this law are heavy — a penalty 
not exceeding £50 for a first offense, and for a second or subsequent offense 
a penalty not exceeding £100 or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 3 
months. 
(2) “The substance known as urari or curare shall not for the purpose 
of this act be deemed to be an anesthetic.” This is a grave omission from 
the bill for it permits the use in the most painful experiments of a drug 
which paralyzes movement but does not diminish sensation. 
(3) The complete prohibition of experiments for the attaining of sur- 
gical manual skill has already been dealt with. 
These three restrictions are inescapable and absolute. There are no certificates 
of exemption provided for in the act. 
See Report of Royal Commission on. Vivisection (1912), p. 6. 
