HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 115 
the researcher to clarify his own conscience and (2) it protects him 
from unfair and wounding accusations made by antivivisectionists. 
Finally, we have the pain rule which sets a limit to the amount of 
suffering that may be inflicted in any case. Obviously opinions must 
differ as to exactly where the line should be drawn, but the line is 
drawn, and in our laboratories we do not commit the atrocities which 
are reported from time to time in scientific papers from other coun- 
tries. 
As Mr. Leonard Colebrook, F.R. S., famous for research in surgery, 
has remarked in a letter to our President : 
I suppose most scientific people who have any compassion would agree that 
there are some experiments on animals which are not legitimate. 
And Professor Lowenstein, F.F.S., wrote : 
I myself have had to give up a line of research * * * but in view of the fact 
that there are many other things for me to do I do not feel seriously frustrated. 
In Britain we do not allow the extravagant cruelty committed by 
some investigators of stress and shock. We believe that the desired re- 
sults can be obtained by less inhumane procedures, but even if that 
were not the case, there is an ethical limit to what is tolerable. 
Lethal experiments carried out by Nazi scientists on Jews and others 
may have yielded valuable information, but that does not justify them, 
and in the same way there is a limit — an arbitrary limit if you like, 
but a real one — to the amount of pain which may be legitimately in- 
flicted on any animal for any purpose, be it dog, rabbit, rat, or mouse. 
The Griffiths bill H.R. 1937 differs from our law in three important 
respects. First it avoids the antiquated procedure for the granting 
of licenses and certificates which has survived from the past in our 
country, and may cause a week or two of delay. Secondly, unlike our 
law, it has to meet the difficulty of States rights, and so it only applies 
to scientists in laboratories which are benefiting from Federal funds. 
This is an unavoidable weakness, but at least it makes a beginning, 
and means will doubtless be found, as experience accumulates, for im- 
proving the law as time goes on. 
Thirdly, in Britain, licensees have to obtain the necessary permis- 
sion before they begin their experiments. This would be impracticable 
in the United States because it would necessitate the immediate over- 
haul of a vast number of research projects. This could not be done 
overnight, and the Griffiths bill recognizes that it will take time to work 
out the practical application of the law. 
It may take years to achieve the purpose envisaged in this bill, 
limited even though it be. You cannot make such a vast change with- 
out long and patient endeavor. The bill provides means for gradually 
raising the ethical standards in the most backward laboratories up to 
the level of those which prevail in the ethically most advanced re- 
search institutions. 
The expression “project plan” used in the bill has caused some mis- 
givings but it presumably corresponds to the definitions inserted in 
British certificates A and B which permit the use of conscious animals, 
and no doubt the practice followed in the two cases would be somewhat 
similar. The ambit of these definitions may be narrow or wide accord- 
ing to circumstances. A nongraduate technician might, for instance, 
be licensed to carry out only one particular procedure of a routine 
character. 
