HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 225 
Although reports of trauma induced by blows of mallets to the legs of dogs 
go back to the 1930’s and perhaps even farther, one finds that the same method 
is still being used. At the Albany Medical Center, 7 for example, 50 blows of a 
leather-covered mallet to each hind leg for each 10 pounds of body weight were 
described in an article published early this year. This experiment, like many 
of the others we are citing, was supported by the taxpayers’ money, which ob- 
viously is generously and wastefully spent for an endless repetition of experi- 
ments. 
Fasting, as long as 30 days in the case of dogs, exposure to severe cold ; en- 
forced swimming for 1 hour and enforced running in a treadmill for 1 hour ; 
anoxia, surgical trauma, and emotional distress are the methods used for induc- 
ing stress in dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits at Creighton University. 8 9 The re- 
searchers state proudly that “intensive emotional tension was created in these 
guinea pigs by tying them down to a board during the first testing, and in the 
rabbits by placing them in the treadmill for 10 minutes, a procedure which upset 
them beyond measure.” Such stress is applied for the study of the resulting 
changes in capillary resistance. Humans, however, do not ordinarily fast for 30 
days, nor are they subjected to enforced swimming or exercise in a treadmill. 
How the results of these studies can be applied to humans is as difficult to under- 
stand as is the expenditure of the taxpayers’ money for such experiments. 
At the same institution, 8 dogs were fasted for as long as 65 days in an experi- 
ment performed 3 years earlier to evaluate the factors responsible for the reac- 
tions of haphazard realimentation after severe starvation. The facts already 
established as a result of the suffering of prisoners of war who had been starved 
were thus studied again, and for what purpose could well be asked. The re- 
searchers report that when the animals were given food after severe starvation, 
they “often appeared ill or in pain.” Convulsions, marked diarrhea often lasting 
for several weeks, and vomiting were among the results of realimentation after 
severe starvation. Surely these reactions are already well known to the research 
profession if they have read, as even laymen have, of the experiences of prisoners 
of war when they were given food after prolonged starvation. 
Researchers frequently state that laboratory animals receive the same care as 
humans would after similar injuries or surgical procedures. The medical jour- 
nals, however, are filled with reports that animals have received absolutely no 
treatment after mutilating injuries, major surgery, severe burns, and other 
experiments that produce severe pain and suffering. At Tulane University and 
the University of Rochester, 10 for example, 43 dogs were subjected to scalding- 
burn covering approximately 70 percent of the body surface inflicted by lowering 
them into a container filled with water at temperature of 85 C. a temperature 
just 15 degrees below the boiling point of water. A 6-hour chart following the 
burning shows that 13 dogs received no treatment ; a 24-hour chart shows that 
5 dogs received no treatment. At the University of Mississippi, 11 12 a typical burn 
experiment shows that 30 rats were immersed in water at 70 C. The animals 
were then divided into three groups of which one group received no treatment. 
A “Symposium on Burns” n describes some of the variety of ways in which 
animals are burned : by gasoline, flamethrowers, burning irons, and for internal 
burns, by inhalation of hot dry air and steam. At Harvard’s Department of 
Legal Medicine, the symposium reports, a concrete fireproof room was con- 
structed, gasoline in shallow pans completely covered the floor and was ignited 
by an electric spark. “Pigs were laid on a grate about 2 feet over the pan. 
Air temperatures as high as 900° C. were obtained for very brief periods.” 
The device illustrated (B) here is for the infliction of large area flame burns 
at 1,000° O. (equal to 1,832° F.) on animals. At the Army Chemical Center, Md., 
flamethrowers have been used on goats. Burns also were inflicted in goats 
subjected to fire bomb attack while the animals were tethered in slit trenches. 
A researcher who has burned dogs by means of burning irons held to their 
shaved skin for 1 minute reported in the aforementioned “Symposium on 
Burns” that “we began a study on a series of dogs that were irradiated with 
100 total body irradiation, in addition to the 20 percent body surface burn * * * 
7 Animals of Surgery, vol. 155, 1 : 140, January 1962. 
8 Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, 89 : 528-533, 1955. 
9 American Journal of Physiology, 169 : 248-352, April 1952. 
70 Surgical Forum, 10 : 346-351, 1959. 
u Surgical Forum, 10 : 343-346, 1959. 
12 “Symposium on Burns,” Nov. 2—4, 1950, National Research Council. 
