230 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
(The leaflet, “Cruelty Within the Law,” follows:) 
Cruelty within 
the Law 
FACTS ABOUT EXPERIMENTS 
ON LIVE ANIMALS 
Issued by The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 
105 Jermyn Street, London, S. IV. 1. 
An ACT that doesn’t act! 
THE CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACT, 1876 
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, leaders of public 
opinion were more concerned with suffering resulting from 
experiments on live animals than they are today. Queen Victoria, 
Lord Tennyson, Lord Shaftesbury, Charles Darwin and many 
others spoke strongly on the subject. Auberon Herbert, M.P., had 
a letter published in The Times which aroused widespread feeling, 
and when his brother, the Earl of Caernarvon, sponsored the 
Cruelty to Animals Bill, the ground had been so well prepared 
that Parliament passed the Act only a few months later in 1876. 
The Act prohibits experiments on animals that will cause pain, 
unless the experiment is deemed necessary for adding to medical 
knowledge which may alleviate suffering, or save or prolong life. 
Even then, the experiment must be carried out under anaesthetic, 
and the animals destroyed before coming round if pain will 
follow. 
The Act also requires that experiments must be performed in a 
registered place, and the experimenter must hold a licence issued 
by the Home Secretary. Experiments must not be carried out to 
illustrate lectures or to obtain manual skill. 
