HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 263 
groups involved in this business — the suppliers or procurers, and the 
dealers that sell direct to the laboratories under contract. The dealers 
buy from auctions, get them from public pounds, and from suppliers. 
The suppliers get animals wherever they can. And many pets dis- 
appear in their communities and are never found. 
As an officer of the Virginia federation, I have investigated the 
conditions under which some of the known suppliers and dealers keep 
their animals until their final disposition. Suppliers as a rule want 
to get rid of their animals quickly. They make no provision for their 
protection from the elements, or for food and water. The animals 
receive no medical care. They are kept in indescribable filth and 
misery. 
The suppliers usually take their animals to other States for dis- 
position and drive late at night to make their deliveries. The names 
of most of the suppliers in this area are not known. The dealers 
usually make delivery about twice a week. They have makeshift 
receive no medical care. They are kept in indescribable filth and 
too small. 
The animals are fed on top of accumulated filth and must fight the 
other animals in the cage for their share of the food ; when they are 
loaded for delivery to the research institutions, they are tightly packed 
in cages built into the trucks. 
In spite of the pound seizure laws forced on the people in many com- 
munities, the stolen animals, and the thousands of animals obtained 
legally for medical use, the research institutions cry that they cannot 
obtain enough animals. The American Medical Veterinarian Jour- 
nal reported in a summer issue in 1961 that in the National Capital 
area alone more than 8 million animals give their lives annually in 
research. One laboratory spokesman predicted that by the year 2000 
the procurement of experiment animals would be an industry equal 
in magnitude to the livestock industry. 
Multiply the 8 million animals in the Washington area by the num- 
ber of urban areas throughout the United States, and it staggers the 
imagination to visualize the number of animals sacrificed each year 
throughout the Nation. 
As a member of the Animal Allocation Board and as an officer of 
the Virginia Federation, I have visited several research institutions 
in this area. I have found dogs in cages that were too small where 
the dogs could not lie straight out, or stand in the cages. I have seen 
sick dogs soaking wet, lying on the floors of wet cages in dark, damp 
basements of laboratories where the attendant had hosed the quarters 
with the dogs being left in the cages. 
Some of the cruelty inflicted on animals in research is caused by 
thoughtlessness such as in one institution in this area, where the ex- 
g erimenters went out to lunch and left a dog lying on its back fastened 
y each leg to a corner of the table. When they returned they con- 
tinued to work on the animal without releasing it for a moment of rest. 
A report was made to the Animal Allocation Board by the president 
of the Washington Humane Society of a letter to one institution con- 
cerning information that the institution was throwing animals not yet 
dead into an incinerator. The director promised it would not happen 
again. 
