278 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
Darwin and Huxley and other outstanding scientists felt the need 
of regulation of animal experiments in the early 1870’s, and as a 
result of their humanitarian efforts the British act was passed in 
1876. It is on this act that the very modest Griffiths bill is based. 
Neither the British act nor the Griffiths bill are in any way anti- 
vivisectionist in intention but they are against unnecessary cruelty 
in vivisection; it would seem that societies and individuals who vio- 
lently oppose both the 86-year-old British act as well as the Griffiths 
bill, condone cruelty to animals by investigators. 
Some 40 years ago Dr. Cannon of Harvard University was instru- 
mental in writing rules for experimentation on animals. These rules 
were widely displayed in research laboratories. My husband, a 
physiologist, greatly admired Dr. Cannon and thought him to be a 
humane as well as a brilliant man, so he believed these rules were 
largely for the protection of laboratory animals. Dr. Chauncey 
Leake about a year and a half ago said he had thought so too. But 
in June of 1952 Dr. Carl Wiggers, chairman of the department of 
physiology at Western Reserve, stated in a speech at his class reunion 
at the University of Michigan, that : 
Some years ago, approximately 1918, the AMA appointed a committee headed 
by Dr. Cannon for the primary purpose of combating antivivisection propa- 
ganda. Toward this end a set of rules and regulations was drawn up which 
reflected common practice in different laboratories. These have ever since 
been posted conspicuously in hospitals and laboratories to remind investigators, 
it is true, but chiefly to assure visitors that animal experiments are being con- 
ducted and supervised properly. Those rules were not drawn up, as has been 
misquoted, because Dr. Cannon saw the need of a restraining force to curb 
man’s curiosity within proper bounds. I was there, Charley. 
Dr. Wiggers then said that he had been impressed by the care taken 
in the tumbling of unanesthetized rats in a Noble-Collip drum (their 
paws were bound together so they could not even try to protect them- 
selves) from pain. Of the contusions from which the rats died 47-50 
minutes later he said “discomfort anxiety and mental perturbation of 
rats — yes, but certainly no severe pain. He then went on to say : 
Perhaps it is significant that rats were used. A similar apparatus for 
tumbling dogs and cats could have been built but the thought, I think, has never 
suggested itself. 
Noble-Collip drums are still used by investigators in experiments 
on so-called stress. Dr. Wiggers also defended the slow drowning 
of 160 dogs (unanesthetized) and the infliction of contusions by 700- 
1,000 blows on the legs of anesthetized dogs by a specially designed 
leather mallet. These dogs were promptly allowed to come out of 
the anesthetic and to die from 50 minutes to 9 hours later. 
I have a copy of Dr. Wiggers’ complete speech taken from a record- 
ing which I would be glad to read, though it is fairly long. This 
-public statement, as well as numerous denunciations of any wish to 
curb cruelty in laboratory animals as either antivivisectionist or 
crypto-AV, makes voluntary regulation of cruelty to experimental 
animals by presentday scientists appear doubtful. In fact, most 
organizations of research men react violently to any thought of reform 
In 1946 Dr. Anton Carlson of the University of Chicago wrote my 
husband, as he did many physiologists at different universities, asking 
him to obtain money and members from the University of Michigan 
to support a national commission for the protection of medical sci- 
