HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 279 
ences, which was to be organized to fight A.V. propaganda. Dr. Ge- 
sell complied, and wrote Dr. Carlson the following letter, dated Feb- 
ruary 8, 1946 : 
Dear Dr. Carlson : My answer to your letter of January 26 is delayed, due 
to the absence of Dean Furstenberg from the city. I have spoken to him since 
his return, and he asks me to tell you that he is in sympathy with the objective 
of the National Commission for the Protection of Medical Sciences. He also has 
every expectation that the university will subscribe $300 toward financial sup- 
port. You will find enclosed the signatures of members of my department urging 
financial support of the commission by the federation. If the work of the com- 
mission is well done, it will be a great contribution to the biological sciences, 
for we need a comprehensive education of all concerned. 
In that connection I would like to suggest that the commission give attention 
to the education of the men of science as well as the public for, in my opinion, 
much of our trouble originates in our own ranks. I am not one of those who 
believe that conditions of animal experimentation are ideal. I believe the com- 
mission could raise the question whether the experimental animal is receiving 
the consideration to which he is entitled particularly as regards survival experi- 
ments in which the animal is likely to suffer. 
It is my experience that there are always a number of us who may be too sure 
of man’s privilege to experiment on the lower forms. Some system of scruti- 
nizing the soundness of biological problems and the skill and wisdom and con- 
sideration of the scientist would do much to convince the public that our minds 
are open to all sides of the problem. I doubt the wisdom of a policy which offers 
no supervision of animal experimentation whatever. 
The surest way of preventing interference from the outside by enactment of 
laws restricting experimentation is to convince the public that we ourselves see 
the soundness of proper supervision. Our committee should be best qualified to 
accept the responsibility of the supervision. 
Sincerely yours. 
Dr. Carlson replied to this excellent letter in such a way that Dr. 
Gesell believed a policy of proper treatment of laboratory animals 
would follow eventually. However, 6 years later the only change was 
more animals used by more investigators in more research projects, 
many of which were repetitions of previous work. So at the New 
York federation meetings in spring 1952 in a closed meeting of the 
Physiological Society, Dr. Gesell expressed his opinion of the ways 
of the National Society for Medical Research, as the “National Com- 
mittee for the Protection of Medical Sciences” was now called, as 
follows : 
I will not quote what he said, because a psychologist who testified 
yesterday said exactly what Dr. Gesell said at this meeting. However, 
he did not say what happened afterward. 
The Physiological Society objected strongly to these views and a 
committee chosen at least in part of active proponents of the NSMR 
had a hearing at which Dr. Gesell was the defendant. It was at this 
hearing that Dr. Visscher said “There can be no cruelty in the pursuit 
of knowledge.” This remark summarizes the general attitude, at least 
in public, to any form of regulation of the treatment of the animals 
they use and call “living test tubes” and “systems” and “preparations.” 
Later in 1953, at the International Congress in Montreal, another com- 
mittee headed by Dr. Essex, president of the Physiological Society, 
now president of the National Society for Medical Research, talked at 
length with Dr. Gesell, who then advocated some form of government 
control such as the British Act of 1876. Dr. Essex promulgated a new 
set of guiding principles which superseded those of Dr. Cannon and 
are now displayed in laboratories, where conditions may follow these 
principles or others where the principles are entirely disregarded, but 
