HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 309 
ministration of the requirements of bills like the Griffiths bill, it will be as im- 
portant as it always is to avoid excessive bureaucratic pressures. The measure 
then, far from hampering research, may well improve it by assuring more 
responsible investigators and less wasteful experiments. 
Legislation is rarely perfect. By its very nature it implies some limitation 
of individual freedom. It seems not unreasonable that scientists should submit 
to some inconvenience in the interests of legislation which represents a land- 
mark in the progress of civilization, and need not hinder valid scientific 
research. 
Statement of Helene Artsay 
I wish to testify why I firmly believe that H.R. 1937 and S. 3088 not only should, 
but absolutely must be made law just as quickly as legislative procedures permit. 
As a veterinary student in a university to which I am proud to belong, I have 
been fortunate enough to learn the highest humane standards in laboratory 
animal care and experimentation. As a visitor to laboratories near my home in 
New York, I have had the misfortune of seeing the other side of the picture — 
a side where the most elementary humane standards are unknown or simply 
ignored. As the medical researcher I plan to be, I would be as much bound by a 
law protecting laboratory animals as anyone, including paperwork, licensing, 
and any other procedures involved, but I would willingly work under a law 
even stricter than the one proposed, if it were needed to stop some of the things 
I have seen. 
In the first institution I visited, the dogs are never exercised, not even on the 
floor, while the cages are being cleaned. As I walked into a particular dog room, 
I was met by a powerful stench of ammonia. The cages were solid-bottomed, 
and the wet metal was spotted with small piles of wood shavings thoroughly 
soaked with manure and decomposed urine — the source of the ammonia smell. 
Cockroaches were visible in several cages, crawling in the filth, even though 
the light in the room was quite bright. In one cage there was no food dish ; 
the food had been emptied onto the cage bottom and the dog was nibbling on a 
mixture of dogfood, wood shavings, excretions, and cockroaches. The sign on 
the door of this room read “Special Diet.” 
The main dog kennel of the second institution I visited was dark and ill 
ventilated. When I entered, the smell of manure was so strong I thought the 
kennel had not yet been cleaned, but the fresh soapy water trickling toward 
the floor drain told otherwise. The dogs are not exercised here either, and most 
of them seemed hypertense. The barking was frantic when I entered, and the 
dogs spun round and round, and bounced up and down, banging themselves 
violently against the sides and ceilings of the small cages. The cages were con- 
structed of mostly solid metal sides and tops, with wire mesh floors, allowing 
for only difficult entry of light, which was scarce enough already. The outside 
of the cages were spotted with splash upon splash of dried manure, which seemed 
to be the source of most of the foul smell. In one wire-mesh-bottomed cage 
lay a medium-size pointer-type bitch with puppies. Her only bedding was a 
feces-soaked rag. The bodies of the pups were spotted with caked manure and 
they were suckling from nipples which were similarly soiled. Not even an ex- 
perimental cannual which had been inserted through the bitch’s abdomen showed 
any signs of human care. 
The cat room smelled stronger and worse than the dog room, and several 
cages had dried manure hanging down from the perforated metal cage floors. 
On one cage, a diarrheal stool had trickled out and dried on the outside of the 
door. 
On the top floor were more dogs and a large outdoor roof terrace. Fenced 
in, this terrace would be ideal for exercising dogs, yet it still remains unused. 
I entered a small experimental room in which there were three dogs in cages 
and a treadmill with a dog on it, tended by a boy who seemed to be about 17 
years old. Two of the dogs in the cages were panting and huddled to the sides 
of the cages. I was told that the boy was trying to find a dog willing to run 
the treadmill for a blood pressure and respiration test, but the dogs were not 
cooperating. A treadmill consists of a moving track, on which an animal has to 
run in the opposite direction of the movement, in order to stay in the same place. 
This track was covered with bloodstained burlap. The boy fastened a leash to 
the dog’s neck, held it tight, and without warning started the treadmill at high 
speed. The dog, who was completely untrained as to what was expected of him, 
