310 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
scrambled frantically to maintain a footing. The inexperienced claws caught 
in the burlap, ripped, and began to bleed. The dog panicked, pulled violently 
at the leash, and began to froth at the mouth. Only then did the boy stop the 
track and return the terrified, bleeding, “uncooperative” dog to its cage. If this 
highly respected research institution is really interested in good standards of 
laboratory animal care, without a Federal law to insure it, why was an un- 
supervised boy, who knew nothing of how to successfully teach a dog to run a 
treadmill, placed in charge of such a task, and why was the research scientist 
not around to show an inexperienced technician the proper way? 
At no time during my visits did any of the laboratory personnel speak of 
these conditions as unusual or isolated. Instead, when I asked, at the foul-smell- 
ing dog kennel, if the quarters that day were in usual shape, I was told that 
since it was summer and most of the researchers were away, there were fewer 
animals and thus more time was spent on individual animal comfort than was 
the case during the school year. Another time, I was impressed with rabbit 
quarters, in that each large rabbit had a cage of about 4 square feet floor space. 
I was informed that during the school year, six to eight rabbits were kept in 
each cage. When I remarked that the rabbits must not even be able to move when 
packed so tightly, the staff member simply shrugged his shoulders. These are 
the very people whom opponents of the proposed law claim are putting forth 
such effort to achieve and maintain the highest humane standards without a 
Federal law to spur them. 
Therefore, because of three main factors existing in research laboratories, 
examples of which I swear I have myself seen: (a) poor conditions of quarters 
for experimental animals in general, (&) specific cases of needless cruelty to 
individual animals, and (c) the disinterested, complacent acceptance of these 
unfortunate circumstances by scientists and laboratory personnel, the only 
people who can really help these animals, it is imperative that Congress make 
H.R. 1937 and S. 3088 into law — a law which will not in any way hamper re- 
sponsible aniaml research, but will end once and for all the present shame in 
our biological sciences. 
Statement of Sally Cakbighak 
As a naturalist who has studied animals, lived among them, and written 
books about them, I am concerned about their treatment in laboratories. I do 
not oppose their use in important research. I do protest their indiscriminate 
use, and use without regulation. 
In a natural environment most animals have some means of defending them- 
selves or escaping if anyone threatens to make them suffer. In a laboratory 
they have no such chance. They are completely at the mercy of any research 
worker who wants to experiment upon them. Since it is unrealistic to hope 
that all scientists and students are merciful by temperament, this proposed 
law, H.R. 1937, should be enacted to safeguard the animals against needless 
pain. In all civilized countries the helpless among human beings are given the 
law’s protection. We are less than civilized if we do not extend some protection 
also to the animals used in research — animals to whom we are vastly indebted. 
Most of them suffer, and many die, in order that we may have better health. 
Are we so insensitive that we would deny them relief from an excess of misery? 
I want to suggest in a moment that the very essential quality of kindness 
should be nurtured in all young medical students. Soon they will be doing their 
experimenting on people rather than animals. It concerns all of us, then, to make 
sure that gentleness has been built into the training of these future doctors. 
But first please hear my evidence that cruelty does exist in some of the 
laboratories. 
In my biological training I have had association with many research work- 
ers and medical students, and the best of my evidence comes from within 
the scientific professions, themselves. 
Some of the methods used in laboratories have changed in the last few years. 
For example, dogs are now deprived of their voices by surgery before any 
experiments are begun. In a biology building where I formerly worked at 
night, the dogs used in experiments were housed on the other side of the wall. 
The scientists had gone home — but if they had been there, the whimpering 
and yelping of the dogs would have told them that drugs to relieve the pain 
should have been administered. Remembering those agonized canine voices, 
I recently asked a young physician how the newer medical students can judge 
