316 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
in active research. The essence of good research is to take advantage of the 
breaks as they occur. In my own work I plan the experiment of each day or 
week on the basis of what I learned in the previous day or week. I use different 
animals for the different purposes. It is impossible to predict over long periods 
what animals will be needed. Certainly a field zoologist who is collecting 
mammals, birds, or fish cannot predict what will be captured in his traps. 
Teaching and research cannot be separated and it is impossible to predict exact 
animal needs for classes. The stipulation that animal requirements for research 
be approved in Washington would add materially to the cost of research and 
would eliminate the free exploration of many new ideas. 
H.R. 1937 is written to regulate use of all vertebrates. It is not limited to 
monkeys, dogs, and cats, but includes rats, mice, birds, frogs, and fish of all 
sorts ; thus, agricultural stations, fisheries, and conservation laboratories, marine 
stations as well as universities and medical and veterinary research institu- 
tions are affected. The nervous systems of frogs and fishes are very different 
from those of cats and dogs, and methods for producing loss of consciousness 
in one group often do not apply to the others. A great deal of important re- 
search in embryology is done with eggs of frogs and fish. It would be virtually 
impossible to keep count of all the eggs laid by even one of these. Certainly 
experiments on an embryo which does not yet have a brain should not be sub- 
ject to the same rules as those on an adult monkey. The differences between 
fish and mammals are great, but it seems improbable that regulation would 
stop with vertebrates. H.R. 3556 would regulate not only for all vertebrates, 
but “any other species capable of developing a conditioned response.” This 
would include all insects, earthworms, even such protozoans as Paramecia. 
Thus, all animal biology from work on unicellular forms to primates would 
be subject to regulation. Kind of animal used is not of real significance, rather 
it is the principle of regulating qualified animal experimenters that is wrong. 
Is there theoretical justification for so-called humane legislation? These 
bills are based on the assumption that what is painful for a man is also pain- 
ful for a fly, worm, fish, or a mouse and that what is pleasant for a man is 
pleasant for all animals, even those reared in cages or aquaria. I do not agree 
with this assumption, mainly because of the marked differences in nervous 
systems. Some protozoans which have no nervous systems can be conditioned. 
The nature of consciousness is not definable, and all living things — plants, 
microorganisms, as well as animals — have certain self-protective properties 
which can be separated only quantitatively from what man calls consciousness 
in himself. 
More serious is the implication that biologists, among all scientists, are cruel 
and amoral. Certainly medical and agricultural biologists should be dedicated 
to human welfare. There is no effort to regulate the free research of phy- 
sicists and chemists. The use of insecticides to kill insect pests (and at the 
same time to damage birds), the pollution of streams by agents toxic to fish, 
the castration of pigs and cattle by farmers are practices which seem neces- 
sary in modern civilization and which involve far more animals than the few 
used in laboratories. 
H.R. 3556 would license persons with doctoral degrees “in medicine, veterinary 
medicine, physiology, psychology, or zoological science.” This would exclude 
pharmacologists and the hundreds of biochemists who use animals. This bill 
specifies that anesthetics “shall be administered only by a licensed veterinarian 
or a doctor of medicine qualified in anesthesiology.” This means that every 
zoology, physiology, or psychology department must have such a staff member. 
I doubt that medical anesthesiologists would be as competent with fish or earth- 
worms as the persons who have doctor’s degrees based on work with such ani- 
mals. This bill specifies that the Commissioner shall never have been con- 
nected with any laboratory. This would give complete control of animal biology 
in America to a man who knows nothing about the subject. 
It is maintained that this bill is modeled after one in Britain. Actually it 
goes far beyond the British bill in its regulations and the kinds of animals 
included. I have done physiological research in England and have many British 
colleagues who agree that they are definitely limited in their research by a 
law which is much less stringent than the one proposed here. This is not a 
mere matter of licensing a few practitioners. 
To maintain its strength in science, both fundamental and applied, America 
must encourage rather than limit biologists who, in all humaneness and re- 
spect for life, are trying to learn the secrets of life in vertebrate animals. I 
