HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 343 
held and its report affirmed in the most distinct manner, that, so far from 
vivisection being carried out by hundreds of persons daily, not more than 15 or 20 
persons were engaged in the systematic pursuit of physiology in this country. 
* * * On the one hand there is the view of those who are interested in the service 
of medicine and in the researches of physiology and on the other hand that held 
by a numerous mass of people in this country.” 
The bill was passed in the House of Lords and was sent to the House of 
Commons. The following extract gives an account of the debate. 
London Times, August 10, 1876 (4% columns from which a few extracts are 
quoted) : 
“The animal cruelty bill was read a second time in the House of Commons. 
Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary, in moving the second reading of the bill, stated 
that they lived now as had been well said in an age of progress and probably 
in no intellectual pursuit had greater progress been made than in medical 
science and inquiry.” “The secretary of the Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals heartily acknowledged that he did not know of a single 
case in which anesthetics had not been used.” (Note that Mr. Colan, the secre- 
tary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been 
instructed by his society in January 1875 to undertake as many prosecutions 
of cases of vivisection (involving severe animal suffering) as may come within 
the scope of the existing law. ) 
“Mr. Colan, the secretary of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals had told the commission that in the whole course of his inquiry he had 
met with only one instance of a case of vivisection performed by a student.” 
“Sir George Duckett, the president of the Society for the Abolition of Vivisec- 
tion tells us that medical science has arrived at its extreme limits and has 
little to learn.” 
“Dr. Ward who had placed on the paper a motion for rejection of the bill 
said the main objection to vivisection had been based upon statements as to 
the practice of foreign physiologists, but unsupported by evidence.” 
“In point of strict argument Mr. Lowe’s speech against the bill was unanswer- 
able. But the Government and the medical profession are under the necessity 
of doing something to satisfy the very vehement sentiment upon the subject ; and 
Mr. Cross very prudently treated the proposal as one which simply asked the 
medical profession to give a statutory guarantee for their observance of con- 
ditions under which, as a matter of fact, they have in this country always per- 
formed their experiments. It is better for physiologists to submit once and 
for all to some restrictions, provided the value of their experiments is not 
materially curtailed, than that they should be liable year by year to the persecu- 
tions and interruptions to which they have during the last few months been 
subjected.” 
“Nevertheless, it is only due to the doctors against whom the regulations of 
the bill are directed to say that the whole sympathy of all reasonable persons 
must be on their side in the dispute.” 
“But it is often Mr. Lowe’s misfortune to be too reasonable ; and Mr. Cross 
appealed with some skill to the resolutions respecting vivisection which were 
passed in 1871 by men of science themselves at a meeting of the British associa- 
tion. They laid down the rules that no experiment which could be performed 
under the influence of anesthetics should be otherwise performed — that those 
resolutions should have been passed 5 years ago may well, indeed, as Mr. 
Cross admitted, be held to show that the present legislation is wholly unneces- 
sary; but they may also be considered to show that, except for the gratuitous 
insult which has been inflicted on a great profession, it is comparatively 
harmless.” 
The evidence clearly shows that there was no need for the kind of law passed 
in Great Britain in 1876. It was written in an era in which Parliament knew 
very little, as the evidence shows, about research, its requirements and its 
promise. Is it conceivable then that a British Parliament sitting in 1876 could 
have had the wisdom to pass a law suitable for America today? Nevertheless, 
it is proposed that we accept the decision of that Parliament by enacting a law 
patterned after the British act of 1876. 
