HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 353 
What is needed at the present time in place of these restrictive bills is a better 
program for training for both animal handlers and scientists, and better facili- 
ties for both research animals and research workers to allow the most humane 
and productive use of the animals that are serving so importantly in medical 
research today. 
Very truly yours, 
Eugene M. Renkin, Professor and Chairman, 
Friedrich P. J. Diecke, Professor, Associate, 
Chester E. Leese, Professor, 
Charles S. Tidball, Assistant Research Professor. 
Ruth M. Henderson, Assistant Professor, 
Margaret Westecker, Assistant Professor. 
Washington, D.C., September 26, 1962. 
Hon. Kenneth Roberts, 
Chairman, Committee on Health and Safety of the House Committee on Inter- 
state and Foreign Commerce, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 
Dear Mr. Roberts : This communication is addressed to you to urge favorable 
consideration of H.R. 1937. 
In order that you may know something of my qualifications to address you on 
this subject, I might state that almost my entire life has been devoted to work- 
ing with animals. I was engaged in fisheries, fur, and game protection work in 
Alaska, Arizona, and southern California for a total of about 15 years, and fol- 
lowing that I was in the Washington office of the U.S. Biological Survey in im- 
mediate charge of the wildlife reservations. From March 1, 1930, to December 31, 
1956, I was Assistant Director of the National Zoological Park. Since my re- 
tirement at the end of December 1956, I have been engaged in a research and 
writing project to bring together information regarding the “Genera of Recent 
Mammals of the World,” which is to be published in three volumes by the Johns 
Hopkins Press. 
I feel that a great deal of needless work is being done in many of the experi- 
ments on animals, and when experiments are necessary they should be carefully 
planned so that they will yield the maximum results with a minimum of expendi- 
ture of effort and suffering by the animals. I especially deplore the indiscrimi- 
nate experimentation by students who do not know the basic principles of carry- 
ing on an intelligent experiment with the result that they become hardened to 
the sufferings of animals, and such suffering is greatly increased by their igno- 
rance and indifference. 
Another aspect is that even in well-organized laboratories if animals are not 
kept under proper conditions and they are not permitted sufficient freedom of 
movement so that their physical activities and body functions can be normal, 
the value of the experiment is open to serious question, for unless the body is 
functioning normally, certainly the experiment cannot be of maximum value. 
Monkeys are extremely sensitive creatures, certainly having keener senses in 
some respects than humans have. Therefore the most rudimentary knowledge 
of experimental work would require that the monkeys be well treated in order 
for the experiments to be valid. A recognition of the fact that humans are only 
one of thousands of different kinds of animals on this earth which also have their 
rights, raises great doubt of man’s rights to destroy and torture them. Certainly 
mammals which have some senses far superior to ours and are accustomed to 
great freedom and have as much right on this earth as we have, are entitled to 
the utmost consideration if they are to be used in experimental work. 
I hope you will consider that this communication is of sufficient value to jus- 
tify publication of it in the record, for I am certain that it reflects the senti- 
ments of a great many people who do not voice themselves on the subject. The 
animals will be benefited by enactment of this bill, and the people who finance 
experimental work on animals will certainly appreciate any curtailment that you 
may be able to bring about in the very extensive, expensive, and often ill-advised 
experimental work. 
Very sincerely yours, 
Ernest P. Walker. 
