368 HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS USED IN RESEARCH 
Letter to Prof. W. W. Keen of Philadelphia From Lord Joseph Lister, 
Pioneer of Aseptic Surgery in Regard to the British Laws Regulating 
Animal Experimentation 
“London, England, April 4, 1898. 
“My Dear Sir : I am grieved to learn that there should be even a remote chance 
of the legislature of any State in the Union passing a bill for regulating experi- 
ments upon animals. 
“It is only comparatively recently in the world’s history that the gross dark- 
ness of empiricism has given place to more and more scientific practice ; and this 
result has been mainly due to experiments upon living animals. It was to these 
that Harvey was in large measure indebted for the fundamental discovery of 
the circulation of the blood, and the great American triumph of general anesthesia 
was greatly promoted by them. Advancing knowledge has shown more and more 
that the bodies of the lower animals are essentially similar to our own in their 
intimate structure and functions ; so that lessons learned from them may be 
applied to human pathology and treatment. If we refuse to avail ourselves of 
this means of acquiring increased acquaintance with the working of that mar- 
velously complex machine, the animal body, we must either be content to remain 
at an absolute standstill or return to the fearful haphazard ways of testing new 
remedies upon human patients in the first instance which prevailed in the dark 
ages. 
“Never was there a time when the advantages that may accrue to man from 
investigations in the lower animals were more conspicuous than now. The 
enormous advances that have been made in our knowledge of the nature and 
treatment of disease of late years have been essentially due to work of this kind. 
“The importance of such investigations was fully recognized by the Commis- 
sioners on whose report the act of Parliament regulating experiments on animals 
in this country was passed, their object in recommending legislation being pro- 
fessedly only to prevent possible abuse. In reality, as one of the Commissioners, 
the late Mr. Erichsen, informed me, no single instance of such abuse having 
occurred in the British Islands had been brought before them at the time when 
I gave my evidence, and that was towards the close of their sittings. Yet in 
obedience to a popular outcry, the Government of the day passed an act which 
went much further than the recommendations of the Commissioners. They had 
advised that the operation of the law should be restricted to experiments upon 
warm-blooded animals ; but when the bill was considered in the House of Com- 
mons a Member who was greatly respected as a politician but entirely ignorant 
of the subject matter suggested that “vertebrated” should be substituted for 
“warmblooded,” and this amendment was accepted by a majority as ignorant as 
himself. 
“The result is that, incredible as it may seem, anyone would now be liable to 
criminal prosecution in this country who should observe the circulation of the 
blood in a frog’s foot under the microscope without having obtained a license for 
the experiment and unless he performed it in a specially licensed place. 
“It can be readily understood that such restrictions must seriously interfere 
with legitimate researches. Indeed, for the private practitioner they are almost 
prohibitive, and no one can tell how much valuable work is thus prevented. 
“My own first investigations of any importance were a study of the process of 
inflammation in the transparent web of the frog’s foot. The experiments were 
very numerous and were performed at all hours of the day in my own house. I 
was then a young, unknown practitioner ; and if the present law had been in ex- 
istence, it might have been difficult for me to obtain the requisite licenses ; and 
even if I had got them, it would have been impossible for me to have gone to a 
public laboratory to work. Yet without these early researches, which the ex- 
isting law would have prevented, I could not have found my way among the 
perplexing difficulties which beset me in developing the antiseptic system of 
treatment in surgery. 
“In the course of my antiseptic work at a later period I frequently had re- 
course to experiments on animals. One of these occurs to me which yielded par- 
ticularly valuable results, but which I certainly should not have done if the 
present law had been in force. It had reference to the behavior of a thread com- 
posed of animal tissue applied antiseptically for tying an arterial trunk. I had 
prepared a ligature of such material at a house where I was spending a few days 
at a distance from home ; and it occurred to me to test it upon the carotid artery 
of a calf. Acting on the spur of the moment, I procured the needful animal at 
a neighboring market ; a lay friend gave chloroform, and another assisted at the 
