VIVISECTION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
785 
reters to experiments with contagious diseases or with animal parasites, which are the 
principal ones conducted under the direction of the Bureau of Animal Industry. 
All investigations concerning the diseases of horses, asses, and mules would practically 
be stopped by the proposed legislation and the testing of horses with mallein to determine 
if they are affected with glanders would only be possible after a week’s delay to obtain a 
certificate. Glanders is one of the diseases which it is the duty of the Bureau of Animal 
Industry, in cooperation with the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, to eradicate 
from the District. If a suspected horse is found it should be tested at once. A delay of 
a week gives an opportunity for the escape of the animal from supervision, and is under 
any circumstances a hardship to the owner as well as a peril to the people and horses ex¬ 
posed to the affected animal. Efforts to control contagious diseases must be prompt and 
vigorous if they are expected to bring success. Such legislation as is proposed in the bills 
mentioned would make the eradication of glanders impossible. 
5. It is provided in section 4 of the substitute bill that a license shall not be granted 
to any person under the age of twenty-five years, unless he be a graduate from a medical 
college, duly authorized to practice medicine in the District of Columbia. 
This provision effectually excludes from experimentation any graduate in science under 
twenty-five years of age, unless he is duly authorized to practice medicine in the District 
of Columbia. It would at once stop some of the experiments now in progress, and if it 
had been enforced in past years would have prevented a large proportion of our scientific 
employees from doing this class of work. Taken in connection with paragraph b of section 
2, which provides that experiments must be performed by persons holding a license from 
the Commissioners of the District, or by a duly authorized medical officer of the Govern¬ 
ment of the United States or of the District of Columbia, it is readily seen that young men, 
graduates in zoology, or in other collateral sciences, could not make experiments even if 
they were competent and in the service of an Executive Department of the Government. 
6. The bill also provides that the Commissioners of the District may direct any person 
performing such experiments under this act from time to time to make reports to them of 
the result of such experiments, in such form and with such detail as the said Commis¬ 
sioners may require. The substitute bjll makes this report cover the methods employed, 
as well as the results of the experiments. This provision is objectionable, be¬ 
cause It makes the employees of an Executive Department subject to the directions of 
the Commissioners of the District in making their reports. It permits reports to be called 
for before the investigations are completed, and the official work of these experts might be 
stopped at any time by a demand from the Commissioners for a report as to the methods 
being employed and the results of the experiments. 
I would respectfully suggest that it is improper, and not in accordance with precedent 
for the employees of an Executive Department of the Government to report directly to the 
Commissioners of the District. Their report should be made to the head of the Depart¬ 
ment, and if any report is to be made to the commissioners it should be made by, or trans¬ 
mitted through the head of the Department. Even this would be objectionable, as the 
work of the Department should not in any way be subject to or dependent upon the local 
authorities. 
7. It is provided in section 6 “that the Commissioners of the District shall cause all 
registered places to be from time to time visited by inspectors, without previous notice for 
the purpose of securing compliance with the provisions of this act, and shall appoint and 
authorize an agent of the Washington Humane Society to make such inspection, and may 
also appoint such special inspectors as they may think fit, either permanently or temporarily, 
who may be willing to act as such inspectors gratuitously.” 
The substitute bill provides “that the President of the United States shall cause all 
places where experiments on living vertebrate animals are carried on in the District of 
Columbia to be from time to time visited and inspected, without previous notice, for the 
purpose of securing compliance with the provisions of this act, and to that end shall ap¬ 
point four inspectors, who shall serve without compensation, and who shall have authority 
to visit and inspect the places aforesaid, and who shall report to the President of the United 
States from time to time the results of their observations therein, which shall be made 
public by him.” 
It must be plain that the results of all these limitations and restrictions and of this 
espionage wfill be the prevention of scientific research rather than its regulation. As long 
