Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Vivisection (1875)
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes : with minutes and evidence and appendix / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    xlii a. Operations :—These are performed for the purpose of examining, either for original research or for demonstration to students, the processes of life. b. The administration of poisonous or dangerous drugs:—for the purpose of exhibiting the effect, or of discovering the cure,—or for the purpose of assisting legal investigations. c. The production of disease :—for the purpose of observing its progress, and dis- covering the means of preventing, mitigating, or curing the eflPects of the same or similar diseases in men or animals. a. The principal cases which have been selected for us as instances in which such 3025. operations have resulted in great discoveries have been the discovery of the circulation of the blood,—the discovery of the action of the lacteal and lymphatic system of vessels,—and Sir Charles Bell's discovery of the compound function of the spinal nerves; these three subjects have been selected for illustration because they lie at the very foundation of our present physiological knowledge. Professor Turner, of Edin- burgh, to whom we. have been indebted for this selection, has submitted to us notes of the history of various discoveries, and we desire to direct the particular attention of 3025. all who wish to examine the extent to which practical medicine has been improved by ^l^'''^- physiological experiment to his evidence and that of Dr. M'Kendrick on the subject. It would require a voluminous treatise to exhibit in a consecutive statement the benefits that medicine and surgery have derived from these discoveries. Let us take for our example the discovery of the circulation of the blood, and the various improvements in the treatment of diseases, and in the safer method of performiiig surgical operations on the human subj.ect, that have resulted from it. In medicine it is obvious that a knowledge of the nature of, and of the proper treatment to apply in the large and important class of diseases of the heart and blood-vessels, could not have been acquired without a knowledge of the mechanism of the circulation. In surgery, this discovery has exercised a still more direct in- fluence ; and the narrative of the improvements in practice directly referrible to it would lead us by gradual and successive stages from the time when after an 4538. amputation red-hot irons were applied to staunch the bleeding vessels, to the employ- ment of the carbolized ligature of the present day. If Harvey's experiments, and 3065. those upon the lacteal system, were to be performed now, the animals would first be rendered insensible to pain; and even in the case of Sir Charles Bell's experiments, where sensation was the immediate subject of the investigation, by far the most severe part would also be performed while the animal was in a state of complete anaesthesia. If, therefore, this inquny had been instituted at some former time, we should have been compelled, in regard to this class of experiment, to weigh in the one scale the infliction of great and perhaps protracted suffering,—and in the other the sacrifice of knowledge, most important to mankind, but only to be looked for from experiments which involved such suffering. By the discovery of anaesthetics we have been relieved from that necessity, and our present task is to devise measures which may prove effectual to prevent abuse. h. With reference to the administration of poisons to the lower animals. Sir James 305. Paget brings forward the hope of discovering an antidote for snake poisons, in proof of the absolute necessity for the performance of these experiments. He mentions the many thousands of Your Majesty's Indian subjects who perish annually from snake bites. It is hopeless, he says, to make observations upon the persons bitten by the snakes, with the expectation of effecting a cure. A Government reward has been offered for the discovery of a sufficient antidote. Sir James Paget mentions the case of an enthusiast who was so sanguine of obtaining this reward that he was with difficulty restrained from subjecting himself to the bite of the cobra in proof of the efficacy of his antidote. The medical authorities of St. Bartholomew's Hospital persuaded him to transfer the experiment to some pigeons, which all instantly died. Sir James Paget says we cannot expect that short of 50 years hence a true antidote for snake bites should be found by any other means than by a series of experiments. Of the advantages derived to man from the administration of drugs to animals by way of experiment, Sir James Paget gives an illustration in the case of that fatal and distressing malady angina pectoris, which appears quite recently to have been brought 308. in some degree within the domain of medical control, in consequence of a discovery made from observing the effect of nitrite of amyl on living animals. It must not be forgotten that for the discovery of anaesthetics themselves both men and animals have been largely indebted to the practice now in question. b 3