Q. You have said that they were as completely anæsthetised as a human being would be, and as carefully?A. Generally more so, those I have seen.

Q. Then, may I ask you, is the dog under those circumstances loose, or strapped down?-A. He is generally tied up on a warm trough, when it is a demonstration that goes on for a long time; but, for an ordinary minor operation that lasts a few minutes, he would not be tied. It depends upon what is going to be done to him. I have never seen an experiment under a licence which was to last for hours without the dog being tied up and profoundly under anæsthesia. For a short surgical operation on a dog, it would not be tied. May I explain how I have seen it done in the case of an experiment under license alone? I saw a dog put into a box; then a mixture of chloroform and air was pumped through this box until the dog fell down insensible; then the dog was lifted up and put on a table, and ether applied with cotton-wool to the nose till it was completely under; and then they tied it up and went through the long process of a blood-pressure experiment.

Q. Why was the tying necessary?—A. I suppose to keep it steady in position.

Q. But would it not be to guard against its struggling on regaining partial sensibility ?-A. No. When they put a number of delicate glass tubes into the carotid artery and the trachea or the veins, you can see that if the dog were touched during the experiment, and were to roll the least degree to one side or the other and break the tubes, it would lose some hours' work. And then the recording drum that they have has to be adjusted to the hundredth of an inch or less. Therefore, the very faintest movement, even a fraction of an inch, by the animal or people working about it, would cause trouble.

Asked about the pithing of frogs, he said that there were

some experiments where they were not pithed, so far as he had seen, but the great majority were pithed.

He was asked: "Do you think it is perfectly possible to keep a dog under complete anesthesia for an hour and a half or longer?" and he answered: "I do not see any difficulty in it." He had never seen the animals struggle; they were far too deeply under for that. "And, further, if it is an operation before a class, say in the Edinburgh University, where the Professor has two or three hundred critics in front of him, I think he would be a very bold man, even if he had the heart to do such a thing, who would venture to show an experiment where the anaesthesia was not complete." He was asked whether it was within his knowledge that much improvement had taken place in the administration of anesthetics, and that we had more control over anesthetics now than we had thirty years ago. He answered: "Certainly; and precautions are taken now which were not taken then: for example, I mentioned the mixing of alcohol with chloroform, and the use of atropine. What I have seen, as I have said already, is, that experimenters nearly always push the anesthesia more boldly than they would in human patients, naturally feeling that the death of a human being would be a very serious matter, and of an animal less serious; and so they can make sure that they have the animal thoroughly under, by pushing the anaesthesia."

SIR WILLIAM THORNLEY STOKER, November 14, 1906

Sir William Thornley Stoker, M.D., President of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, and Inspector for Ireland under the Act since 1879, read a memorandum which he had furnished to the Chief Secretary for Ireland some time ago. In this memorandum he expressed a fear

that anesthesia, particularly in the case of dogs, was not always pushed to a sufficient extent, as these animals often died from the effects of the anaesthetic if given to a full extent. Asked as to his personal experience regarding humanity and carefulness over experiments in Ireland, he answered: "I think that, so far as the letter of the Act is concerned, it has been administered and observed and practised with a great deal of humanity in Ireland." He had never found anything irregular, or to complain of. He thought that experiments on dogs and monkeys ought to be allowed with the greatest possible reserve. "The amount of terror that a dog feels, even in being put under chloroform, is rather painful to witness. I have never myself seen monkeys experimented upon, but I have been told by reliable observers and physiologists who have, that a monkey evidences the most acute sense of fear when it is brought into the room where it is going to be operated on, and shows a great degree of terror. Professor Purser, lately Professor of Physiology in the University of Dublin, is my informant on that point." Sir Thornley Stoker said that he should think it was generally impossible to keep a dog alive for two hours under full anesthesia, or for one hour, because it was so susceptible to death from chloroform that the anesthesia could not be completely maintained throughout a long experiment without killing the dog.

Further examined, he said that he had never seen experiments done in illustration of lectures. Very few demonstrations were given in Ireland.

Further examined, he said that he had not taken any trouble to keep himself informed with regard to the investigations which had been carried on, in recent years, as to how dogs might best be anesthetised. He had never himself seen any experiment under the Act more than a mere inoculation. He did not think there were any abuses

existing in Ireland. He did not think there was any concealment, or anything that a dozen more Inspectors could find out.

PROFESSOR STARLING, December 12, 19, 20, 1906

For Professor Starling's general evidence in physiology, see Chapter III. He was also examined as to the anaesthetics used in experiments on animals. "The usual thing we

do," he said, "is to give the animal, half an hour before the experiment, a hypodermic injection of morphia, of about a quarter of a grain-from a quarter to a third. The effect of that is, that the dog becomes sleepy and stupid, and then sometimes it will lie down quietly; and if it is very sleepy you can put a mask over its nose containing the chloroform, alcohol, and ether mixture, which it takes quite quietly. If, at the time one wants to begin the operation, the animal is not fully under the influence of morphia-if it still seems restless-it is put in a box, and there it has some wool saturated with the A.C.E. (alcohol, chloroform, and ether) mixture put in the box. The air gradually gets saturated, the dog gets more and more sleepy, and finally subsides in the bottom of the box. Then we take it out, fix it up on the table, and continue the administration of the A.C.E. mixture through the mask." The dog would have to be fixed, because it could not lie on its back. He described the difference between conscious and unconscious movement. He pointed out that the sense of pain is one of the earliest senses to disappear under anæsthesia. It disappears before the sense of touch disappears; and the sense of touch disappears before the power of movement.

The administration of anesthetics was a routine practice, just as it would be in the operating theatre. Nobody ever

thought of doing any cutting operation without thorough anæsthesia. "I know practically every physiologist in England; and there are very few whom I have not seen doing experiments, at one time or another. And the intention of the experimenter in each case is the same as my intention would be; that is to say, to prevent, throughout the whole experiment, the animal from feeling pain-to make the whole thing painless."

Professor Starling went on to speak of the doses of morphia, chloral, and urethrane given in cases where these drugs were used for anesthesia. "In man," he said, "we give from 5 to 20 grains of chloral hydrate, that is, about 0·02 gramme per kilo. In the animal, we give half a gramme per kilo; that is, fifty times as much, and then we get complete anesthesia. Morphia is generally used as an adjunct to chloroform and ether. When we give morphia as an adjunct to chloroform or ether, we give from one sixth to a quarter of a grain; when we give it as an anesthetic, we give from one and a half up to fifteen grains, according to the size of the animal; that is to say, a dose that is practically fatal: in most cases the dog would die if it were kept under that anæsthetic. Sometimes, in one or two cases, dogs do recover from the average amount, if they are kept perfectly warm; but in nearly all cases they die of the dose. It is a fatal dose, and the condition of the animal is the same as in the case of opium poisoning in man. The question of complete anesthesia will, in each case, be a question of the dose, whether you are dealing with chloroform, or whether you are dealing with morphia. Morphia is a complete anaesthetic, if it is given in large enough doses."