refer to the public recognition of the value of the experimental method:

"In recent years, the value of the experimental method has been very largely recognised by the public at large, as well as by various public bodies. This recognition has taken practical shape in various ways, such as:

"(1) The foundation of Schools of Tropical Medicine, subsidised by the Colonial Office and Colonial Governments, and the appointment of research expeditions or commissions to investigate on the spot such diseases as sleeping sickness, plague, malaria, Malta fever, etc. "(2) The foundation of an Imperial Research Fund for the purpose of investigating cancer.

"(3) The appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate by experimental methods, and otherwise, that great scourge to the human race, tuberculosis."

At the end of this part of the Report, all the Commissioners come to the safe conclusion, that "the great preponderance of medical and scientific authority is against the opponents of vivisection. This is more markedly so now than was the case before the Royal Commission of 1875." They go on to say:

"(1) That certain results, claimed from time to time to have been proved by experiments upon living animals and alleged to have been beneficial in preventing or curing disease, have, on further investigation and experience, been found to be fallacious or useless.

"(2) That, notwithstanding such failures, valuable knowledge has been acquired in regard to physiological processes and the causation of disease, and that useful methods for the prevention, cure, and treatment of certain diseases have resulted from experimental investigations upon living animals.

"(3) That, as far as we can judge, it is highly improbable that, without experiments on animals, mankind would at the present time have been in possession of such knowledge.

"(4) That, in so far as disease has been successfully prevented or its mortality reduced, suffering has been diminished in man and in lower animals.

"(5) That there is ground for believing that similar methods of investigation if pursued in the future will be attended with similar results."

The next part of the Report (pp. 48-57) deals with the question of the pain involved in experiments on animals, with certain "miscellaneous questions," and with "the moral question.” Then, after a brief notice of some suggestions offered to the Commission by witnesses, the Commissioners make their recommendations to His Majesty the King:

1. Inspection (see chap. i. pp. 15–33). "We are inclined to think, having regard to the present number of licensed premises and experiments, that there would be an adequate increase of inspection if, in place of the existing arrangements, the Chief Inspector were a whole-time officer, and if in addition to him there were three whole-time Inspectors for Great Britain.

"Assuming that it is not thought practicable or desirable to appoint whole-time officers, but that the services of Inspectors in the active practice of their professions should be retained, we think that arrangements should be made to secure a sufficient number of such Inspectors who could give such time to their duties as would be equivalent to the services of the four whole-time men. It is essential that the Inspectors should be qualified medical men of such position as to secure the confidence both of their own profession and of the public.

"As to Ireland, we think that, having regard to the comparatively small number of licensed places and of experiments carried out under the Act in that country, sufficient inspection can be obtained by the services of one or more part-time Inspectors."

2. Use of Curare (see chap. ix. pp. 253-259). "Some of us are of opinion that the use of curare should be altogether prohibited, but we are all agreed that if its

use is to be permitted at all, an Inspector or some person nominated by the Secretary of State should be present from the commencement of the experiment, who should satisfy himself that the animal is throughout the whole experiment and until its death in a state of complete anesthesia."

3. Safeguards against Pain after Experiments. "We recommend:

"(I) That an Inspector should have power to order the painless destruction of any animal which, having been the subject of any experiment, shows signs of obvious suffering or considerable pain, even though the object of the experiment may not have been attained: and

"(II) That in all cases in which in the opinion of the experimenter the animal is suffering severe pain which is likely to endure, it shall be his duty to cause its painless death, even though the object of the experiment has not been attained.

"The above conditions should be attached to certificates. We regret that we cannot recommend any further extension of the pain condition.' We are anxious, as far as possible, to prevent or to limit animal suffering in every case. We have recommended that there should be increased inspection, that wide powers should be given to inspectors to order the painless destruction of any animal under experiment, and that in future, although the object of the experiment has not been attained, no animal should be allowed to live in severe pain which is likely to endure. But we do not feel justified in recommending that, when the object of the experiment has not been attained, an experimenter should in all cases be required to destroy the animal immediately it exhibits signs even of severe pain, which might in some cases be only momentary.

"We are satisfied by the evidence that in the great majority of the experiments under the Act the animals do not exhibit any symptoms suggestive of severe pain, and to require the immediate destruction of an animal as soon as it exhibits such symptoms might, in our

opinion, put an insuperable obstacle in the way of investigating many widespread diseases (afflicting both men and domesticated animals) with respect to which further knowledge as to their nature and treatment is in the interest of humanity urgently required.

"It must not be forgotten that it is in the case of diseases which are naturally painful when they attack men or animals that experiments are most likely to involve pain to animals which are experimentally infected; as examples we may instance cancer, cholera, plague, tetanus, rabies, and snake-bite.

"We are compelled to accept the weighty evidence given before us to the effect that the study of animals experimentally infected with some of these diseases has given us knowledge which has been instrumental in saving much mortality and suffering both in man and animals, and we believe that discoveries already made in this way justify the hope that by the same methods knowledge may yet be extended regarding the means of preventing or curing other most painful diseases which are at present scarcely or not at all amenable to treatment. And finally we feel that as long as public opinion sanctions the infliction on animals of pain, which is not only severe but of long duration, in the pursuit of sport, and in carrying out such operations as castration and spaying, or in the destruction of rabbits and of rats and other vermin by traps and painful poisons, it would be inconsistent and unreasonable to go further than we have already gone in limiting experiments which are designed to result and, according to experience, will probably result in preventing or alleviating great human or animal suffering."

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"In the months of spring and early summer in this country, farm-places simply, so to speak, seethe with vivisection. Male and female animals have these sensitive organs cut out of their bodies in full consciousness; and this is done on millions of animals annually. We know to a million or two; but there are many millions. You must not think I am exaggerating about it: you will find it from the statistics returned by the Board of Agriculture every year." (Sir John McFadyean, Evidence before the Commission, vol. ii. p. 74).

4. An Advisory Body. "We think that the practice followed by various Home Secretaries for nearly thirty years, of obtaining professional advice as a guide in the exercise of their powers and discharge of their responsibility, is a reasonable and proper practice: but in our opinion the recommendations of the Commission of 1875 should be strictly followed.

"These advisers should, as regards Great Britain, be selected by the Secretary of State from a list of names submitted to him by the Royal Society and the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in London. No person so selected should be the holder of a licence, and the names of all persons so selected, as well as the names of the scientific authorities under the Act,1 should be published. The adoption of this suggestion would involve a discontinuance of the present practice of reference to the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research.

"With regard to Ireland, where heretofore there has been no Advisory Body, we think that the Chief Secretary should be advised by a body chosen upon analogous lines."

These are the four chief recommendations of the Report. Two minor recommendations are made: (1) Stricter provisions as to the definition and practice of "pithing." (2) Special records by experimenters in certain cases.

We now come to the memoranda which were mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The first memorandum recommends that the present distinction, between the granting of licences by the Home Office, and the allowing, by the Home Office, of certificates granted by the scientific authorities, should be abolished; and that the Home Office alone should grant licences and certificates. It also recommends the insertion in the Act of a requirement upon all experimenters in every case in which obvious suffering (real or obvious

See chap. i. p. 6: section 11 of the Act. 2 See chap. i. p. 17.