Anaesthetics used in experiments on animals / issued by The Research Defence Society.

  • Research Defence Society (Great Britain)
Date:
[1908?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anaesthetics used in experiments on animals / issued by The Research Defence Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ANAESTHETICS USED IN EXPERIMENTS ON . animals Ninety-six and a half per cent, of all expe^riments on animals in tliis country are inoculations, or of tlie nature of inoculations. For tliese inoculation-expeii- ments, aiisestlietics arc not used. But no cutting of any kind, more severe than the lancing of a superficial vein is allowed to be done, except on an animal under some anesthetic of sufficient power to prevent it feeling pain. There are three ways of preventing pain : (1) local anesthesia, by the use of cocaiii or eucain; (2) anesthesia by the use of such drugs as morphia or chloral; (3) anesthesia by the use of chloroform, ether, or nitrous oxide, (l) Local anesthesia is very seldom used in experiments on animals. Sir James Russell suggested to the Royal Commission that it might be used, under certificate A, before an inocula- tion ; “ More for the sake of the feelings of some experi- menters than for the needs of the animals. There are several experimenters who shrink from even the use of the hypodermic needle, and these are the very men who arc apt to transgress by using an anaesthetic.” That is to say, there have been cases where a licensee, making- inoculations under certificate A, which dispenses with the use of anaesthetics, has anaesthetised the animal to avoid the momentary pain of the introduction of the needle : for which purpose he ought to have held, not