HC Deb 15 May 1890 vol 344 c953
MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the vivisection experiments on the local paralysis of the peripheral ganglia, and on the connection of different classes of nerve fibres with them, reported to the Royal Society on the 21st November, 1889, by Mr. J. N. Langley, F.R.S., were made wholly or partly in the year 1889, and, if partly, then what part of them; and whether, if these experiments were made in 1889, he will explain why, inasmuch as they were painful experiments, they were not included in Table III. of the Annual Report and Return under the Act 39 and 40 Vic. c. 77, under the head "pain," when Mr. Langley was making his report to the inspector?

*MR. MATTHEWS

I have not been able, in the short time allowed to me, to ascertain the exact date of the experiments performed by Mr. Langley, but I will make inquiry. I presume, in the absence of any information to the contrary, that all the experiments with the exception of the six experiments on frogs as given in Table III. were under the ordinary licence, apart from a special certificate, i.e., they must all have been performed upon animals throughout under the influence of anæsthetics, and killed before recovery of consciousness.