§ MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the experiments with phthisical sputum reported by Mr. Watson Cheyne in the British Medical Journal of the 11th of April, involving the boring of holes into the knee joints of living rabbits; and whether the Home Office produces a Report of such experiments; if so, does this Report show whether Mr. Watson Cheyne held a certificate dispensing him from the use of anæsthetics in the performance of such experiments; whether the holes were bored into the legs of the animals while they were sensitive to pain; and how long their joints were allowed to inflame and swell through the action of the 1749 diseased material stated to have been injected?
§ MR. MATTHEWSYes, Sir; I have seen the report of these experiments in the journal referred to. They were made in the years 1887 and 1888, and a summary of them appears in the Annual Report of the Inspector presented to Parliament for those years under Table 3. Prom that Table it appears that they were under Certificate A, which authorises experiments without anæsthetics, and which was granted on the supposition that the experiments were simple inoculations. I am informed by the Inspector that the great majority of these experiments were simple inoculations; but that in the cases where the inoculation was performed on bone, as detailed in the journal quoted, the animal was fully under the influence of chloroform. With regard to subsequent pain, the licence always carries a condition that; if severe pain had been induced in an animal after the experiment, and if the main result of the experiment has been attained, the animal shall be immediately killed under anæsthetics.