§ MR. WEIRI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, seeing that an animal subjected to a true 569 anæsthetic such as chloroform is insensible to pain, will he state whether there is any reason why the use of curare in the practice of vivisection should not be forbidden, especially in view of the fact that an animal under the influence of curare has been held by the highest authority, Professor Claude Bernard, to be acutely sensible to pain, notwithstanding the fact that it is so paralysed by the drug as to be unable to express its pain by sound or struggle?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYAs I hive already stated, I am satisfied that curare is not used as an anæsthetic. There are cases however in which its use, along with the anæsthetic, is indispensable for the success of the investigation; but its use does not make the anæsthetised animal sensible to pain.