§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether a laboratory for experiments on living animals has been opened in connection with the Board of Agriculture, and two officers empowered to perform experiments without anæsthetics; whether any experiments made there with regard to rabies will be at the public expense; and whether there is any provision for the laboratory in the Estimates?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. W. H. LONG,) Liverpool, West DerbyIt has recently become necessary in connection with our operations against rabies, for our Veterinary Department to take over from the local authorities the duty of diagnosis, where the local inspector is unable, after post-mortem examination, to express a definite opinion as to whether the animal was or was not rabid, a class of cases in which inoculation experiments have always been necessary. The work will be performed under the authority of licences under the Act of 1876, which, for many years past, it has been requisite should be held in the Department in question for the purposes of the Diseases of Animals Acts. All the expenses which the work entails are provided in the Vote for my Department.