§ MR. PERKS (Lincolnshire, Louth)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that during the year 1902 there were 12,000 experiments performed on living animals without anæsthetics, and, if so, will he state whether the feeding experiments forming part of the 12,000 include starving animals to death and also forced overfeeding; and whether these experiments are authorised by the Home Office.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) The Return which has been laid before Parliament shows that, under licences and certificates duly authorised by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, over 12,000 experiments (being mostly inoculations and in no case involving any serious operation) were performed in 1902 without anæsthetics. Neither the starving of animals to death nor the forced overfeeding of animals is included among the experiments authorised or performed. In the case of one gentleman who was authorised to perform certain experiments, including four upon rats or rabbits kept without food for certain periods, at the end of which they were to be killed, the Return shows one experiment.