§ SIR JOHN ROLLESTON (Leicester)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention 916 has been drawn to the increase during the past year in the number of experiments on living animals, and also in the number of licensed vivisectors, as shown in the recent Parliamentary Return of Experiments on Living Animals; and, if so, whether he is able to state the reason of such increase.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) There is no doubt a real increase such as the hon. Member indicates, but the figures as to the number of licencees are swollen by the fact that, as explained in the second paragraph of the Report which prefaces the Return in question, a change has been made in the date at which licences expire—viz., 28th February has been substituted for 31st December. The table for 1902 contains, therefore, in addition to the normal number, the names of thirty-four licencees whose licences expired on 28th February in that year and were not renewed. Apart from this, the increase is due to the natural growth and development of the important subjects of physiology, pathology, and hygiene; and the increase in the number of experiments is almost entirely in the class of experiments included in Table III. (b)—viz., inoculations and the like, and more particularly in the experiments performed for the preparation of remedies and on behalf of various public authorities. The increase, eighty-one, in the number of experiments included in Table III. (a) is almost entirely accounted for by injections for the diagnosis of rabies having been seventy more in 1902 than in 1901.