HC Deb 08 May 1903 vol 122 cc200-1
SIR FREDERICK BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state under what certificate the operation on a brown dog was performed at University College Hospital on 2nd February last; and whether, seeing that a second operation was performed upon this animal before the wounds caused by the first operation had healed, he proposes to take any action in the matter.

(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The operation to which I understand the hon. Member refers was performed under Certificate C. It is true that at the time there was an unhealed wound in the body of the dog. This was an incision made very shortly before by another licensee for the purpose of examining the condition of an organ upon which he had previously carried out an operation, from which the animal suffered no ill effects. Previously to the making of the incision the animal was placed under anæsthetics, and while still in that condition was brought into the theatre for the purpose of the experiment under Certificate C. During the whole of the latter the animal continued under anesthetics, and was eventually taken away and killed before it recovered consciousness. In these circumstances there appears to be no action which I am called upon to take.

MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Departments if he will state the number of persons holding certificates to practice vivisection at London University College, the qualifications of the operators, the nature of the certificates which they respectively hold, and the source from which they obtain the dogs on which they experiment.

(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The information asked for, with the exception of the last item, is contained in the Annual Return of Experiments on Living Animals, of which the volume for the year 1902 will be issued very shortly. I have no information as to the source from which the animals are obtained.