§ MR. G. GREENWOOD (Peterborough)To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, as the result of the inquiries promised, he can now say whether vivisectional experiments are habitually performed at Gordon College, Khartoum, in the Wellcome Research Laboratories, or elsewhere; whether the Gordon College, though not under the control of the Foreign Office, is in anyway subject to British control; whether the Wellcome Research Laboratories form part of such college, or what is their connection with it; how such laboratories are maintained, and whether or not by public money; and whether operators in such laboratories or otherwise at the Gordon College, are subject to any inspection, regulation, or control.
(Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) No vivisectional experiments in the ordinary sense of the term are conducted at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, but from time to time painless hypodermic inoculations have been given to living animals in order to further the diagnosis and cure of the obscure tropical diseases to which men and animals are exposed when living in the Soudan, and many valuable results have been obtained. The Gordon College is under an executive committee and trustees appointed under The Gordon College at Khartoum Act, 1899. The research laboratories, the equipment of which was given by Mr. Henry S. Wellcome to the Soudan Government, are affiliated to the Gordon College. The maintenance of these laboratories is a charge upon the Gordon College, the revenue of which is derived partly from an endowment and partly from a grant 223 made annually by the Soudan Government. The laboratories are constantly visited by several members of the Soudan Governor's Central Sanitary Board.