§ Mr. SNOWDENasked whether the Dr. Klein, who conducted experiments in regard to the rat plague in Suffolk in October, 1910, is the same Dr. Klein who gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Vivisection on 28th October, 1875, and stated that he had no regard at all for the sufferings of the animals on which he experimented; whether he is the Dr. Klein who experimented upon thousands of animals, such as pigs, rabbits, horses, guinea-pigs, rats, cats, monkeys, calves, cows, and mice, and has described his experiments in various reports to the Local Government Board; whether he is still employed by the Board; and, if not, when his engagement terminated?
§ Mr. BURNSThe reply to the first and second inquiry is in the affirmative. I may observe, however, that Dr. Klein stated in 1875 that the evidence, as printed, did not express his real intentions. I may also point out that any experiments carried out for the Local Government Board have been subject to the condition that no experiments on living animals are to be conducted at the cost of the State without the employment of anæsthetics in the case of painful operations, nor without a report from time to time explaining the object of any such experiments and showing their necessity for the purposes of discovery. The only connection which Dr. Klein now has with my Department is that he acts as an occasional consultant in regard to the examination of doubtful specimens of suspected plague material.