§ Mr. GROVESasked the Home Secretary if he will consider nominating to the advisory committee which assists him in administering the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, one or more persons holding suitable qualifications who may represent the section of public opinion opposed to these experiments?
§ Sir J. GILMOURThe Royal Commission on Vivisection which reported in 1912 and which recommended that an advisory committee shall be appointed to assist the Secretary of State in the administration of the Act, also recommended that these advisers should be selected by him from a list of names submitted to him by the Royal Society and the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in London. This recommendation was adopted by my predecessor in 1913 and I propose to continue to rely on the assistance of these learned bodies in selecting members of the advisory committee.
§ Mr. GROVESasked the Home Secretary if he is satisfied that the irregularities mentioned in the report of the 1140W inspector appointed under the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, as having occurred in1932, and particularly the case of the lady who administered curare, a drug which prevents all movement but leaves the feeling of pain still acute, were sufficiently punished by admonitions and warnings to be more careful in future?
§ Sir J. GILMOURThe answer is in the affirmative. As regards the experiment in which curare was used the licensee was a man and not a woman. The animal was anaesthetised before curare was administered and killed before recovering consciousness, the dose of anaesthetic given being enough to, maintain deep anaesthesia for a much longer time than the animal was kept alive.
§ Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Health what results of value to the community were obtained in the course of the experiments upon living animals performed in 1932 on the instructions of his Department
Sir H. YOUNGAnimal experiments were carried out during 1912 at the Ministry of Health laboratories in connection with the preparation of vaccine lymph, of anti-rabic vaccine, and for the diagnosis of certain diseases. The value of these experiments lies in their necessity to ensure the quality of the preparations and the assistance given to public health authorities in the control of infective diseases. There were also experiments directed to improved methods of lymph production.