In a very large number of the experiments included in Table IV. (B.), the results are negative, and the animals suffer no inconvenience whatever from the inoculation. These experiments are therefore entirely painless.
In the event of pain ensuing as the result of an inoculation, a condition attached to the licence requires that the animal shall be killed under anæsthetics as soon as the main result of the experiment has been attained.
The number of inoculations and similar proceedings recorded in Table IV. (B.) continues to increase in accordance with the progressive importance attached to biological tests generally in practical medicine for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, and to the more widely recognised need for such experiments on the part of those responsible for the care of the public health. Several County Councils and Municipal Corporations have their own laboratories in which bacteriological investigations are carried on, including the necessary tests on living animals; and many others have arrangements by which similar observations are made on their behalf in the laboratories of Universities, Colleges, and other Institutions. A sewage farm is registered as a place in which experiments on living animals may be performed in order that the character of the effluent may be tested by its effects on the health of fish. The Board of Agriculture has two laboratories which are registered for the performance of experiments having for their object the detection and study of the diseases of animals. In other places experiments have been made on behalf of the Home Office, the War Office, the India Office, the Local Government Board, the Office of Works, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the Metropolitan Asylums Board. A very large proportion of the experiments in Table IV. (B.) have thus been performed either on behalf of Official Bodies with a view to the preservation of the public health, or directly for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Forty-one licensees return over 8000 experiments which were performed for Government Departments, County Councils, or Municipal Corporations; 2187 experiments were made by four licensees for the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis; twelve licensees performed 6265 experiments, almost all inoculations, for testing antitoxic sera and vaccines and standardising drugs; and 12,187 experiments, mostly inoculations into mice, were performed on behalf of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.
The number of injections made during the year 1905 for the diagnosis of rabies in dogs is 27; these are placed in Table IV. (A.).
During the year the usual inspections of registered places have been made by Sir James Russell, by myself, and by Mr. W. B. L. Trotter, who was appointed temporary Assistant Inspector during my absence for three months. We have found the animals suitably lodged and well cared for, and the licensees attentive to the requirements of the Act, as well as to the conditions appended to their licences by the Secretary of State.
The irregularities recorded during the year have been few, and not of a serious character.
Two licensees, holding certificates (A.) entitling them to perform inoculations without anæsthetics, administered an anæsthetic during some of their experiments, whereas the Act prescribes another form of certificate (B.) when an animal is anæsthetised during an experiment and allowed to recover from the anæsthetic.
A licensee, through inadvertence, performed 54 inoculation experiments in excess of the number allowed by his certificate.
Another licensee, not understanding that joint experiments are reckoned to both of the licensees, took part in the performance of eight experiments in excess of the number allowed by his certificate.
By direction of the Secretary of State a suitable admonition was addressed to the licensee in each of the above cases.