Incomplete Anæsthesia
It sometimes happens, at an operation, that the patient moves. Mostly, this movement is at the moment of the first incision through the skin; but it may be at some later period during the operation. He does not remember, after the operation, that he moved, or that he felt anything. That is incomplete anæsthesia, or light anæsthesia. The corneal reflex may be abolished, and still the patient may move.
Seven years ago some experiments were made in this country by an American surgeon. In the published account of them, it was said that one of the animals was, at one time, under incomplete anæsthesia, and that, in the case of another animal, the anæsthesia was at one time overlooked. This latter phrase meant not that the anæsthetic had been left off, but that it had been given in excess, so that the blood-pressure suddenly fell. The character of the experiments, and the occurrence of these two phrases about the anæsthesia, roused some criticism, and the Home Office instituted an inquiry into the matter. "That inquiry," it said, October 11th, 1899, "resulted in showing no evidence whatever that the animals experimented on by Dr. Crile felt pain. On the contrary, all the evidence shows they did not." The Act does not go into questions of corneal reflex, and unconscious muscular movements, and all the undefinable shades between incomplete anæsthesia and complete anæsthesia and profound anæsthesia. "The only substantial question," says the Home Office, "is whether or no the animal has been during the operation under the influence of an anæsthetic of sufficient power to prevent it feeling pain. This is the requirement of the law." We cannot refuse to call morphia and chloral anæsthetics, for there are deaths every year from an over-dose of them. And we cannot admit that an animal under an anæsthetic, because it makes a movement, is in pain or is conscious; for we know that a patient under operation may move yet feel nothing. Every hospital surgeon, and every anæsthetist, who has seen a whole legion of patients go under chloroform or ether and come out of it, and everybody who has been under these anæsthetics, they all know that incomplete anæsthesia is not "sham anæsthesia," and that movements, even purposive movements, may occur without consciousness, without pain, alike in men and in animals.
One Animal and One Experiment
When the Home Office allows a licensee to make a certain number of experiments, it means that he may experiment on that number of animals and no more. The Home Office, having heard what the experiments are to be, where they are to be made, on what kind of animals, and for what purpose, and having taken advice about them, allows him to make a fixed number, and adds any restrictions that it likes, e.g. that he must send in a preliminary report when he has made half that number. And one thing is certain, that one experiment = one animal, and that 10 experiments = 10 animals, and no more. Everybody knows that, who knows anything at all about the administration of the Act.
Now take a false statement, which has been made again and again during many years, that one experiment = any number of animals, and observe how it spread.
1. In the House of Commons, on March 12th, 1897, Mr. MacNeill asked whether any record were kept of the number of animals used in experiments during 1895, and said that 200 or 300 animals are sometimes used in a single experiment, and that 80 or 90 is a common number. The Home Secretary answered: "The honourable member is under an entire misapprehension. The number of animals used does not exceed the number of experiments given in the return."
2. A year later, May 18th, 1898, at the Annual Meeting of the National Society, Mr. MacNeill said again: "Any one casually reading that report (the Inspector's report to Government) would imagine that each experiment was on the body of a single animal. It is nothing of the kind. An experiment is a series of investigations in some particular branch, and sometimes 20, 30, or 40 animals are sacrificed in the one experiment." The National Society published this speech in its official journal.
3. A few weeks later, an anonymous letter in the Bradford Observer said, "Any one casually reading the report would imagine that each experiment was on the body of a single animal. It is nothing of the kind. An experiment is a series of investigations in some particular branch, and sometimes 20, 30, or 40 animals are sacrificed in the one experiment."
4. On August 1st, 1898, the National Society published this letter in its official journal, under the heading, "Our Cause in the Press."