1 OCTOBER 1994, Page 31

Humane killer

Sir: My attention has been drawn to a letter from Mr Mullen (Letters, 24 September) about some research I did some 46 years ago on the physiology of pain. Mr Mullen would do well to stick to subjects about which he knows something. He does not seem to realise, for instance, that the exper- iments which he describes were performed on animals which were already dead. Pain was not assessed subjectively, but by electri- cal recording from nerves soon after death. The only living animal on which experi- ments were performed was myself.

* John Ebor

Bishopthorpe Palace, Bishopthorpe, York