SOME VIVISECTION FIGURES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—It is for everyone to decide whether vivisection should be prohibited or whether vivisectors should be allowed to continue to torture animals as they have done in the past and are doing today.
Perhaps the following figures may cause the reader to come to the conclusion that vivisection is wrong and that it should be stopped. The figures given refer to 1936—the latest available —and they have been obtained from an official source.
The number of vivisectors holding licences was 1,982 (125 more than in the previous year) and of these licencees 277 were women. They acknowledge that 822,167 experiments were performed during the year-85,451 more than in 1935. Of these 36,540 were performed with anaesthetics, but of this number there were 27,402 experiments in which the animals, after a cutting operation, were allowed to recover consciousness, and many of these wounded animals legally may be kept alive for days, weeks and months. Cats and dogs provided subjects for 6,346 experiments.
There were 353 registered places where experiments were allowed to take place. There were three inspectors to see what went on in these laboratories ; they could not witness more than a fraction of the experiments performed.—Yours, &c., E. T. BROWN. Hayward's Grange, Jarvis Brook, Crowborough, Sussex.
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