Animal Testing

[parremily]

Does anybody know when the first licensed animal experiment was carried out in the U.K.?

[Peter Pedant]

The first vivisection act was 1877

I am pretty sure I was licensed under that when I was a lab tech in 1968

and so....it may be 1878

[theprof]

I can give you a general idea of the timeline, but I'm afraid that your question is unanswerable because as far as I know, finding records to confirm exact dates is next to impossible.

Animal welfare in the UK was ignored until the early 1800's when an MP proposed an act limiting vivisection and other animal experimentation. It got very little support in parliament and the whole proposal got cast aside.

In the 1860's a growing campaign regarding the increasing use of animals in experiments in the UK started to make parliament sit up and take notice. The campaigners had the famous naturalist, Charles Darwin, on their side which helped their cause immensely. Eventually in 1876, the Cruelty to Animals Act was introduced.

The 1876 act required laboratories and other premises to be registered with the Home Office. The laboratories were also regularly inspected via unnanounced visits to make sure they were complying with the legislation. In effect, this act required animal experiments to be licenced.

The 1876 act remained in force until it was superseded by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which is far more draconian.

Obviously, the introduction of the Cruelty to Animals Act in 1876 did not halt animal experimentation, so to answer your question, you can't go far wrong if you consider it to be 1876.

[Peter Pedant]

and there is an awful lot more on this line

if you google


vivisection act

[Peter Pedant]

I am sure under the 1877 Act the people were licensed and not the experiments.

I wasnt allowed to handle lab rats but others were until the bit of paper arrived.

[reinganum]

As the prof says, the original act was the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876.
The first experiments licensed under that act took place in 1877.

[theprof]

You sent me off to rummage in my filing cabinet then Peter.

I've found my original licence and a couple of Home Office special licences. All of them give the year of the Act as 1876.

Still, it's only a year either way.

[theprof]

According to the NAVS website here,

http://www.navs.org.uk/about_us/24/0/299/

the act reached the statute books on 15th August 1876 and they state that the act "remained in force for 110 years, until it was replaced by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986". They're arithmetic seems OK.

I've always understood it to have been in force from 1876 as the NAVS website implies, but I'll check this out in the morning at the uni.

[theprof]

I had a chat with a law lecturer/barrister in the university earlier today. The lady has been a major player in animal welfare law for a number of years.

She told me that the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 did indeed come into force on the 15th August 1876 and initially, both workers and establishments were licenced from that day.

The act required a number of amendments over the next few years as it contained many loopholes and anomalies that needed closing. These included the fact that some animals required anaesthetising to comply with the law, yet if the anaesthetic was thought to have an adverse effect on the end result or conclusions of the experiment, the anaesthetic could be dispensed with. Also, for some years the act excluded invertebrates.

Personally, I was glad to see the back of the act when it was eventually repealed. The Home Office Animals in Scientific Procedures Inspectorate are extremely vigilant regarding the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and it's a vast improvement over the old law.

[dundurn]

I believe that when the 1876 Act was first enacted it wasn't appreciated that the legal definition of an animal was very restrictive namely only cattle, horses, asses, mules, goats, pigs, sheep and dogs. This is the definition still used in the Road Traffic Acts, i.e. if you collide with a dog you are supposed to try and help the animal, find the owner, recompense them if you were at fault etc. If you hit a fox in the same circumstances, morally you have as much need to see it's cared for, but legally I'm not so sure.

I'm also not sure whether the 1876 act was amended during its initial passage through Parliament or subsequently, but (ultimately) it did extend the definition of animal to include all vertebrates. This meant that in Biology lessons schoolchildren could cheerfully cut up worms and cockroaches but that frogs had to be rendered decerebrate by a licensed technician.