Created by Medical Research Council
24 Sep 1945
Description:

'Memorandum passed by a Meeting of the Conference on Monday, 24th September, 1945, and submitted by the Conference to

The Agricultural Research Council

The Medical Research Council

The Ministry of Supply (Directorate of Medical Supplies)

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PART II - SURVEY

(a) Preamble

It is generally agreed that adequate stocks of healthy animals are essential for the routine diagnostic work of public health and hospital laboratories, for accurate biological assay of therapeutic substances and especially for long term experiments such as those involved in work on immunization and nutrition. These stocks are not readily available and the recurrent shortage of healthy animals seriously hampers activities in all these fields. The present dependence on supplies from commercial animal dealers involves constant uncertainty as to the quantity and quality of the animals available... Some reputable establishments engaged in the preparation of therapeutic substances for treatment and prophylaxis have found it impossible to carry out long term observations during certain seasons of the year, owing to animal mortality from intercurrent [sic] disease. This is probably due to latent infection in the animals, related in turn to the dietary and other conditions in breeding establishments. Scientific workers pay much attention to the use of clean glassware and pure chemicals and to accurate measurement of materials; it must be emphasised that experimental animals are test reagents and should be of the highest quality if consistent results are to be obtained with a minimum of effort and expense.

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PART III - CENSUS

...[re: collection of information - use of HO list of institutions registered as experimenting on animals, MAF data on ration provision for animal breeders]... [5-6]

(b) Suppliers

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...[7-9]...

... In addition to those who breed wholly or in part the animals that they sell, there are a number of dealers throughout the country whom as far as can be ascertained, breed no animals whatsoever. They collect animals mainly from the smaller breeders, but occasionally also from the larger ones, and they carry out this operation in some instances through two middlemen, though generally only a single collector is interposed between the small breeder and the commercial supplier. This means that there will intervene between the breeder and the final user two or even three stages at which the animals are subject to the various hazards of infection, exposure and malnutrition...

These circumstances are unfavourable for supplying the ultimate user with the animal most suitable for his work, but the true position is even worse than these facts indicate. It has been found that a considerable proportion of the dealers [9-10] are illiterate. A number of them cannot spell their own names in block letters and we suspect that their notions of animal husbandry may be as primitive as we have sometimes found their grammar. Several refer specifically to outbreaks of disease that have decimated their stocks. The picture is complicated, they say, by shortage both of proper food and of suitable materials for constructing pens and cages.

As is pointed out elsewhere in the report, biological investigators of all kinds are coming more and more to rely upon experimental animals as living "A.R." reagents; the impression gained from examination of the returns, and more particularly of the accompanying correspondence, suggests very strongly to the Conference that in this matter many laboratory workers are living in a fool's paradise.

PART IV - PROPOSALS

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Other functions of a Central Bureau would undoubtedly develop later. For example, just as great advances were made by the use of the hamster for studying experimental Leishmaniasis... Again the use for experimental purposes of the smaller farm animals - goat, pig and sheep - is in its early stages but already shows great promise. Studies along these lines might well be encouraged, or even initiated, by the Bureau, as might more attention to diseases of wild fauna...

The Conference has also received valuable aid by way of accommodation, printing or duplicating services and hospitality, from the Royal College of Surgeons, Imperial Chemical (Pharmaceutical) Industries, Ltd., Glaxo Laboratories, Ltd., and the Wellcome Foundation; for all this help it wishes to record its indebtedness. The Conference is especially grateful to the last mentioned for a generous grant that made possible the printing of this Memorandum.'