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![handle is hein.animal/awiqu0006 and id is 1 raw text is:
January-February, 1957
NOTES FOR ADMINISTRATORS- ON
THE CARE AND HOUSING OF
LABORATORY ANIMALS
In recent months, the Animal Welfare Institute has
heard one basic complaint over and over again. It gener-
ally comes from a scientist in charge of laboratory animals
or from an investigator who uses them, and it is lodged
against administrators who refuse to recognize that labora-
tory animals must have a reasonable amount of space and
comfort and competent care.
To give a specific example, a doctor of medicine doing
research in a large institution in one of our major cities
wrote to the Animal Welfare Institute saying, We have
recently gone through two epidemics and have lost two
colonies of guinea pigs, due to inadequate facilities and
inadequate care. Your institution would do well to edu-
cate hospital administrators concerning the importance of
setting aside funds for the housing and care of animals.
It must be emphasized that men who take care of animals
are not to be considered as dregs of humanity who are to
be paid $120 to $140 per month. Animals must not be
housed in any leftover storage rooms, cellars or hallways.
Your literature should go to our Board of Directors and
Administrators.
Needless to say, the literature was dispatched and, with
the permission of the writer, the above paragraph is printed
in the hope that administrators in all parts of the country
will take note and make a careful check of the conditions
under which the laboratory animals in their institutions
are being housed and cared for. The Animal Welfare
Institute will provide manuals on care and housing and
other information from its files, free on request, to persons
responsible for administration of scientific institutions
where animals are used.
Increasing Interest In Care Of Animals
The stock of one of these manuals, Basic Care of Ex-
perimental Animals, is nearing exhaustion, and before
undertaking its revision and republication, the officers of
the Institute sought the advice and criticism of those who
had requested copies during the three years since it was
first issued. Helpful replies have been received from about
125 American scientists to date, and they are almost unani-
mously in favor of keeping the manual in print. They
also show a very considerable interest in improving the
care of laboratory animals and the training of animal
room personnel.
A similar interest was demonstrated at the Animal Care
Panel Meetings held in Chicago, November 29 to Decem-
ber 1, 1956. The session entitled Principles of Animal
Care proved so popular that the modest room assigned
to it was packed and late comers had to stand up, while
the regular session which continued in the large auditorium
simultaneously was nearly deserted. A number of men
employed in Chicago animal rooms were in the audience,
and it is to be hoped that there will be a larger local
representation at the next such session. Under the chair-
manship of Dr. Victor Schwentker of the West Founda-
tion, lectures on Principles of Sanitation were delivered
by Dr. L. R. Christensen, New York University, Dr. E. H.
Steinmetz, University of California, and Dr. R. J. Flynn,
Argonne National Laboratory.
Among papers delivered in the regular sessions, two
were especially noteworthy in promoting the welfare of
laboratory animals. One, The Development and Main-
tenance of Disease-free Animal Colonies at the Walter
Reed Army Institute of Research by Robert D. Henthorne,
Capt. V. C. and Robert J. Veenstra, Lt. Col. V. C., pre-
sented a practical method of establishing colonies of seven
species of small laboratory animals free of the debilitating
endemic diseases to which so many of these creatures
succumb in most laboratories. The other was an intelli-
gent and comprehensive report by Dr. Alfred E. Earl of
Ciba on the British Laboratory Animals Bureau and Ani-
mal Technicians Association,--a report particularly appro-
priate at this meeting in view of the growing interest in
training animal technicians in this country.
Dr. Earl stated that the ATA is a dignified group en-
titled to respect because it has attracted a superior type of
personnel and gives the animal technician a definite place
in the research picture. He recommended that the ATA's
quarterly publication should be in the library of every
research laboratory in this country.
Why Laboratory Animals Die
Dr. W. Lane-Petter, Director of the Laboratory Animals
Bureau, the parent body of the ATA, gives good advice
on the fundamental approach to this work in an article
published in Nature, June 30, 1956 under the title of
Why Laharatory Animals Die: To compare laboratory
animals with chemical reagents is an analogy that has
become hackneyed and, if followed too far, is misleading.
Reagents they may be to the biologist, but they have charac-
teristics distinguishing them sharply from the inanimate
substances with which the chemist has to deal. They are
not inanimate but living; and they are not a homogeneous
mass but distinct individuals, however nearly the ideal of
individual similarity or uniformity may be approached.
This concept of the laboratory animal as an individual is
not always easy to bear in mind where large numbers are
kept, but it is the basis for the close and careful observa-
tion upon which rests not only first-rate research but first-
rate animal care.
The article continues, Laboratory animals are thus [be-
cause they are living individuals] exposed to one especial
hazard, namely, accidental intercurrent infection. As a
result of this hazard the animal may die, or the group
lose any degree of uniformity it may have possessed before
ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE
22 EAST 17th STREET, NEW YORK 3, N. Y.
Vol. 6 No. I](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.animal/awiqu0006&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)