"Some eminent naturalists and physiologists, including Mr. Charles Darwin, Professor Huxley, Dr. Sharpey, and others, have been in communication with Members of both Houses of Parliament to arrange terms of a Bill which would prevent any unnecessary cruelty or abuse in experiments made on living animals for purposes of scientific discovery. It is understood that these negotiations have been successful, and that the Bill is likely to be taken charge of by Lord Cardwell in the House of Lords, and by Dr. Lyon Playfair in the House of Commons." A week later, the Lancet gives an outline of the proposed Act: "The Bill introduced by Dr. Lyon Playfair, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and Mr. Evelyn Ashley, `To Prevent Abuse and Cruelty in Experiments on Animals, made for the Purpose of Scientific Discovery,' has been printed. It proposes to enact that painful experiments on living animals for scientific purposes shall be permissible on the following conditions: "`That the animal shall first have been made insensible by the administration of anaesthetics or otherwise, during the whole course of such experiment; and that if the nature of the experiment be such as to seriously injure the animal, so as to cause it after-suffering, the animal shall be killed immediately on the termination of the experiment. "`Experiments without the use of anaesthetics are also to be permissible provided the following conditions are complied with: That the experiment is made for the purpose of new scientific discovery and for no other purpose; and that insensibility cannot be produced without necessarily frustrating the object of the experiment; and that the animal should not be subject to any pain which is not necessary for the purpose of the experiment; and that the experiment be brought to an end as soon as practicable; and that if the nature of the experiment be such as to seriously injure the animal so as to cause it after-suffering, the animal shall be killed immediately on the termination of the experiment. "`That a register of all experiments made without the use of anaesthetics shall be duly kept, and be returned in such form and at such times as one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State may direct. "`The Secretary of State is to be empowered to grant licences to persons provided with certificates signed by at least one of the following persons: the President of the Royal Society, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons or of the College of Physicians in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin; and also by a recognized Professor of Physiology, Medicine, or Anatomy.'"[1] [1] Lancet, May 15, 1875.