ABSTRACT
Living non-human animals are integral, although largely hidden, props of modern health care.1 Animal experimentation will have been involved at some stage in the development, production or testing of almost all therapeutic and clinical preventive drugs and techniques currently employed in allopathic medicine. Animals stand proxy for humans in the testing of an immense range of products and processes to detect potential damage to human health. Much of this work is mandatory under national or international law. A large part of the curriculum for students of ‘basic’ medical sciences is derived from research with living animals. Its transmission may involve pedagogic demonstrations or, occasionally, student practicals with live, but usually terminally anaesthetised animals, although the extent of the latter varies between countries as well as between professions.2 Slightly less contentious, but possibly more extensive today than the use of living animals, is the use of animals specifically bred and killed for their tissues in medical research and education.
