History of Animal Testing

One of the most controversial topics in the world today - 'animal testing' refers to the practice of using animals in the field of scientific research. It is also referred to as 'animal experimentation' or 'animal research'. Even though the practice of using animals to learn more about the human beings became popular with theory of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin in 1859, documented evidence suggests that the history of animal testing began way back in 4th century BCE. It was during this period that the renowned Athenian philosopher - Aristotle, began using living animals for experiments.

Aristotle and Erasistratus
Aristotle is considered to be one of the earliest natural historian of the world. His research work has been documented in form on writings titled 'History of Animals', 'Generation of Animals' and 'Parts of Animals'. Even though not all, a significant number of observations and interpretations that were documented by him were true. While Aristotle carried out his experiments on animals in the 4th century BCE, the 3rd century was marked by the works of Greek anatomist Erasistratus. It was Erasistratus who - on the basis of his research on animals, asserted that spleen and bile were of no use for animals.

Galen: Father of Vivisection
Next came Aelius Galenus aka Galen of Pergamon - a Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher of Greek ethnic origin. His field of interest was human anatomy, but since the Roman law didn't permit dissection of human bodies in the 2nd century BCE, he resorted to dissection of animals - both living and dead, for his anatomical studies. Galen most often used pigs and primates for his research work. As animal anatomy resembled human anatomy to a certain extent, most of his observations turned out to be true. It was his practice of performing experiments on live animals which earned him the title 'father of vivisection'.

Surgical Procedures Testing on Animals
During the 12th century, Ibn Zuhr - the Arabic physician, went a step ahead and resorted to animal testing to test scientific procedures before using the same on humans. It was Ibn Zuhr who first carried out dissection and postmortem autopsy on humans other than animals. He practiced surgical procedures by experimenting them on a goat. In course of time, the use of animals in the field of research became even more common and reached its peak by 18th and 19th century. The same continues even today with an estimated number of hundred million animals being used in animal testing every year in the United States alone.

Products Testing on Animals
The history of products testing on animals can be traced back to 1933 wherein an untowardly incident of a woman losing her eyesight after applying mascara forced the Federal government to opt for the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Act - which was passed by the federal government in 1838, made it mandatory for companies to test their products on animals before making them available in the market. Of the numerous testing measures used on animals, two of the most common ones were Draize Test - wherein a drop of the substance that has to be tested is dropped in the animals eye and the observations are recorded, and the LD50 test - wherein a group of animals is fed a particular substance until half of the animals in the group die. These two procedures - along with several other such procedures, are used even today.

Animal Testing in Other Fields
With time, animal testing began spreading from the field of medicine to other fields. In 1890s, Ivan Pavlov - a Russian physiologist, demonstrated 'classical conditioning' in dogs. In November 1957, Laika - a Russian dog, became the first animal to go into the outer space. In 1996, the first mammal was successfully cloned in form of Dolly the sheep. These were just a few of the numerous milestones for humans in the field of animal testing. Alongside these milestones also came new animal testing laws and some controversies.

Animal Testing Laws and Criticism
The first law specifically directed at regulation of animal testing - the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, came into existence in Europe in 1876. In the United States however, the first animal cruelty law - Animal Welfare Act (AWA), was passed by the federal government in 1966. Other than the general guidelines for treatment of animals, it also laid specific guidelines for exhibition and transport of animals. More importantly, it was the first and the only law in the history of animal testing in the US which regulates the use of animals in research. Even though AWA has been amended on six different occasions - the last of which came in 2007, it hasn't gone down well with animal rights activists who argue that it stills falls short of the required standard. Though animal testing continues on a large scale even today, criticism by animal welfare groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), has forced scientists to find alternatives to this practice.

While the statistical evidence proves that the use of animals in research labs has been on a decline for the last few years, animal rights activists are of the opinion that it is too premature to say anything concrete as of now. This is because it's very difficult to collect reliable data on animals used for testing with no monitoring authority to keep a check on those agencies which resort to this practice. While estimates put the number of animals used in scientific research every year in the United States alone at a hundred million, the actual figure is expected to be much beyond that.